Fight the Power: One Belgian tired of all the waffle
by Matt Riley
In an extraordinary outburst today, BEC Tero's Director of Football Robert Procureur threw the gauntlet down to the hapless FAT and accused referees of corruption. Robert had a list of specific grievances at yesterday's away draw to Police United, but he widened the debate to highlight how clubs have developed the league and their investment has created such a popular product, but they have to sit passively by whilst a procession of poorly trained and questionable officials are forced on them by the FAT.
Perhaps the most incendiary comment from Robert was that, from today, his club would decide who was allowed to referee at their stadium. As he explained less than delicately:
"All the referees who shaft us, will go out of BEC Tero. They cannot come to make referee [sic] at BEC Tero. We start now and I will put the names on the website."
He then went on to plant more verbal landmines with his next comments:
"All the referees who are corrupted are going to go out of BEC.... if the league cannot make the jump, then we are going to make the jump."
That these comments went out through the official BEC Tero Firedragons Youtube channel also suggests that the club support the strong words from the Belgian former football director of SCG Muang Thong, a club whose owners also control the FAT.
Baiting the FAT like this is likely to bring sanctions both on Robert personally and the club for promoting his message, but it will force a debate about how referees are placed in matches and the process used to select certain officials at certain clubs and for matches with varying levels of importance. There are two highly problematic areas here for Thai football. Some clubs have huge leverage with referee associations and the FAT, making the awarding of penalties, the issuing of red cards and free kicks on the edge of the area unnaturally skewed in their favour at home matches. There is also the bigger question of why it is that a team challenging for the title appears to come in for so much bad luck away from home.
In England there is a clear and transparent process at work which is sent out every Monday. A set of criteria is followed to ensure that each referee has been carefully vetted. His recent officiating grades are analysed, his position in the merit table, his overall experience and how often they have refereed the clubs involved. They even check where he was born and lived as well as the obvious one of who he supports to arrive at a dynamic, not faultless, but workable system.
This is not rocket science but, by failing to follow anything like that level of rigour, Thai football appears to be using referees as a commodity to be bought and sold rather than as upholders of the rules of the game. That is a recipe for disaster.
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