On October 15, a meeting was held with UPL clubs regarding the arbitration system in the elite division of the Ukrainian Championship.
Work in this direction started at the end of January 2025 after a joint meeting of UAF leadership and the UAF Referees Committee with the Ukrainian Premier League clubs. In May, at a working meeting, UAF representatives supported the UPL clubs' proposal for reforms and borrowing advanced international experience. In July, a Ukrainian delegation, including representatives of the UAF, UPL, and UPL clubs, visited the headquarters of the German Football Union in Frankfurt am Main, where they held a fruitful meeting with Knut Kircher, one of the two heads of DFB Schiri GmbH, responsible for refereeing in Germany.
During this meeting, Germany’s experience in organizing arbitration of football club competitions was studied and discussed.
Upon hearing the information from their colleagues, UPL club representatives unanimously supported proposals for modernizing the football arbitration system in Ukraine on the following points:
- the creation of an organizational structure to deal with issues related to professional competition arbitration (potential founders — UAF, UPL, and PFL);
- sources of funding (to be further elaborated);
- scope of application — professional club competitions;
- the composition of the management body is formed by representatives of the founders;
- the quantitative composition of the management body (in agreement with UAF);
- the functions of the management body — strategic management of professional competition arbitration and reporting to the founders;
- operational management is carried out by the head with the approval of the management body according to its powers;
- the list of referees servicing competition matches is formed based on an annual assessment of the referee’s preparation and performance over the previous period;
- appointment of referees to matches is carried out by the management body taking into account criteria of professional training, physical condition, ratings, assessments, and experience;
- the founders agree on the list of referees before each round of competitions;
- increasing the public profile of referees (opportunity to comment on their decisions after matches, availability of audio recordings of conversations between referees and VAR assistants, etc.);
- introduction of the practice of referees announcing their decisions after VAR review over stadium loudspeakers on a trial basis, following the example of competitions held under FIFA’s aegis.
After discussing all points, the club representatives unanimously voted to adopt the document as a whole and forward it to the UAF for further elaboration and continuation of work in this direction.
