Referee Samir Othman said he made the right decision when he booked Ahli midfielder Ahmed Hassan rather than sending him off in Thursday's league game between the Red Devils and Ittihad. The veteran midfielder reacted furiously after having a goal correctly disallowed for offside when Ittihad were leading 1-0 at Alexandria Stadium. He ran towards the assistant referee to voice his protests before Othman intervened to hand him a yellow card. "It was fair decision, he did not deserve to get a red card," Othman told FilGoal.com after the game, which ended in a 1-1 draw after Hassan made amends to score a second-half goal for Ahli. "Hassan was outraged by the decision but he did not insult the assistant referee." Zamalek striker Amr Zaki was controversially sent off in his side's 1-1 draw with Gouna in October for a similar outburst. He was caught on cameras telling the linesman, in a sarcastic manner: "You could play instead of me." "In that incident, Zaki used inappropriate words when protesting the decision to rule out his goal, so he deserved to be sent off," Othman added.
