The chaos of the U.S. Open Cup: Why Sharktopus gets a rematch

Midway through the second round qualifying match in the U.S. Open Cup between Bellevue Athletic and the eye-catching name of Sharktopus FC, Sharktopus manager Leo Ohannesian noticed something odd. The Bellevue players seemed a little too friendly with the referee.

“As a passionate soccer coach, I could disagree with the calls,” Ohannesian told ESPN. “There were some questionable ones, but there was [other] stuff during the game. They were calling him ‘buddy’ and by his first name, and I was like, ‘That’s kind of weird.’ I usually refer to the referees as ‘sir.'”

After the match, which was won by Bellevue, 4-3, Ohannesian understood better the reason for the familiar tone: one of the Sharktopus players relayed to him that the referee had, at one time, played for Bellevue.

When Ohannesian got home, he looked up the referee’s Instagram page and found video of him playing for Bellevue’s reserve team, B2.

“And so then I sent a message to U.S. Soccer and I was like, ‘Hey, is this something that’s protestable? Because this seems like a conflict of interest,'” he said. “And they were like, ‘What?'”

As turns out, not only was the incident protestable — for a $500 fee — but it resulted in the U.S. Open Cup adjudication & disciplinary panel ruling that the game should be replayed in its entirety.

“The replay has been ordered to protect the integrity of the competition based on the presence of a conflict of interest, as the referee was confirmed to be a recent player for Bellevue Athletic’s second team, B2,” the panel said in a statement.

The statement added, “The Panel wants to be clear for the record that its decision does not reflect any evidence or belief that any party attempted to influence the competition, nor should the decision be viewed as a referendum of the on-field performance of the match officials during the match in question.”

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