Glenavon see appeal over 'not acceptable' red card decision rejected
Glenavon have confirmed their appeal over Francely Lomboto’s red card received during their 2-1 Premiership defeat to Coleraine on Saturday has been rejected with the striker now set to serve a three-match suspension.
Lomboto, who joined the Lurgan Blues from Sligo Rovers this summer, was given his marching orders 13 minutes from time following an incident with Lyndon Kane at Mourneview Park.
He was shown a straight red card with the County Armagh club appealing the decision to the Irish FA, but that has now been rejected and the striker will sit out of Glenavon’s next three matches.
Glenavon posted on social media: “Glenavon FC can confirm that we lodged an immediate appeal of Francely Lomboto’s red card. Unfortunately this appeal has been rejected by the IFA and he will subsequently serve a 3 game ban.”
Manager Paddy McLaughlin labelled the decision at the time as “not acceptable” and felt it cost his side their first point of the new Premiership campaign – if not more.
"These decisions, referees can laugh them off and go unpunished, but these decisions are result-defining,” McLaughlin told the club’s media channel. “It's not acceptable that we keep being told to ignore them and just get on with it.
"They have to act on this level of refereeing, it's not good enough.
"Both dugouts were in agreement that every tackle throughout the game seemed to result in a yellow card.
"I've seen people talking about the amount of cards in the opening weeks of the season...there wasn't a bad tackle in the game and we have a red card and so many yellows. That level of refereeing was below what the league requires.
"I'll get into more trouble for saying that than the referee will get for his performance, but somebody has to say it because we're talking about it every week. We're all whispering about it, we aren't allowed to speak about it - it was nowhere near acceptable."