AIFF President Mr. Kalyan Chaubey recently met with the FIFA referee chief Pierluigi Collina during the FIFA World Congress 2024 in Thailand. Where he invited Mr. Collina to India for Refereeing Workshop with AIFF’s Elite Panel of Referees.
Standard of Refereeing in India
Often Indian football & ISL gets negative popularity due to the refereeing blunders in ISL & I-League. Also fans lose interest due to it happening frequently & feel no point to watch the matches. Though bad refereeing is the universal problem at the moment with the countries having the best referees & technologies like VAR. But Indian Referees are far from that top level.
How will Pierluigi Collina’s India visit make a difference?
FIFA referee chief Pierluigi Collina during his refereeing days counted as one of the best referee in the world & he officiated some of the most prestigious & high profile matches like FIFA World Cup Final & UEFA Champions League Final. So during these two days of work-shop he can share his invaluable experience of how to officiate matches during high pressure games.
What is the solution to improve the refereeing standard?
It will not happen overnight or in one or two years. It will take a few years if AIFF plans one developmental program & executes it properly. Also they need to organise these kinds of workshops for Indian referees regularly & try to give them exposure. At the moment AIFF has only 18 referees in the Elite Panel. Need to increase that number much more.
