According to Tasnim news agency, Luis Medina Cantaljo, the head of referees committee of the Spanish Football Federation, announced that with the aim of improving the quality of refereeing in La Liga games, the refereeing standards in the new season of this competition will undergo significant changes.
One of the topics that received special attention in the recent meeting of the referees committee of the Spanish Football Federation was the discussion of the useful time of the games. According to the recorded statistics, the useful time of La Liga games has increased by 32% since November, and the Spanish Football Referee Committee plans to increase this amount again, and their next solution is to prevent unnecessary waste of game time by prohibiting referees from arguing. And the discussion with the players is about the events during the match.
Cantaljo said: We want the effective time of La Liga games to increase, although this time has increased by 32% since a few months ago. For this reason, we have told the referees not to talk to the players about anything that happens during the match. In the new season, we will have to increase the lost time of the games by 15 minutes.
Another thing that the president of the Spanish football referees committee announced about judging the games of the new La Liga season was the new interpretations of Indian fouls and offsides. He announced that he and his colleagues will do their utmost to prevent the announcement of penalties that result from suspicious hand-to-hand collisions in the penalty area. Cantaljo added: We will try as much as possible and with all the available tools and facilities to minimize the penalties that were previously announced due to ambiguous hand-to-hand collisions and caused protest and discontent among the players. One of the new criteria for Indian fouls is that the referees refrain from blowing the whistle if the ball hits a player’s hand in an area of the penalty area that does not have an impact on the course of the game and does not prevent the opposing team from scoring. Our goal is to reduce the number of penalties, especially those that make you feel unfairly treated. A distinction should be made between obvious mistakes and simple mistakes, mistakes that deserve yellow and red cards. Penalties must also be objective. The fouls that occur in the penalty area must be very serious for a penalty to be awarded. After this, you should not whistle for any mistake. We want nothing to be gained from players who compromise or exaggerate. From now on, Indian mistakes that do not cause a difference in the attacking process of a team will not deserve a card.
In the end, Cantaljo said about the new criteria of the Spanish Football Federation referees’ committee for declaring offside: from now on, only goals will be disallowed due to offside if the offside is absolutely certain. In addition, the contact of the ball with the last defender of the opponent will not necessarily lead to the cancellation of offside, and it will depend on the situation of the defender, whether his contact with the ball was controlled or accidental and under the pressure of the opponent’s player.
The new La Liga season will begin on Friday night with Osasuna’s game against Sevilla.