Suspect FIFA Referees See No Problem With Syria Election Results

Damascus, Syria, June 6 – The referees tasked with officiating at various soccer matches around the world endorsed the outcome of Syria’s national elections today, in which serving President Basher Assad was reelected to a third term.

The referees, widely assumed to be impartial arbiters of proceedings, have uniforms and everything, which means that everyone can trust their pronouncements, and none of them would ever be tempted by, for example, lucre, to distort the results of the contests they administer, official inquiries in Australia and South Africa notwithstanding.

Iran, among others, cheered Assad’s reelection as a triumph of democracy, a concept with which they are intimately familiar after years of attempting to suppress it at home. Assad, for his part, has been engaged in a bloody civil war for four years, a conflict that has accounted so far for the deaths of more than 160,000 people and displaced millions more. The referees praised the elections, in which Syrians were free to vote for Assad without the latter having to voice any intention to slaughter the families of anyone who chose otherwise.

“We are aware that in some quarters, having a strongman running for office, and the implicit threat of violence toward those who vote for someone else, might not be considered democratic, but who enforces the rules here?” said FIFA spokesman Vito Corleone. “We trust our referees’ judgment when it comes to telling the difference between an intentional kick in the shins and an accident, which is clearly the same skill set necessary to determine the justice and fairness of Syrian elections.” He added that his statements had nothing to do with the trio of mustached men behind him holding baseball bats and whips.

Also on Friday, the referees announced that Long Island Rail Road timetables were the most accurate ones they had ever seen.