V-League referees and shaken confidence

In a world of deep expertise, if each person has a different way of thinking, then who can fans, players, and coaches trust in this increasingly fierce competition?

For a long time, the world has been applying technology to assist referees, of course the main referees, to minimize mistakes and errors, in order to make the most correct decisions. Of course, that does not mean that mistakes and errors are completely reduced, because VAR referees are also human, they once did not draw a line to determine the offside position in a match, and even ignored the situation where the ball touched the hand before leading to a goal...

Countless situations were overlooked, goals were taken away in matches involving Arsenal or Brighton in the Premier League are specific examples. And the main referee also made mistakes, errors when not being supported the best, not making the most accurate decisions possible. Not only in the V-League like the case of Mr. Hong Vu in the recent Nam Dinh - Khanh Hoa match, but also in the world's top leagues, there are also cases of "looking at the chicken to turn into a country", hasty, subjective decisions... of many referees in black, leading to many noisy public opinions as mentioned above.

The fundamental difference is that in advanced tournaments, who is right, who is wrong, who deserves to be permanently or temporarily suspended is known, understood clearly and thoroughly. If the referee is wrong, the tournament organizers are responsible for handling it, but anyone who insults the referee will be severely punished. Because of many painful lessons, it is easy to see that in the world, there are very few cases of coaches criticizing referees in public or anywhere. All of the above objective and honest behaviors are aimed at protecting the trust of the audience, who have the most power because they have spent money to buy seats in the stadium to enjoy football on weekends, midweek, throughout their lives.

While our V-League 1, 2 have ever had an action to protect the audience who buy tickets to the stadium? Is it because the V-League has never attracted a large audience to the stadium to seek the endless joy of sports that people do not need to care about this "heavenly" matter? If they do not care, there will still be this and that matter related to referees blowing the whistle, and after discipline, they will be assigned work. Without punishment, coaches still have the opportunity to "fight" the referee when they have the chance... That vicious cycle continues year after year. A strong team always has a black shirt to protect them, season after season and now they still hear others complaining and crying out to heaven. A poor team goes everywhere and is "overpowered" by the referee who blows the whistle unreasonably but still grits their teeth and endures it because speaking out will be more harmful. Not only professional leagues but also grassroots leagues, this sad story happens all the time.

The U19 group stage that is currently taking place unfortunately also has this sad incident. For example, in the 2 away/back matches between U19 Song Lam Nghe An and U19 PVF, the referees in both matches "gave" penalties to the home team PVF for extremely ridiculous things. Luckily, the young players and the coaching staff of the away team are not unfamiliar with this daily situation, so they reacted moderately and tried their best to win 4 points after 2 difficult matches. The main thing is that the audience gradually lost faith in fairness and honesty in sports. Unfortunately, the people in the industry accidentally lost the most precious thing they are pursuing and striving for.

Therefore, the noisy story about referees will continue to be discussed, when everything is still mixed up between black and white, right and wrong about the same incident like the case of Mr. Hong Vu at Thien Truong Stadium in the 5th round of V-League 1-2023 recently. Although fans know that this referee did not perform his duties in the 6th round of V-League, they cannot be satisfied with the VFF referee board's rude cover-up after an announcement that even the experts disagree with.

It is difficult to avoid mistakes, mistakes are something everyone admits. But we cannot admit the way the referees did it, regardless of everything, to affirm that "the referee handled the game correctly" when in fact it was blatantly wrong among the three armies of the world. That is essentially a lack of respect for the truth, a lack of respect for the fans, causing a loss of trust among the majority of football lovers. That loss is much greater than trying to protect a referee who blew the whistle in 2019, and now makes mistakes that everyone can see./.

Hoa Bui