A referee in Spain can earn up to 300,000 euros per year. Britons earn more than 80,000, almost four times less.

That Main referee They are looking for an extra week’s salary in the United Arab Emirates. Last week’s controversy has opened the debate. Is this compatible? Arab interests may overlap in this competition. The day before Tottenham Hotspur-Liverpool, Darren England and Dan Cook, who had to direct VAR for that match, returned by plane from the United Arab Emirates.

There they refereed the match between Sharjah and Al-Ain on Thursday, which was two days before they had to travel to Stockley Park, in London, to oversee the most important match of the day. What happened in that cabin on the outskirts of London has now become Premier League history. In the 34th minute, with Liverpool trailing by a man, Luis Díaz counterattacked with a superb goal. The match assistant referee quickly raised the flag and disallowed it for offside. The player from Colombia did not protest excessively. The first replay arrives in the press box. Without limits, the feeling is that it is a legitimate goal. A fan, who was close to the journalist’s location, approached and asked. “They will review it, it is in the regulatory position,” they replied.

But there was barely time to finish the sentence, offside was ruled and Simon Hooper, the referee, urged Tottenham to continue play. Only 30 seconds had passed and the stadium video scoreboard was still showing signs that the game was under review. Unusual. Something happened. Something went wrong. Meanwhile, television did not show lines that accurately judged whether Díaz was offside or not. Another VAR error, not the first, but one of the most impactful. Even more so than when Arsenal, last season in the midst of league competition, lost two points because VAR awarded an illegal goal to Brentford, because the player took the wrong line.

What happened at the Stockley Park cabin was one of the great failures of technology. There, England saw the play, asked the operator to repeat it and decided it was a legitimate goal, but he made a mistake. He was unaware that offside had been declared on the pitch, he believed that it had been awarded as a legitimate goal, so by saying “Check complete”, he confirmed the offside. On the field they don’t know what happened until the game is over. England didn’t even ask for a second opinion from Cook, and it was Cook who, when play had resumed, tried to stop play again and score, but it was too late. Protocol stipulates that once the game is restarted, there is no turning back. An ancient decision in a technology that is practically still in its infancy.

It was impossible to attribute the error 100% to possible fatigue caused by the British and Cook, who had been on a flight from the Middle East 48 hours earlier, but it opened up a debate in the British as to whether this maintenance work should be regulated or not. freelance work from the referee. In this context, it needs to be understood that British referees are not the highest-paid referees in Europe, quite the opposite. Spain’s Mateu Lahoz earns more than 300,000 euros in 2022, while Premier referees earn between 38,500 pounds and 42,000 pounds per year – varying depending on experience -, plus an additional 1,150 pounds per match. The maximum does not exceed 70,000 pounds -80,771 euros-. Leagues such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have played a role in this, especially Saudi Arabia, who, given their success in recruiting footballers, now also want the best referees.

Problem? Not only the exhaustion, but also the impact caused by the British, Cook and Michael Oliver, one of the best known, among others, decided to go to these countries to make a profit. Because Sheikh Mansour, the prime minister of the UAE, is the owner of Manchester City, apart from Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, the president of City, who is on the board of shareholders of the UAE oil company, which strangely is the main sponsor of Manchester City. that country’s league. This relationship continued in Saudi Arabia, where Howard Webb, a principal leader of the PGMOL, worked for the Saudi federation for several years.

Webb, who refereed the final between Spain and the Netherlands at the 2010 World Cup, allowed Michael Oliver to officiate, for example, the duel between Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal in April, in addition to opening the door for English referees in Greece. . Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the Premier League of course doesn’t stop there, because PIF, Saudi Arabia’s investment fund, is the owner of Newcastle United. This opens up a number of integrity issues when accepting payments from countries with links to Premier League teams, which must be addressed and have been of concern to the PGMOL and the Premier League. By releasing the audio of the disallowed goal against Luis Díaz, PGMOL assured that it is working with the FA to review its policy of allowing referees to work outside FIFA or UEFA dates.

Maybe one solution, rather than banning extracurricular activities, is to improve the conditions of groups which every week receive complaints and criticism and are threatened with extinction, especially in lower category groups. As grassroots football referees are accustomed to verbal and physical attacks and in the UK there have been several strikes in recent years, to address the problem continues to grow and refereeing is still a risky profession. Even more so when the Middle East knocks on your door.