The last day of the Pro League of 2025 was once again eventful for the refereeing. From disallowed goals to penalties to red cards, the call for greater clarity and consistency is being heard louder than ever.
Whether it was the penalty not whistled for Genk against Club Brugge or the goal strangely denied to the RAAL for a hand fault by Joël Ito against Louvain, the last matches of the year gave fodder to the refereeing controversies.
Questioned on the subject, the former coach of the Diablotins Jacky Mathijssen has one piece of advice, especially for VAR: “Stop evaluating phases based on heavily slowed down or stopped images,” he suggests in The Importance of Limburg. “It gives a distorted picture of reality. VAR should only bother a referee if he is 100% certain that he made a mistake or didn’t see something.”
Optimize automation, also among referees?
VAR is not supposed to intervene in gray areas, only for obvious errors. But there is still a lack of consistency: “In this respect, fixed referee teams could also be an improvement. Associate each referee with a fixed VAR and evaluate them as a team.”
“They would then depend on each other and the will to prove themselves from Tubize would be limited. If they make a mistake, they would at least make a mistake together. Because currently, we no longer know who is doing what wrong,” continues Mathijssen.
The current director of the Wydad Casablanca training center wants to see a rethinking: “It is in any case time that Belgian refereeing, as a collective, looks in the mirror and makes its mea culpa. This must improve.”
