Big move! Ass: Spanish Football Association may fire senior officials of the referee technical committee at the end of this month

According to Le Aas, the Spanish Football Association (RFEF) is preparing to change the top leadership of the referee Technical Committee (CTA) between the 23rd and 29th of this month.

Sources said: "Raphael Luzan realizes that the CTA needs to undergo deep reforms and will be implemented by the end of this month." Along with Medina Cantalejo, VAR head Clos Gomez, and other key members of the current committee such as Urndiano Marienko, Lesma Lopez and Euste Jimenez. Sevilla Cantalejo is almost the "last person" of Rubiales in RFEF. This should not be a reason for his dismissal, but the whirlpool of controversy that the CTA has fallen into this season, and endless repeated arguments, and what Luzan wants to see the least is chaos.

The new chairman of the Football Association will also change the CTA structure and transform from a chairmanship system to a system guided by the operating model of the Premier League and Bundesliga referees. In England, referees are managed by PGMOL, an independent body funded by the Premier League, EFL and the FA, providing training, development and coaching services to 117 referees and assistants. The referee committee was established in 2001 and chaired by Howard Webber. Each Premier League match is evaluated by a former referee and each penalty is reviewed. The German system is similar.

However, the reform of the CTA is not easy, as few people are willing to replace Cantalejo, who has held the position since December 2021. RFEF misses Carlos Velasco Carvalho's job, who left because of a disagreement with Rubiales and is now head of VAR at UEFA. Velasco is an engineer and one of the founders of video referee technology, but he has no intention of leaving his position in Europe, and despite living in Madrid, he will not accept combining his work with FIFA and UEFA with the responsibility of the CTA. Velasco created the slogan "VAR is only used for important things", but this principle has long been ignored in La Liga.

There are other candidates to fill the spots in Cantalejo that are about to be vacant. The list includes Matteu Laos, who has not received much support among his colleagues; Gonzalez Vazquez, who appointed him as referee chief in 2015, and the two have a close relationship; and Velasco's right-hand man, the front referee Alsson Fernandez, who has two years of referee experience in Greece. Fernandez Borbaran is also on the shortlist and is currently in charge of referees in Bulgaria.

In any case, the new CTA president will no longer have the powers enjoyed by his predecessors, who have been the real leaders of the referee circle for half a century, and have been the case since Pablo Porta served as the RFEF president.