The president of the Technical Committee of Referees responds to Ancelotti: “If the Spanish referees have something, it is a tremendous respect for the coaches”

The Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) presented this Wednesday the general balance of referee performance during the first third of the season. The president of the body, Luis Medina Cantalejo, has defended the actions of the members at the beginning of the course, which has been characterized by some out-of-character statements against the union. “We are happy with the performance of our referees and the entire team. staff that we have,” declared Medina Cantalejo in his initial intervention, along with Carlos Clos Gómez and Alberto Undiano Mallenco, also members of the CTA who accompanied him this morning at the Las Rozas Sports City.

One of the issues that was most touched on in the press conference after the report was the relationship between the referees and the coaches, this after technicians such as Rafa Benítez, Xavi Hernández and Carlo Ancelotti had made statements against refereeing, for feeling affected during some matches in the first thirteen days of the league. “If the Spanish referees have something, it is a tremendous respect for the coaches,” said Medina Cantalejo in this situation. Furthermore, he commented that in the meeting that had been held last week with the coaches “a phenomenal atmosphere reigned”, in which, in his words, both unions “exchanged points of view” and an attempt was made to “explain the reason for certain circumstances.” ”.

The relationship between the referees and the players was also addressed, with whom it was suggested that there is a little less permissiveness in the face of outbursts. “The players already know that protests have zero tolerance, we continue to see that the players accompany the referee to the VAR monitor, something that we do not like to see at a time when the referee needs peace of mind, and that is why the warnings have increased,” noted the president of the CTA. Given the complaint from the Girona central defender David López about the referee Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias, Medina Cantalejo adhered to the position already expressed by the CTA in the days close to the event, in which he assured that the audios of the entire first half of that Girona-Almería made themselves available to the Catalan club and the player so that it could be verified that there had been no type of lack of respect for the footballer. Continuing along these lines, the number one in Spanish refereeing assured that efforts are being made so that the spectator has more and more access to what is being said during the match: “We have touched on the possibility of using new technologies so that everyone can hear the conversations between the referee and the VAR at the time of the review, but at the moment it has not been possible,” he pointed out without going into details of the refusal.

The desire to minimize the weight of VAR in the game, without dispensing with it, is another of the objectives that the CTA wanted to communicate this morning. Clos Gómez, director of matters related to video refereeing, pointed out that the goal is for “less and less VAR to intervene in important decisions”, since “the absence of intervention means that the fields are being improved.” ”. For his part, Undiano Mallenco, one of those in charge of reporting data this Wednesday, joined the intervention and said that this has been achieved progressively, because at this point last season, the referees relied more than now on the VAR for decision making. “We want the referees to be the ones who get it right on the field,” said Clos Gómez.

Finally, the press conference was not free of self-criticism and Medina Cantalejo referred to last year as “a season that was not good” in terms of refereeing, something that contrasted with the current season. Regarding this beginning of the year, the president was not equally forceful and mentioned that although there were “a couple of decisions that had not been correct,” he avoided transmitting a similar message and limited himself to saying that the referees had done a good job. He also took the opportunity to express his wish that the Negreira case “It will be resolved soon,” since “it has done a lot of damage to the refereeing team,” including the young referees who are starting their careers and who are already insulted, he highlighted.

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