Soccer referee suspended

LONDON: A football referee in England has been suspended for three weeks after it emerged he had abandoned the standard pre-match coin toss ahead of a Women’s Super League match in favour of a game of ‘rock, paper, scissors’.

The Football Association announced Thursday that referee David McNamara had accepted a charge of “not acting in the best interests of the game” prior to a WSL match between Manchester City and Reading last month. Under the laws of football, a referee must conduct a coin toss between the two captains to decide which team kicks off. But instead it has been reported that McNamara, after leaving his coin in the changing room, invited City captain Steph Houghton and Reading skipper Kirsty Pearce to participate in the child’s game of ‘rock, paper, scissors’ instead. “The FA can confirm that referee David McNamara has been suspended for 21 days, starting from Monday 26 November, after accepting a charge of ‘not acting in the best interests of the game’,” an FA spokesperson said Thursday.