Football is a global sport and its rules must be interpreted and applied with absolute consistency wherever the game is played. But refereeing standards in some matches of the Indian Super League have raised eyebrows casting doubts on the referees’ ability in analyzing fouls.
The recent case being that of FC Pune City midfielder, Didier Zakora’s dangerous tackle on FC Goa’s Leo Moura, which looked intentional and what made matters worse, was the skipper got away without a booking.
The misfortune is so appalling, that match referee Pratap Singh failed in identifying the tackle that inflicted the damage.
After watching several slow-motion replays, from all the different angles, it was noticed that the referee instead flashed a yellow card each for Kalu Uche and Eugeneson Lyngdoh for retaliating.
On the one hand, there could be an argument that Didier Zakora’s challenge was an automatic sending off judging by Professional Game Match Officials Limited’s (PGMOL) training, “excessive force or endangering the safety of an opponent”.
On the other, there is the counter argument that it was hard but fair and that, unfortunately in sport, injuries can happen without culpability having to be attached. It is a split jury. Nobody is going to disprove the other case and the only real conclusion to draw is that this surely kills the argument that video technology will solve these cases.
It is clearly a strong weight of feeling that referees need help to decide, for instance, whether a penalty should have been awarded or if a foul was serious enough to send off the guilty player.
As part of its ambitious plan to develop football in India across varied aspects of the sport, Indian Super League (ISL) had invited a three-member senior team from Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) to train AIFF affiliated Indian match officials.
The ISL referee workshop consisted of both theory and practical sessions covering varied topics related to match officials, referee training structure, referee assessment methods with an endeavour to learn and improve the overall structure and the management of development of referees in India.
But bad decisions, somehow has found its way onto the playing field, tilting the scales, and also threatening the credibility of the beautiful game. The debate has now shifted to the referee’s judgment, and its going round in the same circles again. And, plainly, it is not straightforward.
The IMG-Reliance & Star India, organisers of the Hero Indian Super League, had called upon 35 AIFF match officials for a two-day referees’ workshop conducted by PGMOL officials before the ISL season could kick-off.
But in due course of time these very same officials will need to revisit the idea when they meet next year and will need to look at having another official, monitoring video replays for key decisions relating to goals, penalties and red cards, wired up to the referee.
Someone will still ultimately make that decision and that would merely be shifting the debate about the referee’s judgment to that of the television official, and going round in the same circles again.
There is certainly a strong case to push for technology, when they are in theory easier to judge. It would have taken only a few moments, for instance, for a message to reach the referee and avoid a bad decision.
The tackle on Leo Moura was a horrendous challenge and how the referees failed in his duty is absolutely baffling. All have seen it on TV; it just shows the potential for more controversy and arguments. If we are not careful, it isn’t difficult to imagine a situation whereby a referee looks at an incident after the match and realizes that the team and coach had paid a price for his bad decision.
