People who checked out the main event of Battlefield FC II saw controversy rear its ugly head when a referee stopped the bout between Will Brooks and Gleison Tibau when Tibau had Brooks in a guillotine choke, but the problem was that Brooks wasn’t close to tapping or being out from the choke.
A lot of criticism was levied at the official due to the early stoppage, but according to referee Steve Perceval, a better team of referees were supposed to be working the event.
However, due to “bad organization and broken promises” from Battlefield FC officials, a decision was made by Perceval to pull his referee staff from the event.
Perceval wrote about the matter via Facebook:
The referee, in an interview with The Body Lock, stated that he knew about past payment issues with Battlefield FC, but tried forging an agreement that would suit the promotion and his officiating team.
“Because of the payment problems from the first event, I wanted to try and minimize the risk for the officials payment, so I formed an agreement for the promotion and myself to abide by. This worked at first but then organizational problems started to creep in, and as the event grew closer more problem (sic) occurred. I became increasingly more concerned that the agreement would not be adhered to and expressed my concerns to the promoter,” said Perceval.
A decision would eventually be made by Perceval to pull his officiating crew before taking the flight to Macau, as no payments were made by the promotion.
“In the end we did not receive flights till the day before departure even though I was constantly requesting them from the promotion. The officials lost confidence in the promotion and did not want to do the event in fear they would not be paid,” said Perceval. “The day of departure I requested full payment be put into my account so the officials knew [their] payment was secured, the promoter agreed and told me it would be done quickly. At the point of checking in for the flights the payment had not still not been paid into my account, so fully aware of the payment issues from the first event, I decided to pull my officials from the event. It was a difficult decision but I did not want to board the flight only to find the payment was not in my account when arriving in Macau.”
Referees weren’t the only people who weren’t paid by Battlefield FC, as the promotion has also failed to pay the fighters who competed on the card.
This isn’t the first time Battlefield FC failed to pay fighters, because the promotion also failed to compensate the competitors who competed on the inaugural card a few years back.
