André Villas-Boas blasts refereeing body: “This season failed” | OneFootball

André Villas-Boas ramped up his remarks on national refereeing and turned the spotlight on the Refereeing Council, in a reflection that brought together technology, training, and decision-making criteria. The FC Porto president spoke of the urgent need to standardize VAR in Portuguese stadiums, criticized the way referees have been managed and evaluated, and delivered a harsh diagnosis of the season now coming to an end. In essence, he painted a picture of disorganization and concluded bluntly: “This first season was an obvious failure.”

At a time when the debate around refereeing continues to poison Portuguese football, André Villas-Boas came forward with a message based on reform and high standards. The FC Porto president did not limit himself to criticism of the current situation: he attacked the technological foundations of the system, the consistency of the criteria, and the leadership model of the Refereeing Council, in a speech that was severe in tone and clearly structured.

Starting with technology, Villas-Boas pointed to a problem that, in his view, even comes before the most heated discussions about incidents and interpretations. The issue, he said, lies in the inequality of resources and in the fragility of the technical support on which decisions are made.

“It is necessary to change the licensing and the requirements involved. That is a concern that exists, also very much because of what happened with FC Porto B last season. Standardizing VAR technology in all Portuguese stadiums is urgent; that is the first step,” he said. “But before we move on to the technological step, there needs to be a standardization of VAR technology in all stadiums. The same cameras, the same quality, the same number of cameras. And then improvements in the technology and the tools. So, first of all, goal-line technology and semi-automated offsides. Once those problems are overcome, the Portuguese football product also improves, there are fewer incidents in our matches, and refereeing decisions are better. Technology in the service of sporting truth. And we cannot have cases like we had last year with FC Porto B, where an obvious offside was not called because of exposure to sunlight and the positioning of the camera and the stadium pillars. It is something pathetic that we have to fight against”

The Porto president then insisted on the gap between the Portuguese reality and the resources used in other leagues, linking that difference to the margin of error in decisions. The criticism, however, did not stop at the equipment: it extended to the preparation of referees and the way they develop within the structure.

“We made a lot of noise last year, and now we finally have the Federation with us because, within Liga Portugal, president Pedro Proença was very receptive to our movement and now wants to make it mandatory as a driver of improvement,” he explained. “The cameras used in the Premier League to decide offsides are capable of delivering 60 frames per second. Portuguese cameras, by contrast, are between five and ten frames when making a decision on an offside. So, it is the difference between the ball being glued to the foot or being slightly five centimeters away. From that point on, it becomes much more difficult for those operating the VAR technology to make decisions that are consistent. So, there is one part related to technology and another related to the information and education of the referees themselves, which has to do with the Refereeing Council, with the referees’ own development, and with the way they are punished or rewarded. We have already seen referees go from officiating a Liga II match to being promoted to a clássico, and we have not seen consistency that relatively rewards the best”

The idea is clear: for Villas-Boas, the problem does not arise only at the moment of the decision, but in the entire ecosystem that prepares it. Technology appears as the minimum requirement; human consistency as the next step. And it was precisely there that he hardened his tone even further.

When the subject turned to refereeing criteria, the executive spoke of an erosion of reference points and an instability that, in his view, ended up confusing even the referees themselves. His target was the leadership of the Refereeing Council and the effect that setup had throughout the season.

“The standardization of decision-making criteria is one of the major problems in European or world football, let’s put it that way. There is an immediate attempt to standardize criteria, and that is the point I consider fundamental,” he stressed. “What happened this year since Pedro Proença took office as President of the Portuguese Football Federation? There was a two-headed leadership of the Refereeing Council that did not work, greater public and media exposure of referees, with different interpretations of criteria in situations that, in our view, seem similar and that ended up confusing the referees themselves and led to a clear deterioration in the quality of refereeing and in the criteria applied in certain incidents. We all strive for a clear standardization of refereeing criteria: what is a penalty, what is a handball, and what is a foul, a yellow-card foul, what is a red-card foul. In short, the big decisions in the game.”

Along the same lines, Villas-Boas delivered the heaviest sentence of the entire speech, although acknowledging what he considered a positive step back. Even so, the overall assessment was merciless.

“The president of the Portuguese Football Federation is asking for time for his Refereeing Council to function to its full potential. This first season was an obvious failure,” he admitted. “There was, on their part, a step back regarding the referees’ position, which I think was positive”

More than a circumstantial protest, the speech sought to establish an idea of structural disorientation. For the FC Porto president, the lack of uniform criteria is not just background noise in the game: it is a factor that degrades the quality of refereeing and prolongs suspicion over almost everything that happens on the pitch.

In the final part of the discussion, Villas-Boas broadened the field of criticism and included the media in the equation. Without absolving it of its role in the climate surrounding refereeing, he suggested that there is media exploitation of the controversy.

“We will see next season what kind of position this two-headed leadership of the Refereeing Council takes regarding what happened this season. It was not positive; it was difficult,” he said. “Now, it also seems clear to me that certain media groups live off bad refereeing decisions to create programs and content that attract people. I am not saying it is your [group], but there is also, on the part of the media, an exaggeration of these decisions because they obviously cause controversy, cause chaos, bring attention, and draw attention. And, in the end, they bring in revenue”

What remains, then, is a harsh portrait of a system that Villas-Boas believes needs correcting on several fronts at the same time. From the camera that fails to the criteria that fluctuate, from the referee exposed to the amplified noise around him, the criticism was articulated to show that, in his view, Portuguese refereeing is not suffering from an isolated problem, but from a fundamental failure of structure and leadership.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.