Think refs are out to get Philly? A lockout replacement’s big mistake gave a game to the Union.

It’s great that a heavily-rotated Union lineup gritted out a 1-1 tie in Kansas City on Saturday.

It’s great that Alejandro Bedoya scored the big goal as a second-half substitute, the longtime captain’s latest clutch play.

It’s great that Jeremy Rafanello was soccer’s equivalent of an innings-eating pitcher in his first-team debut, and that Markus Anderson played the closer.

But it all pales in comparison to four words Union manager Jim Curtin said after the game:

“It was their throw-in.”

Curtin knew referee Rafael Bonilla blew a call that led directly to the corner kick that produced Bedoya’s late equalizer. The ball went out off Mikael Uhre, Bonilla was looking right at the play, and he gave the Union possession anyway.

» READ MORE: Replacement refs’ blown call helps Union steal a 1-1 tie at Kansas City

Bonilla is one of the replacement refs during the lockout of unionized top-level officials. He worked Mexican women’s league and lower-league men’s games a few years ago, and has worked American college games since then.

You might be the kind of Philadelphia sports fans who believe football, baseball, basketball, and hockey refs have it out for your teams, your city, and you personally. How about when officials blow a call this badly, but it gives Philadelphia a result?

The Union went right down the field from the throw-in, taken by Bedoya. Their move took just 17 seconds to produce the corner kick from which Bedoya scored. That’s a pretty clear correlation between blown play and decisive goal.

Bonilla told a pool reporter from the Kansas City Star that he saw Kansas City’s Tim Leibold as the “player who touched it last using his lower part of his leg.”

Everyone else knew that was flat-out wrong.

Bonilla wasn’t the only guilty party. The far-side assistant referee near the blown call, Salvador Reyes, wasn’t looking toward the ball when it went out. Instead, he was looking upfield to see if any Union players were offside. By the time he looked back toward Uhre, it was too late.

» READ MORE: Locked-out referees stage protests on MLS season’s opening day

When Reyes raised his flag in the Union’s direction from the sideline, it was only to amplify Bonilla’s signal from the field. Reyes didn’t see the play with his own eyes.

The odds that the ball would get out of the scrum where Uhre was were pretty slim. If it did, a video review would have caught anyone who was offside. Reyes didn’t need to.

“This is a mistake on the far side — it should have been a Sporting throw-in instead,” Apple TV color analyst Devon Kerr said after the ball went out for the corner.

“It hits, clearly, Mikael Uhre. That’s Sporting ball. Instead, [the] referee makes the wrong decision,” Kerr added as the telecast showed a replay of the error. “You can be as angry as you want about this situation if you’re a Sporting fan, and I get it.”

He also said Kansas City shouldn’t have given up a goal off a corner kick that easily, which is fair. But the point was made.

Kerr’s words were notable for another reason. Multiple sources have told The Inquirer that broadcasters of MLS games have restrictions on what they can say about the lockout on air, because MLS has editorial control over them. Though neither Kerr nor his play-by-play partner Nate Bukaty mentioned the lockout, Kerr walked toward the line.

A threat hangs over the players, too. Kansas City captain Johnny Russell acknowledged it when he told reporters at Children’s Mercy Park: “I know how sensitive the subject is right now, so I’d rather keep my money for my kids than get it taken off me by the league.”

» READ MORE: MLS says it has global ambition, but too often acts like it doesn’t. That needs to change.

Russell and Curtin both said they felt the game went evenly enough overall to merit a tie. That’s sensible. But it was clear that the game was decided on a blown call by substandard referees who were there because the top-level ones are locked out.

“It’s so frustrating for our guys,” Sporting’s Delran-raised manager Peter Vermes said, following that with a Moorestown-worthy “Yeah, next question.”

Asked directly about the officials, he tried to avoid blaming them out loud.

“That has nothing to do with it for me,” Vermes said. “I truly mean this: I’ve watched a majority of the games in the league, and I think the referees that have been doing the games all have done a good job.”

But it seemed that wasn’t all he truly meant, as shown by what he said next.

“Look, mistakes are made sometimes,” he said. “I think you have to calm down in the moment. I think again, it was a mistake. I don’t know what to do about it.”

The blown throw-in call wasn’t Vermes’ only issue. The officiating crew put four minutes of stoppage time on the board, and the ball went out at 94 minutes, 3 seconds.

Stoppage time isn’t meant to be exact — in fact, it’s always been meant to be a minimum, not a maximum. But not much happened in those four minutes to merit extending the time much longer. Had the throw-in been correctly given to Kansas City, Bonilla would have been within his rights to finish the game right there.

» READ MORE: Goalkeeper Oliver Semmle hasn’t been perfect, but he’s been good enough in his first Union games

“I do have a problem with the fact that the time went as long as it did,” Vermes said. “It wasn’t like there was a VAR check or a major injury — it’s four minutes, it’s done it’s over. … And the ball’s out of bounds, I’ll say it again, by their No. 7.”

At one point in his postgame remarks, Vermes said, “Sometimes, you know, unfortunately, it becomes a mystery of how these things happen.”

He knew how it happened. So did Curtin, the league’s second-longest-tenured boss.

“Certainly it was their throw-in, there’s no question about that,” he said.

The referees’ union has said the livable wages and improved travel benefits it seeks would cost each MLS team — the league is the biggest funder of the Professional Referee Organization, the management side — around $100,000 this year.

That sum is less than what 70% of the players in MLS made last season.

» READ MORE: MLS is back in the U.S. Open Cup, but the Union and many other teams won’t play in it

Is that really worth fighting over? Is it worth digging so far down the barrel for replacement refs that last weekend, one fell for such a blatant dive by Inter Miami star Sergio Busquets that MLS later rescinded a yellow card given to the player charged with the foul?

Not only that, but it was Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder Mark Delgado’s second booking of the night. So he was ejected in the 85th minute of a game Miami led 1-0, and seven minutes later Lionel Messi scored the equalizer in a 1-1 tie.

Is it worth the awful optics of having to drop the center ref assigned to Saturday’s Miami-Orlando game, televised nationally on Fox and streamed free worldwide by Apple, because he was caught in social media photos wearing a Miami jersey while out with friends in recent months?

Fans across the league know the answer. The longer the lockout goes on, the bigger a risk it becomes: to results, to players’ health, and to the legitimacy of the action.

Enough already.