BUT WHO WANTS TO BE ARBITRO (REFEREE)?

BUT WHO WANTS TO BE ARBITRO?

Who wants to be a ref?

It will never happen that a Referee leaves a stadium, despite having  directed  the game perfectly, among audience applause. No one will ever enhance the Referee like a great champion.

No, there will never be an applause from the curve nor will there ever be a reporter who gets emotional talking about his deeds. His name will never be on the front page of the newspapers to exalt their deeds in a positive way, he will never be the positive protagonist of a television broadcast. Only one thing in the world is clear, the referee is the human being most often reminded of his own mother. So who wants to be a Referee?

For decades children and children around the  world have dreamed of being like Di Stefano, Cruyff, Pele, Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo or Falcao. No one has ever seen a kid walk into a suburban camp, dressed all in black, and say; "My dream is to be Romualdo Fiho, Pierluigi Collina, Javier Castrilli, Mateu Lahoz or Nestor Pitana."

Dribbling, throws, champion plays…. The ball makes people all over the world fall in love but even for this reason it's only fair to ask who wants to be a referee? What is fascinating about this role? Who admires the Refs? Who respects them? There are many more in the world who hate them, insult, beat them, and in Colombia, years ago, they  even killed one. Ortega, his name was.

Of course, famous referees also exist, you have to say it. Even though almost always if he's  a referee he gets famous and his name resonates in houses,bars, offices and streets it's not why people are complimenting each other.

Poor refs, they're always villainous, never heroes.

Do you remember how the Germans wanted to shoot Swiss Dienst after he allowed  Geoff Hurst's goal in the 1966 World Cup final?

Or the English, when Jorge Larrionda denied Frank Lampard which was perhaps the best goal of his life? The year 2010.

Still, always the English, when Ali Bennaceur didn't see the  "hands of Dios" that violated Peter Shilton's door in 1986, and doesn't matter if Maeadona scored another goal, one of  the most beautiful in the history.

The bad guy, the like today, was always the referee.

Today being insulted is Nistor Pitana, after Brazil's goal against Colombia in Copa America, and it doesn't matter if' by hand' the Argentine whistle was right, the bad guy is always the referee.

So ungrateful is the life of the "man in the  black" that not even VAR, born to help them, protects them from thethe criticism. Actually, it is used as an excuse to humiliate them. "Well, on the pitch they're wrong, and even on the monitor!" you hear it, and the bad guy is , I don't even say, always the referee.

The whole world  forgets that the referee is just a human being, a person  who, in less than a second, has to decree the happiness or sadness of a balloon-sick population.

Does everyone who insults and vilifies him today know it?

Nestor Pitana's wife Romina Ortega received phone threats after the Copa America game;

Michael Oliver, the English referee, had to change home after the famous match between Real Madrid and Juventus.

Today more than them I wonder, but who wants to be a referee?