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ISTANBUL (AP)—A former referee is seeking compensation from the Turkey Football Federation for allegedly outing him and dismissing him for being gay.

The Anatolia news agency says referee Halil Ibrahim Dincbag told an Istanbul court on Tuesday that he was unable to find work after documents showing he was exempted from military service because of his homosexuality were leaked to the media two years ago.

Dincbag is seeking 110,000 Turkish lira ($69,000) in compensation from the federation which sacked him two years ago. He also accuses the federation of leaking the documents to the media.

Human rights groups are closely following his case as a test of improvements to gay rights in Turkey.

Labels: compensation, referee, seeks, Turkish

SOFIA, March 15 (Reuters) - Bulgarian referee Nikolay Yordanov has been banned for two months after making mistakes in the champions Litex Lovech’s 2-1 win at Pirin Blagoevgrad on Saturday.

Yordanov’s ban, imposed by the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) on Tuesday, came after a furious protest from Pirin over his failure to penalise Litex’s Brazilian winger Doka Madureira for a head-butt on Anton Kostadinov early in the second half.

Soon after the incident, Doka scored Litex’s equaliser and he also assisted Senegalese striker Pape Diouf’s winning goal five minutes from time.

“The punishment is rather symbolic,” Pirin’s chief executive Emil Nakov told local media. “They should ban such referees for life.”

Leaders Litex also complained, saying Yordanov failed to award what looked an obvious penalty during the hard-fought victory over relegation-threatened Pirin.

In 2008, Yordanov was suspended for four matches after making a series of blunders in a game that ended a 33-match unbeaten league run for then-champions CSKA Sofia.

Yordanov became Bulgaria’s second UEFA referee to be banned this season after Angel Angelov was suspended until the end of the season in November.

(Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Martyn Herman) To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com

Labels: Bulgarian, errors, Match, referee, Reuters, suspended, Yordanov