The story of "the king in black"
(Baonghean) - 1. Referee mistakes are inevitable, because referees are also "mortals". But when V-League 2014 is entering its hottest phase, referee mistakes are repeated, causing public opinion to raise the issue of the need for a radical reform in the "black shirt king" team to catch up with the development trend of professional football.
In other words, professional football needs professional referees. After the 16th round of the V-League, referees have become the target of criticism from coaches, players and even the public. It is true that with the decisions just announced by the VFF, the referees in the 16th round have made certain mistakes. Whether it was due to judgment, ability or ideology, is an old question. But looking at the way the coaches, players and leaders of the teams strained themselves like that, even taking off their shirts as if wanting to win or lose with the referees, the statements that seemed to want to blame all the mistakes on the referees are unacceptable. That is not a professional and rule-respecting way of behaving. Therefore, at the VFF Executive Committee Meeting that took place last week, the issue of referees was put on the agenda and received many comments from the participants. The Executive Committee assessed that refereeing work has made a lot of progress in recent times, but more drastic and synchronous solutions are still needed to ensure the tournament reaches its final destination safely. In addition, Vietnamese football officials have considered inviting foreign referees to officiate sensitive matches in the upcoming final stages.
2. There was a time when the saying "what football, what referee" sounded reasonable. That's why after the 7th Congress of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), the referee issue was proposed to be radically reformed. If the internal resources are not enough to keep up, foreign referees will be hired to officiate the matches in the V-League. And after the events that happened in the last round of 16, the VFF "took action". The VFF and VPF contacted the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the Japan Football Association (JFA) to invite 3 Japanese referees to work in the V-League 2014 from May 29 and were approved. Accordingly, referee Sato (awarded FIFA level in 2009) will officiate the make-up match of the round of 16 between Becamex Binh Duong - Thanh Hoa on June 12; Referee Toma Masaaki (awarded FIFA level in 2005) will officiate the Becamex Binh Duong - Hanoi T&T match on June 17. The remaining Japanese referee (identity will be sent later) will officiate the Hanoi T&T - Thanh Hoa match on August 10. It must be admitted that this is an effort of VFF, because Japanese football is a truly developed and professional football, much better than ours. Their referees will surely be better than ours?! Foreign referees will not "get involved" in things that can be called "off the field", and will only focus on expertise.
3. VFF is implementing many solutions to improve the capacity of the referee team. However, from another perspective, experts believe that only targeting the referees is not enough to completely solve the problem that Vietnamese football is facing. The players themselves and the leaders of the teams are sometimes the cause of the ruckus on the field. Overreactions, even the wrong nature of the incident, also contribute to the bad image of the country's football. Of course, it is also necessary to look back, the insufficient seriousness and transparency of many (domestic) football kings have not made the players respect enough and, more importantly, convinced, leading to unwanted stories as has been happening for a long time. And with the new breakthrough of VFF by hiring foreign referees, it shows that the Referee Board is looking forward to confronting bad behavior and standing firm against daily temptations to build a "bulletproof" referee team. Only then can the professionalization of Vietnamese football be successful as stated in the action platform of the recent VFF congress.
Great Justice
