By Vestnik Kavkaza
Nikolai Levnikov, chairman of the Referees and Inspection Committee of the RFU, commented on the results of its work and the prospects of Russian football refereeing. According to the new arrangement of football refereeing, executive functions will be fulfilled by the Department of Refereeing and Inspection. Moreover, due to UEFA requirements, an expert analytical commission was established in which four experts will judge any episode of any match, consider ambiguous situations, and assess a referee’s work.
According to Levnikov, “when the Panel of Football Referees was eliminated, where one person was the chairman of the Referees Committee and the head of the Department of Refereeing and Inspection, we have built a system of refereeing, according to the requirements of not only of the UEFA Convention on Refereeing, but also the requirements of the executive boards of FIFA and UEFA. This is very important. We have executive power – it is the office of the Department of Refereeing and Inspection which is engaged in the management of all professional referees. We also have the Referees Committee which is responsible for the development of refereeing in the country, not only for professionals, but also for amateurs.”
The leadership of the Russian Football Union ordered the Committee and the Department to develop a strategy of refereeing development till 2020. The document was developed and approved by the RFU Board. According to the document, the strategy, we have published several documents; and I hope all refereeing organizations of the country will use it. Another document was developed and approved by the Referees Committee. It is about rotation of referees and inspectors, depending on their professional skills. And the most important document – requirements to judges and inspectors for this or that competition from amateur level to matches of the professional league.
“For the society and referees themselves it is important that it is not an opinion of one very experienced expert, it is an opinion of a group of responsible people who consider ambiguous, not black and white situations, and make decisions on whether a referee should judge other matches. The Referees Committee and its structures, its commissions will pay attention to the work of the Department of Refereeing and Inspection, according to the documents,” Levnikov states.
He says that “today game rules, instructions for referees are different from those 5 to 7 years ago. When people who are not involved in refereeing, from the point of view of methodology and instructions, speak in the mass media, it sometimes damages the development of refereeing. Today the TV-show “Whistle”, “Sport-Express”, “Soviet Sport”, and other periodicals are written not only in our country, but in many countries where people speak Russian. And the opinion of Russian experts in the mass media becomes not only an opinion of the Russian refereeing school, but an opinion of UEFA and FIFA. And if it is different from this mainstream, it is wrong. So, we believe the Referees Committee is the most important part of transparency.”
