Eduardo Pimentel does not remain silent after the 4-month sanction: he attacks the Arbitration Commission and Ramón Jesurún

Eduardo Pimentel, the majority shareholder of Boyacá Chicó, counterattacked with everything to the sanction imposed by the Disciplinary Committee of Dimayor and pointed to the president of the Colombian Football Federation, Ramón Jesurún, and the Refereeing Commission in the midst of the scandal over the refereeing of the last dates of the BetPlay League.

The former president of the Boyacá club was fined 42 million pesos and banned from any football-related activity for four months after making several statements about the referees' work during his team's matches against Fortaleza and Alianza Valledupar. Pimentel reacted with irony and vehemence.

"It's the natural nature of the relationship we have with the Federation. I've already accumulated 400 million pesos in fines. I have between 350 and 400 million pesos allocated in my annual budget to pay fines. They won't silence me," Pimentel said in an interview with Blog Deportivo, on Blu Radio.

"We've reached an environment where no one can speak; we're all sheep. I'm not like that. In 40 years of football, I'm a vehement person when I know I'm right. When I'm not, well, they don't listen to me," he added.

Pimentel insists that the VAR audio recordings from the April 21 match, when Boyacá Chicó lost 2-0 to Fortaleza, be made public. The work of referee Carlos Betancur and the video referee, Luis Fernando Trujillo, was controversial.

"I'm requesting audio recordings from a VAR from a match 40 days ago, and they won't give them to me. Then they release the recordings from a match against Alianza, as if to say they're the ones in charge," Pimentel emphasized.

"There's a reason they don't want to expose the VAR audio recordings from that match. I asked them clearly and respectfully. What are they trying to hide? Why are they defending Betancur so much? Nothing's happening here; we're subservient to the leadership of a Federation that took Colombian football away from us," he revealed.

Pimentel pointed the finger at the Refereeing Commission and the president of the Colombian Football Federation for the refereeing crisis. It's worth noting that Dimayor has no control over this issue.

"I suppose (the problem) must be in the head of the Refereeing Commission and the Colombian Football Federation, which is Ramón Jesurún. It must be that way. Fighting against something already established is very difficult. Those of us who were club presidents have the right to discern decently, to go against it. They only summon us to fine us. They didn't even summon me to give my defense. If he, along with his board of directors, has put us in a position where we can't protest because they'll impose a fine on us, they were wrong about me," he emphasized.

A well-known right-wing figure, Pimentel described what is happening in the Colombian Federation and in Colombian soccer as "Castro-Chavista."

"First, we're going to exhaust local avenues and then we'll go to international ones. Here in Colombia, there's the Superior Court; we're going to show them and explain the case. But this is Castro-Chavista style here. That's how we are in Colombian football, the way the country is. We're going to try to continue resolving this. We're passionate, combative people, but 95 percent of the time, we've been right," he said.

Pimentel said changes are needed in the refereeing system, but he believes that Wílmar Roldán, the most prestigious international referee today, is not the right man to manage it, as some have suggested.

Roldán made a serious mistake in the first leg of the 2008-1 Liga final, in which Boyacá Chicó earned its only star by defeating América de Cali. The match ended in the midst of an attack by the Chess-backed team, which resulted in a goal by Anuar Guerrero. Roldán said the final whistle had already blown, shortly before the forward kicked.

"We have to change everything, but we can't impose it on Mr. Wílmar Roldán. Remember what he did in the 2008 final. If he already did something like that, we can't let a referee who did that, no matter how good he has become since, manage Colombian refereeing," he emphasized.