Romania gets tough on referees

The Romanian Football Federation (FRF) has approved tough new measures to ensure consistent refereeing and they will be in force for the restart of the Divizia A season on Saturday.

Clear distinction needed

Automatic expulsion

'Necessary measures'
"For me, things are clear," RFF president Mircea Sandu said. "We shall have to finish what we started at the end of the previous year when a lot of young referees were promoted to the first division. Unfortunately, there were a lot of mistakes and that's why, in order that Romanian football should have credibility, we shall have to take the necessary measures, even if these are very tough.

'We shall have no mercy'
"Eighty per cent of refereeing mistakes are human mistakes. We are all human and we all make mistakes but then there is the other 20 per cent. And if we find that these mistakes are influenced by outside interests, we shall have no mercy. We made this code of conduct to discourage dishonest referees. A referee who makes human mistakes must not be afraid. What we want is to stop corruption."

Referees' consent
The Romanian referees body has given its consent to the new measures, although there were concerns that the new rules may put additional pressure on officials called upon to control the most important Romanian first division games. The new code of conduct will officially come into operation on 9 March when Romanian football returns from its winter break.