Mistakes that are continuing to be made by referees have seen South Africa Football Association (SAFA) speeding up the process to have Video Assistant Referees (VAR) installed.
According to iDiski Times sources, SAFA have written to CAF and FIFA to look for better expertise to train all match officials to be well equipped to use the technology.
The benefit from SAFA here is that newly appointed chairman of referees Victor Gomes was granted the license certificate of knowing how to use technology and Jerome Damon is also well versed of the technology, as is part of CAF instructors for VAR, and all can teach match officials.
The PSL, this season, has been mired by the bad calls, especially this past weekend when AmaZulu was denied a clear goal against Royal AM at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday.
It was a bad decision by referee Luxolo Badi, the reigning Referee of the Season, and his second assistant team Simukele Jali, leading to AmaZulu president Sandile Zungu to blast referees and lodging an official complaint.
SAFA head of referees Abdul Ebrahim said the association might take action against both officials, if it is proven they erred but he’s just waiting on the advisory of his technical committee that oversees all referees’ performances over the weekend and sits on Mondays and Thursdays after matches.
“We now have to check on the viability and the decision must be made around whether we are going to use the centralised system [have a technical centre], whether we are going to have VAR installed at the stadiums,” added the source.
“CAF set the ball rolling and they will want to know from us who the project leaders are, who the project team is with regards to VAR in South Africa.
“As you know, we have top highly skilled, highly trained VAR personnel. We have Jerome Damon, we have our chairman now of the referees – Victor Gomes, who has an extensive training of VAR, he has a VAR license.
“We have the personnel, it’s just a matter of putting our ducks in the row with the assistant of CAF and FIFA and then we can set the ball rolling.”
SAFA president Danny Jordaan, with referees falling under his auspices, said late last year in Durban that there is huge possibility to have VAR used in the PSL as of next season, but a few things needed to be cleared before that happens.
