New York Red Bulls general manager Erik Soler has released a statement over the red card received by star striker Thierry Henry on the weekend. The French attacker was given his marching orders in the 93rd minute of the 3-3 draw with Portland Timbers for an off-the-ball incident with Adam Moffat and the Red Bulls are clearly irate about the decision made by referee Ricardo Salazar.
"We have carefully reviewed the film of our match against Portland last night and I can safely say that the level of refereeing was absolutely below the standards of what is required for a MLS match and completely unacceptable," read the statement.
"First, the red card given to Thierry Henry was inexplicable. There was no violent conduct on his part whatsoever and this decision was made by a linesman who was more than half a field away. Second, in any soccer game, there is no way that one team can draw 20 more fouls than the other team, especially in a match where one team drew just five fouls. I have never seen this occur in my 30 years in the game.
"We are aware that U.S. Soccer and MLS are working hard to improve the officiating in this country and we support those efforts wholeheartedly. However, if we want to continue increasing the level of play, we cannot let these types of refereeing performances occur. We look forward to speaking with the League to appeal Thierry's automatic red card suspension and expect that it will be rescinded so that he is available for our match Thursday in Seattle."
