As we pass the halfway point of the 2023 Chinese Super League schedule, the league is becoming increasingly competitive. There have been a number of controversial decisions surrounding competitive interests, which has led to dissatisfaction among clubs whose interests have been compromised and intensified the pressure on the work of the league administration, including the league referees. In this case, the CFA and professional league management actually have similar ideas. According to a Beijing Youth Daily reporter, "foreign sentinels" may reappear in the Chinese Super League after the Asian Games in Hangzhou.
After the start of the second phase of the CSL, there were controversial calls in some matches. For example, in the league's 16th round match between Nantong Zhiyun and Dalian Ren at home on July 12, a good goal by home team player Gui Hong was blown away due to a serious misjudgment by the second assistant referee on duty. For this reason, Fan Bing, an investor of Zhiyun Club, could not hide his dissatisfaction and strongly accused the CFA staff in the league working group the next day.
Although Fan Bing lost his cool and could not escape disciplinary punishment from the CFA, it has to be said that the referee's cheap technical error altered the outcome of the game and dealt a serious blow to the Nantong Zhiyun team's relegation bid as a Chinese Super League side.
Some insiders believe that there are several main reasons for the mistakes and errors made by the referees in the Chinese Super League: firstly, the referees' professional skills are not solid enough and their understanding of the rules is not thorough enough, which leads to errors in judgment during practice; secondly, although the referees can strictly enforce the rules of judging, they don't do enough to keep the judgment scale uniform. As a result, the judgment scale is not uniform in different matches and not uniform in the same match; the third reason is that after VAR (video assistant referee technology) completely interfered with the enforcement of the Chinese Super League, some referees supported the assistive technology for the reason
Take the case of Guihong's blown goal as an example. The video information shows that the second assistant referee on duty, Li Yingbin, was standing right on the center line at the moment Guihong started and could clearly capture the moment. Unfortunately, he still did not make a decisive and correct judgment. From this perspective, the VAR technology should not be primarily responsible for the misjudgment.
As a matter of fact, the CFA and the league management have consciously strengthened the supervision of the league referees and communication with the clubs while cracking down on all kinds of disciplinary violations caused by controversial decisions during the league in accordance with the rules. The league management had apologized to Nantong Zhiyun Club. The league referee management racked its brains to ensure the fairness of the selection process as much as possible.
However, it has to be said that it is unrealistic to completely eliminate the errors and omissions of the league's local referees in a realistic environment. Against the backdrop of the league's competition having entered a white-hot stage, rehiring good foreign referees to execute key CSL matches is undoubtedly a realistic way to alleviate the conflicts and relieve the pressure, which is more acceptable to all parties. It is understood that prior to this, the CFA and the league management had already discussed a similar plan, but due to many factors such as the environment and funding, there is no final conclusion yet.
It is worth noting that the new season of the Asian Champions League will begin in mid to late August this year. Not surprisingly, international referees Ma Ning, Fu Ming, Wang Di and Shen Yinhao, and international assistant referees Cao Yi, Shi Xiang, Zhou Fei and Zhang Jie will be selected to participate in the enforcement of the new season of the Asian Champions League. If these best Chinese referees go abroad to enforce the law, it will objectively bring more pressure on the selection of Chinese Super League referees. When local high quality referees are scarce, hiring foreign referees becomes an "emergency" means.
The Chinese Football Association (CFA) reportedly intends to invite foreign referees again for key battles in the final stage of the professional league after the Asian Games in Hangzhou. The exact plan needs to be further finalized by all parties.
