Soccer corruption continues to blow …
When it comes to our sports, we’re supposed to be able to have trust in referees to keep themselves invisible and to make sure the game is played fair.
Kevin Ortega (the official currently being slammed with corruption allegations for the USA-Uruguay game), however, ain’t playing that nonsense. (RELATED: US Soccer Eliminated From Copa América After Getting Royally Screwed, But There’s A Silver Lining Here)
The 32-year-old referee from Peru has become the star of the Copa America group stage match for several reasons, and not good ones.
Let’s start with that outrageous goal that Uruguay “scored,” having a massive asterisk beside it along with their “win:”
We should’ve played better, but we got royally screwed.
The refs were against us from the get-go, Uruguay players were allowed to literally attack ours, officials were spotted pulling out cards just to put them back in their pocket…
And all of that was capped off by this: https://t.co/ecfxIvrhBR pic.twitter.com/SSe846STt3
— Andrew Powell (@AndrewPow3ll) July 2, 2024
And like I mentioned in that tweet, it was absolutely insane how the referees were against us from every direction, literally allowing their players to attack and take down ours with no penalties whatsoever. It happened over and over again, and you saw how I mentioned that yellow cards were being put back into pockets — what the hell was up with that?
And on top of that, they were blatantly ignoring handballs!
This is CRAZY. Ref blows his whistle and pulls yellow card. Uruguay stops the ball and tries a quick restart, which is fine if not a yellow. BUT THEN, ref signals for advantage and play on, which is not even close to what happened and ignoring handball. #CopaAmerica #USMNT pic.twitter.com/4MMCfO8OvH
— Cork Gaines, Ph.D. (@CorkGaines) July 2, 2024
And you also have the nonsensical penalties that we were hit with:
Tyler Adams shown a yellow card for this bc reasons. Buckle up kids. Gonna be a long game. pic.twitter.com/lM0QLS2Xu9
— Sam’s Army Podcast (@samsarmy) July 2, 2024
Then after the game, you had Ortega not shaking Christian Pulisic‘s hand, with Ortega looking at him in straight-up hate.
A referee can’t even shake our hand… https://t.co/g2V6XtlF52 pic.twitter.com/PzUJarfgl7
— Andrew Powell (@AndrewPow3ll) July 2, 2024
Things were so bad that you even had the game’s TV broadcasters speaking about “corruption and bias.”
They’re rigging the hell out of this game. And it’s not even that they’re just rigging it, it’s so blatant and obvious!
I mean, damn, it’s so bad that even the broadcasters are talking about “corruption and bias.”
So many missed calls, so much shadiness from the referees, wow!
— Andrew Powell (@AndrewPow3ll) July 2, 2024
And that’s just from the game. Let’s get into Kevin Ortega’s prior alleged corruption.
Back in 2022, Ortega was caught up in a scandal after a Copa Libertadores game. He awarded Boca Juniors a penalty that won them the match, a move that stunned a lot of people after it was revealed later that he took gifts from the Argentine club prior to the contest, according to a report from AS Diario,
Kevin Ortega is the controversial CONMEBOL referee for the #USAvURU game.
In 2022, he awarded a penalty to Boca Juniors. After the game, the Bolivian police searched the ref’s booth and seized several Boca Jrs shirts given to the referee team. #USMNT #CopaAmerica pic.twitter.com/csrF4eWLgR
— World Soccer Talk (@worldsoccertalk) July 2, 2024
We didn’t lose, ladies and gentlemen. We’re a victim of outright corruption.
