The Ligue 1 college, representing elite clubs on the board of directors of the Professional Football League, meeting Thursday in Paris, “wished to reaffirm the need for permanent dialogue between clubs and those responsible for the French arbitration which is currently going through a crisis.
The president of the college and the Stade de Reims, Jean-Pierre Caillot, first “highlighted the complexity of the organization of arbitration in France”. Several club presidents then recalled that there was “no desire on their part to interfere with the refereeing world, whose independence they respect is essential to the integrity of competitions”. But they still stressed that they “could only note that the organization put in place by the FFF and the CFA (federal arbitration commission, Editor’s note) was inefficient, particularly due to existing personal conflicts. between its two main leaders.
This “shaky” organization, continues the League in its press release, has “negative consequences on the performance of the refereeing teams, and therefore on the management of matches”. The Ligue 1 college thus expressed the need to set up (…) a liaison committee comprising the leaders of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 and those responsible for refereeing from the French Federation (FFF).
The objective, argues the college, “will be to allow the parties to better coordinate on the technical guidelines put in place but also to better understand the decisions taken on the matches in order to promote the professional championships”.