Odesa-based Chornomorets has issued an official statement on the situation with refereeing in the Ukrainian championship.
"FC Chornomorets: the refereeing system in Ukrainian football must be reformed immediately!
FC Chornomorets has never been one of the sports teams that blames the whole world for its unsatisfactory results at every opportunity. But the time has come to face the truth: the system of football refereeing in Ukraine does not stand up to any criticism. Of course, this became clear neither today nor yesterday. However, there must be a limit to everything. Over the past few months, the club has been accumulating unanswered questions. We understand that the issues of awarding a penalty to us for breaking the rules one metre from the penalty area, not awarding a penalty to the opponent when the score was tied, and the removal of an important player for a non-existent foul on the eve of a game against the leader are, as they say, already overplayed. They missed and forgot. But we really want to find answers to more global questions.
- What is the principle by which we appoint referees for a particular match?
- why does our VAR system still not cover all the matches of the tour that are played over three days?
- how are VAR referees appointed and trained - sometimes it seems that there are worlds of years between our VAR and the European one
- when will our referees start talking? There are resultant mistakes in every round. Who is responsible for them and how?
If the leadership of the judiciary has at least the answers to these questions, then the reform of judicial cleansing and global retraining of referees can begin. And there should be no doubt that it should be launched. Gentlemen referees, look at your colleagues from Poland and Romania, who officiate at the Champions League and World Cup. Aren't you tired of being the "heroes" of the same journalistic materials? Just think about it - if our refereeing team just did a good job, it's already an event of the tour! It's a shame, it's a shame.
It's even more unfortunate that this is happening during a full-scale war. We play football because of our defenders. We also play for their emotions - we know what we're talking about, remember the Kryvbas vs Chornomorets match in April. We have to play football and find out who is stronger based on the sporting component alone. It should always be like that. Especially in this difficult and crucial time for the country.
We invite all UPL clubs to join forces for the sake of transparent and fair refereeing principles," reads the statement posted on Chornomorets' official telegram channel.
