Why the Colombian arbitration crisis? The causes of the bad moment

Colombian arbitration is on crisis. And it is not from now, but right at this moment, given the chain of errors and controversies that have occurred in the League matches, there is a rarefied atmosphere due to the performance of the referees and the management that has been given to the VAR tool, which is not providing the expected guarantees. There is controversy, but above all, concern.

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The League for the first half of this 2024 is shaken by refereeing errors, which have unleashed discomfort among coaches, disagreement among clubs and criticism from the managers themselves. The situation is so critical that referees have already been known to no longer be appointed by the Arbitration Commission, due to their poor performance. One of the loudest cases was that of the referees Heider Castro, in charge of the VAR, and the AVAR Mauricio Mercado, removed from the arbitration panel after making errors in the match on date 7 of the League between Envigado and América, which finished 1 -1. The center of that party, Edwin Trujillohas not been appointed recently.

Other referees have stopped being named, for example, center back Carlos Ortega has not coached for seven days. The VAR David Rodriguez He has not been named for four dates, due to the action in the Bucaramanga and Once Caldas match, in which a goal was scored after pushing against the goalkeeper. Óscar Gómez, VAR, and Hermínzul Calderón, AVAR in the Alianza vs. match. Pereira, are not cited in the last three dates. In that game, Alianza's goalkeeper, Jaime Mora, injured attacker Gonzalo Lencina and was not even cautioned by the center back. Wilmar Roldan.

The underlying criticisms point towards the Arbitration Commission and the work he has been developing with Colombian arbitration. However, this week the president of the Colombian Football Federation, Ramon Jesurún, came out to support Ímer Machado, head of the technical arbitration commission and who is in the eye of the hurricane. “Machado is our employee and he is a serious man who works very well. What responsibility does he have for a possible arbitration or interpretation error?

Since last year, the Federation implemented the release of some VAR audios, with the purpose of giving transparency to the decisions made with the help of this technological tool. However, there is debate about why the published audios are selective, there are controversial plays of which the referees' conversation is not known.

Fernando Jaramillo, president of Dimayor, stated that not all audios are published according to Fifa protocol and that the choice is the responsibility of the Arbitration Commission. “Yes, we are concerned about the VAR issue, the clubs have already expressed it to me in writing and verbally,” said the leader in the Smoke-Free Zone program.

Last Sunday there was one of the actions that has raised the most dust so far in the championship and it was due to a goal by Junior that meant a 3-3 draw against Pereira in stoppage time. That goal, preceded by an offside position by Carlos Bacca, sparked debate between those who interpret that the player obstructed the view of the goalkeeper, who subsequently gave the rebound to the scorer, and those who say he did not. In fact, in the audio released of the play the VAR stated that “the goalkeeper always had vision of the ball.” The central Andres Rojaswho first invalidated the action, validated the goal.

So many errors have aroused enormous concern among the teams. César Guzmán, president of Patriotas and who recently denounced possible interference by illegal bettors in the League, stated: “There are continuous errors that have been warned and reported and have generated concern among the clubs; Everyone in unison has expressed this concern, not just now, but a long time ago, and they have asked the leadership of the Federation that it must be corrected. If it is not corrected, it is due to lack of training, but if we are told that the referees are trained, with great resources and time, and the mistakes continue, it is no longer about training, but rather external factors, which is what, at the Except for me, I don't want to think… If so much concern has been noted so long ago, there must be structural changes in arbitration,” Guzmán said.

Meanwhile, the Association of Professional Footballers (Acolfutpro), expressed the need for the professionalization of arbitration. “The professionalization of referees would allow them to dedicate themselves fully to this work, with adequate physical preparation and the necessary training and updating to meet the demands of today's football, especially with the use of new technological tools.”

Why so many errors?

The controversy is on. The mistakes don't stop. What's happening? To do? Wilmer Barahona He is a former Colombian referee and arbitration analyst. He considers that the bad moment has been going on for a long time and proposes some measures. “Colombian arbitration is in crisis, but it has been going on for approximately three years. What happens is that it becomes more acute when these controversies happen. Arbitration in its structure must change. How to improve? First, professionalize arbitration. Second, there is an Arbitration Commission managed by five gentlemen, one a doctor, another a politician, another a congressman…, but none of them were arbitrators. “We must change that commission for people who handle the arbitration issue, and third, the technical commission made up of Ímer Machado and Fernando Avendaño, we must disaffect them and put 3 or 4 people of trust, experience and with national and international recognition,” he believes. .

Regarding the criticism of the VAR, the analyst considers: “The VAR works perfectly, what does not work is whoever manages it; with bad interpretations, they do not look at the spirit of the rules. We have to work with the VAR referees, we have to give feedback to all the referees every day: we did well in this and we have to improve in this.”

Jose Borda He is another arbitration analyst, he was also a referee and has his point of view on the current crisis: “Colombian arbitration is not going well at present. There are many problems with training, preparation and unification of criteria among referees, which is reflected on the playing fields, with so many scandals,” says Borda. He adds about the VAR: “In the League it is not seen that there is a clear line of intervention, the VAR calls when it should not, and when it should it does not; The same goes for the referees: sometimes, when the VAR calls them, they don't listen to it, all of this is because there are no clear policies for the management of referee technology by the technical commission and that is why bad decisions are seen.

(Also read: Arbitration crisis: Should Colombia imitate Ecuador's decision?)

Borda has his own proposal to attack the problem: “What can be done? Changing the technical commission (the one in charge of training, selecting and promoting referees) has not produced results, the work of Ímer Machado, the director, has been null. Second, that the Federation gives tools to VAR referees so that they can practice and gain experience outside of games. Today they have no where and they come to games to improvise. Third, that there be more theoretical, practical, physical and technical training for judges; They even bring foreign instructors to update the arbitrators on the latest trends in arbitration matters. In this way an improvement in the national referral would begin; If they don't, we continue with the same things.”

Andres Grimaldos is another refereeing expert, whose 'X' account called VAR Central, analyzes the refereeing actions each day, and said: “There are many factors. Incompetence, lack of better training, lack of betting on meritocracy and not appointing based on cronyism. There is a lack of better feedback, that is, the technical commission meets with the referees to review plays, explain them, and agree on certain situations that arise in the matches. The famous unification of criteria.” Regarding the VAR, Grimaldos said: “If we look, the majority of referees who are VAR are professionals who have not done so well refereeing on the field, so they are given the opportunity with the technological tool and clearly many of them “They definitely don't perform.”

While the teams demand that the Federation take substantive measures, the errors persist day after day and the referees continue to be targeted for their failures. The moment is critical.

PABLO ROMERO
Editor of EL TIEMPO
@PabloRomeroET

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