Florentino Perez, the Real Madrid president, has told one of the most senior figures in Spanish football that he wants to bring English referees to the country to improve the standard of officiating.
Rafael Louzan, the new president of the Spanish football federation, has revealed Perez’s intention to recruit officials from the Premier League as a result of his unhappiness with the quality of refereeing in La Liga.
“Florentino states emphatically that he feels disadvantaged in the field of refereeing,” Louzan said in an interview with El Chiringuito. “Florentino told me that ‘you have to resolve this issue of the referees that is harming us and we have lost many titles because of the referees’.”
Louzan added of his conversation with Perez: “He told me one day that he was going to bring English referees to whistle.”
The comments come a few days after Jagoba Arrasate, the manager of La Liga side Mallorca, launched a blistering attack on the standard of refereeing in Spain and the use of VAR in the country.
“I am deeply sad because I am falling out of love with this sport, I am losing all desire for anything,” he said. “It always goes against us and when it is the other way around it is never reviewed. It makes me tired, sad. I don’t even get angry any more.
“I will not look at who is refereeing, but at who is in the VAR. They have become the protagonists… I fell in love with something else and it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”
The debate over refereeing standards in Spain reflects a similar situation in the Premier League, where officiating is a constant source of discussion. Last summer, Wolves made an attempt to scrap VAR from the Premier League, but failed to receive any support from other teams.
On Tuesday, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta railed against the threats and abuse aimed at referee Michael Oliver following the controversial red card shown to Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly against Wolves last weekend, saying that such hatred must be “eradicated” from the game.
Lewis-Skelly’s three-game suspension has been overturned after the club’s appeal against his straight dismissal at Wolves proved successful. The aftershocks of the incident are still being felt, however, as police are investigating the numerous threats aimed towards Oliver.
