Mistakes are an essential part of any business, however, when it is public, they are also obvious, and when they are frequent, they provide fertile ground for the development of various doubts. They develop, whether it’s about honesty, whether it’s about knowledge or some other factor that will be highlighted when it comes to football referees. And the fact that refereeing in Croatian football is a serious long-term problem is nothing new, and it is only a question of which of the aforementioned factors of doubt will be the topic.
Unfortunately, it’s a novelty when a match is played without tails, and there aren’t many of those on first impression, and neither on the second, nor the third, and so on indefinitely. That’s why, after almost every round, an analysis by a referee expert or a referee’s commission for disputed situations from that round is expected. It will be the same after this one when we have a match between Hajduk and Istria in 1961 at Poljud with several disputed situations that are being talked about. Most of the talk is about the move by Dario Melnjak, which VAR suggested to referee Toni Dadić to check once more, and Zvonimir Šarlija’s foul on Salim Lawal in his own penalty area, as well as the criteria for yellow cards during the match, which, considering the number of fouls awarded, could have been and more for visiting players.
This match is just one of those this season, as it is currently the freshest sample of the problem that is being talked about from round to round, and a systematic solution as such is not in sight in the current composition of the refereeing organization. After the ‘VAR leaks’ affair and the dismissal of Bruno Marić, the appointment of the Frenchman Bertrand Layec to the position of head of referees should in theory be a solution, but in practice the changes are not visible.
We therefore put together a survey and asked our readers what they think, the result is more than clear. As many as 88 percent of readers would like foreign referees to administer justice in derbies. Here, to knowledge and conduct.
