ZIFA Referees Committee chairman Norman Matemera has urged the Premier Soccer League and the association's leadership to arrange training workshops for coaches that could assist them in understanding the ever-evolving laws of the game.
The 2024 season may just be seven weeks old but match officials have already come under heavy attack mostly from the Premiership coaches.
The coaches have blamed questionable officiating for influencing match outcomes.
League returnees TelOne became the latest to register their displeasure with match officiating, via a threat to withdraw from the top-flight, which they lodged with the PSL on Monday.
This comes on the heels of bitter complaints by CAPS United coach Lloyd Chitembwe and Chicken Inn's Joey Antipas.
Despite getting a battering for some of their performances, the referees have received major backing from revered FIFA instructor Felix Tangawarima and their committee chairman Matemera.
Matemera, while acknowledging that match officials have erred in some instances, believes the bulk of the attacks being aimed at the referees is a result of ignorance on the part of the coaches.
The former CAF match official, speaking at the end of a high-level FIFA course for local match officials, during which they reviewed some video clips of match situations, noted the need to educate the men in the dugouts on the laws of the game.
"I desire that as we have witnessed in some of the challenging clips and law changes, the PSL with other stakeholders, ZIFA included, must come together, hold workshops where we invite teams, players, coaches, journalists so that we move together and we avoid skirmishes such as where a match is abandoned because an assistant referee has correctly made an offside decision.
"We need to come together as a football family and move in one direction," said Matemera.
He paid tribute to FIFA for prioritising Zimbabwe and allowing ZIFA to catch up with other associations in various aspects of the game.
"This past week we hosted FIFA instructors, that is technical instructor Felix Tangawarima and physical instructor Bento from Mozambique.
"They took our referees through the paces teaching them about modern-day refereeing, what is expected of us, and change of laws, which will be effected on 1 July," Matemera said.
"So, the referees were taught all those issues, how to move on the field of play, position, anticipation and these are the tools that will help them to manage a match so we appreciate what FIFA has done.
"After the referees, we then invited match commissioners, assessors, and instructors and we taught them what we had taught referees, what to expect from referees when they are officiating because match commissioners and assessors are the people, who mark the performance of referees on the field of play.
"Since we are coming from Covid-19 and then the suspension by FIFA, is giving us priority so that we can catch up with other nations in terms of refereeing and that is why we are the first in Africa right now to have a FIFA course this year.
"Even the clips that we are using, we are the first to know about the new trends, video clips that are going to be used to teach other nations, we are the first to use them so this year we are a step ahead, hopefully, this will be transferred onto the field of play when we officiate our matches."
The referees' body, Matemera added, is concerned about the lack of appreciation by some clubs of the role of match commissioners and assessors.
"We also appreciate that our stakeholders, that is the clubs, some players, coaches, and supporters, they don't know the duties of a match commissioner and an assessor on a match day.
"Those are the people who represent the competition organiser that is the PSL, those are the people who will monitor the performance of referees".
The national game lost opportunities during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic and Zimbabwe's suspension from international football by FIFA which followed in February 2022.
Since the lifting of the FIFA suspension, the referee committee has arranged several courses to capacitate the local officials so that they are up to speed with the global trends.
Law changes
Matemera spoke about the impending changes to the laws of the game, which he believes coaches and players would need to quickly understand.
"Just to give an example, the handball law is one of those to be amended.
"Handball is very difficult to interpret. It is not only about the hand and the ball coming into contact.
"There are a lot of considerations that we look at and we want to distinguish between deliberate handball and handball which is punishable.
"By deliberate handball, we are saying the player moved his hands to the ball, in other words, we are saying the player is cheating, if you remember the Louis Suarez handball at the World Cup 2010 against Ghana, that is typical of a deliberate handball, when one of you is denying a goal, it is a penalty and a red card.
"Then there also a handball where the player made his body unnaturally bigger but the ball came to him when he challenged the ball, we say yes, he handled the ball yes, he prevented a goal but he is not cheating, the ball came to the hand which had made the body unnaturally bigger so we say it a punishable handball which is different from deliberate handball and cheating so it is a penalty kick and a yellow card.
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"There is a change in challenges, it has become very tricky, In some situations you see a player being challenged even to the extent of breaking his leg and we, referees say it is a normal football challenge, so we need coaches and players to understand some of the changes so that they do not just complain that referees are biased".
Tangawarima, who rallied the referees to maintain high ethical conduct in the discharge of their duties added that the course was aimed at updating the referees and their match commissioners on the new trends in the game.
"You will find that 80 percent of our program was on the field of play simply because it is on the field of play where we have errors which have an input on the game. "If a mistake is made on the theory in class, it has no impact on the outcome of the game, so because of that, we had to take time on the field of play.
"We were also emphasising that referees now need to understand the styles of the team, formations, and tact cl approach as this determines how the referee is going to move on the field.
"I must say we have a wonderful generation of young referees who are coming up and it's just a matter of time before they reach the highest levels we want them to reach," Tangawarima said.
