Miami referee replaced after being photographed with the team's shirt

The referee for Saturday's MLS match between Inter Miami and Orlando City SC has been replaced by the Professional Referees' Organization (PRO) after photos emerged on social media of the original referee, Guilherme Sirrieta, wearing an Inter Miami shirt.

Serreta was replaced by Jaime Herrera, with Ivan Cid Cruz replacing Herrera as fourth official and Bruno Rizzo and Regis Cardoso remaining as assistant referees for the match. It was the pictures It was first detected by the XMLSRefStats account.

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“Referee Guilherme Sirrieta has been removed from the game due to a potential conflict,” a spokesperson for PRO, which appoints referees to officiate matches in Major League Soccer, confirmed to ESPN.

Inter Miami won Saturday's match 5-0 with two goals each Lionel Messi And Luis Suarez.

The change comes at a critical time for the PRO, which is involved in the lockout of referees belonging to the Professional Soccer Referees Association (PSRA), a union that is trying to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with the PRO. Meanwhile, the PRO was using replacement referees pulled from other professional leagues as well as the college and youth ranks.

“As long as the focus remains on fighting organized labor rather than bringing in the most trained and experienced officials in the league, you will continue to fall away from promoting the best in the game,” PSRA President Peter Manikowski said in a statement. ESPN on Saturday.

“The CBA has sports integrity provisions and we take them very seriously. But when the CBA sees that these professional officials are asking too much, the first thing to do is to uphold sports integrity such as stringent fitness tests, medical checks, background checks and anti-doping.

“The sport will suffer eventually.”

Talks about a new CBA between the PRO and PSRA appear to have reached an impasse. The previous joint partnership agreement expired on January 15, although the two sides agreed to extend the terms in an attempt to continue negotiations. On February 15, PSRA union members overwhelmingly rejected the initial agreement reached between PRO and the PSRA Executive Board, with 95.8% of PSRA union members voting against ratification. The PRO responded the next day by shutting down the PSRA stewards.

The PSRA has since put forward a counter-proposal, which PRO not only rejected but responded by saying that the terms of the initial agreement represented its best offer. In a letter from PRO General Manager Mark Geiger to PSRA members, Geiger added that if PSRA does not agree to the terms in the initial agreement by March 11, its next offer “will include less favorable terms in some areas.”