It’s Not You, It’s The Referee: Just Another Day In Turkey

7th Week of Spor Toto Super League is over, and the media and football fans were talking about the same thing as always. It was “referee decisions”. For as long as I have known myself, Turkish football have been discussing referees. Every club’s fan thinks that the referees are against them oddly enough. This article is on a little bit agenda and a little bit suggestion.

The Week Started Nervously and Finished Nervously

The first match of the week was between Akhisarspor and Fenerbahce. The Yellow Canaries, finding the morale of Besiktas win, got a severe blow against Akhisarspor. The home team Akhisar defeated Fenerbahce with 1-0. What was talked after the match was 2 red cards shown Fenerbahce. Alper Potuk and Miguel Lopes came across and Alper’s leg was high according to the referee, Bülent Yildirim, and consequently, Alper was shown red card. Honestly, if you watch the game, you can see Miguel’s leg was high too.

And on Sunday, Besiktas and Trabzonspor played in Besiktas Vodafone Park. As Besiktas defeated RB Leipzig in Champions League, they were in high spirits. Although home-team Besiktas got ahead twice against the away team, the scoreboard was showing 2-2 draw at the end of the game. Tension increased at the end between Gokhan Gonul and Juraj Kucka. The tension of the match reflected itself after the final whistle. However, there was a position which was discussed by football commentators. Anderson Talisca kicked Joao Pereira’s tibia like shooting the ball. The referee Firat Aydinus showed neither a red card nor a yellow card.

Strong Opposition But Resistance To The Change

For about a year, video-referee has been being discussed. There are generally two views. First one is opposition against video-referee because people on this side think that football is a human game and mistakes are something human. That’s why mistakes make football better. If video referee comes into the game, football would become monotonous. For example, we cannot have seen “Hand of God” if video referee existed. This side approaches more romantic and emotional. The other side thinks that football business has been tremendously increasing. Money, an immense amount of money joined the game. Clubs, investors, sponsors cannot risk that money because of a referee’s mistake. This side has a more realistic approach.

Not A Dream

In my opinion, the world is changing in terms of technology and science. Artificial Intelligence has been spreading more than ever. Football business cannot keep quiet about it. We can start the change with referees. I am not talking about video referee, I want referees to become artificial intelligence, in other words, robots. Football cannot remain untouched because nothing remained like former.