Soccer officiating just like any other sport is very tricky and difficult for referees to perfectly officiate matches at any level.
In the quest to officiate fairly if not perfect, Football Associations across the world have tried to come up with initiatives to meet this goal.
Technology is one aspect that football associations have tried to make good use of in order to help referees while officiating soccer matches. Initiatives like goal line technology are some of technological advances that have been introduced in Europe so that to aid referees to make correct decisions.
Federations of international Football Association (FIFA) is also doing its best to train and retrain referees so that to improve their decision making. Despite all this efforts, soccer officiating is still not at its best especially in Africa.
Poor officiating has in the past been the main cause of ugly scenes witnessed in football stadiums. Matches have been called off, referees have been injured and fans fight amongst themselves just because of poor officiating.
This problem is not confined only to one continent but this is an issue that has had its negative effect at every corner of the world where soccer is played.
While other soccer associations are trying to reduce the menace, Africa is still slow to combat the problem.
Recently, Egyptian champions Zamalek almost withdrew their participation in the Egyptian premier league as a way of protesting against poor officiating. Actually the club had gone as far as issuing an official statement which read in part that “The club’s board have decided to stop competing in the Egyptian league following poor officiating in our match against Talae El-Geshi”. The good news about the whole saga is that Zamalek did not stop participating after withdrawing their statement.
This is just a tip of the ice bag. The problem is much bigger and wide spread. In most cases poor officiating has resulted to negative repercussions than the Zamaleks threat to quit participating in the Egyptian league.
Professional and standard officiating in sports is very crucial not just to create equal ground for competition and making sure the rules are observed when competing but also in the development of sports. African soccer has for long been dragged behind partly because of poor officiating and this is one of the dark sports in African soccer that should be brought in the light.
However despite all the negativities associated with poor officiating in African soccer, the continent is not shot of good referees. The continent prides itself by top class referees like the late Said Belqola from Morocco who officiated the 1998 FIFA world cup final match in France between the host France and Brazil. Belqola went down in history as the first African referee to officiate a world cup final match.
Belqola remains to be an example to referees across the continent who wishes to improve in the officiating of the sport. Confederation of African Football CAF also has a challenge to make inroads in football officiating in Africa.
All in all it is not yet late to make improvement in officiating soccer. With effective coordination between football associations and referees an improvement will be certain.