From an interview in the Daily Telegraph:
"The day is etched in the memory of Nika Amashukeli as lucidly as any other since the Georgian made his refereeing debut 10 years ago.
It is 2016 in Poti, a port city nestled on Georgia’s Black Sea coastline, 250km south of the Russian border. In the Didi 10, Georgian rugby’s top tier, Armia – the army’s side based in the capital, Tbilisi – have just clinched a dramatic 22-22 draw against Batumi, who are apoplectic to have let the game slip through their grasp; so apoplectic, in fact, that the events after the final whistle take a dark turn.
“There was no official timekeeping – referees controlled the time,” Amashukeli tells Telegraph Sport. "I said to one of the team captains that four minutes were remaining but he misheard me and thought I’d said two minutes. They kicked the ball out after two minutes but I didn’t end the game – as there were two minutes left. Then the other team caught the line-out, won a penalty, and kicked it to draw the match.
“The home team exploded and accused me of cheating. When the supporters saw their players getting emotional and throwing their hands up in the air, they became very emotional and started swearing.”
In the western rugby world, it might have been left at that. But this is Georgia, where independence from Soviet socialism had only been declared 25 years prior. Referees – as with any authoritative figure – were viewed with suspicion and scepticism. According to Amashukeli, as recently as 30 or 40 years ago, in Russo-Georgian rugby fixtures officials were found to have taken bribes. That day in Poti, the then 22-year-old referee was the fall-guy, the victim of a country that was grappling with its corrupt past.
“It was an emotional match,” Amashukeli adds. “After I left the pitch, there was a lot of abuse and swearing and the supporters followed. There was a big scuffle but the adrenaline was rushing through me. Someone had a knife. Suddenly, I felt something in my leg. I looked down, blood was pouring out. I had been stabbed.”
Seven years on and the perpetrator of the despicable incident is still unknown. In the aftermath, Amashukeli debated turning his back on the game with which he fell in love as a 13-year-old boy, watching his Georgian heroes come so close to beating Ireland in Bordeaux during the 2007 World Cup – with Wayne Barnes, now a colleague, the man with the whistle. Before that match, Amashukeli was a football player, but from that day on he was “hooked”."
Found this interesting
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