the team captains will be the only ones able to address the referee

UEFA announced on Tuesday, only team captains will have the right to address the referee during Euro 2024 matches.

The men and women in black, but especially the men as there are still few women in the profession, only 1,000 for 20,000 men, are preparing to experience a revolution. As announced on Tuesday May 14, UEFA, from Euro 2024 which will take place in Germany this summer, only team captains will be authorized to come and speak with the referees.

It is to them, and only to them, that they will have to explain their decisions. The vehement gatherings of players not controlling their emotions will therefore be over. The objective is for referees to better explain their decisions, because it is sometimes difficult to explain between 200 and 250 decisions per match when 22 players surround, and put pressure on a referee to make him change his mind. The players insult, threaten, push and sometimes lynch the referees, so that a hand becomes a foot, a tripped foot a fall, or an elbow a caress.

When football appeared in the mid-19th century, referees did not exist. The players, supposedly fair play, refereed their own matches. But the hypothesis of fair play ultimately proved to be quite uncertain, and very quickly the first masters of the laws of the game emerged.

The brutality of those who contest them was already reported in articles from the 1930s, when, as a whistle to signal decisions, referees waved a white handkerchief. However, it was not until 2006 that a law made them official representatives of public authority, which can be costly to tackle: up to five years of imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros. .

It remains to be seen what the new UEFA rules will change. Some will undoubtedly regret the noisy protest as it has always seemed to be part of the game, and the singular joy that sometimes arises from the spectacle of protest and revolt. But undoubtedly it is wiser to suppress all those voices which try, through pressure, to prevent the arbitrators from deciding for themselves, that is to say, to harm, if it exists at all, the free -arbitrator.