Is the referee corps too young? ‘Eredivisie is being used as a testing ground’

The Dutch referee corps came under a lot of fire last weekend after several questionable decisions. Young referees are thrown to the lions too quickly, or so it sounds.

Jan Willem van Dop, general manager of Go Ahead Eagles, announced in Studio Voetbal that he is completely done with the level of arbitration. “Today is the final straw for me.”

Former referee Mario van der Ende agrees with Van Dop and speaks of amateurism. “If you are active in professional football you can expect professionalism and quality. Now the Premier League is being used as a testing ground.”

Van Dop’s main criticism: the referees are too young and inexperienced. “We have a very large group of referees in the Netherlands. The top referees are currently not getting their number of matches, because that group is too large. You are not going to hire someone from the younger generation, are you? It seems as if we are a kind of training institute. are.”

According to Van Dop, it was already the third time this season that his club was disadvantaged. Enric Llansana was sent off the field early in the match against FC Utrecht by referee Sander van der Eijk. “A scandalous display,” said technical manager Paul Bosvelt. Today the red card was dismissed by the professional football disciplinary committee.

Van Dop: “We were denied a penalty against Ajax, a goal was wrongly disallowed at Heerenveen and today the red card. I have also been in contact with the KNVB and then I am told: yes, debatable. That says enough to me. “

Marc Nagtegaal was the referee who did not punish Ajax player Davy Klaassen’s handball and Serdar Gözübüyük refereed the game against SC Heerenveen. Both, like Van der Eijk, are on the international list. Gözübüyük even belongs to the elite category.

Van der Ende, who has refereed more than 600 matches in Dutch professional football, sees that many referees have too little basis.

“I completely agree with those incidents that Van Dop mentions. If you are active in professional football you can expect professionalism and quality. Now the Premier League is being used as a testing ground. The words of Bosvelt and Van Dop may not be useful , but I can understand it well.”

Should Dutch clubs indeed rely on young and inexperienced referees? It is difficult to give a clear answer to that. We can look at figures to get an impression.

Starting with the criticized referee Van der Eijk. He made his debut as a referee in the Premier League in 2019 and has since refereed 69 matches at the highest level. He also refereed 105 matches in the first division and was in charge of several European matches.

Then the age of the referees. This season it is around 37 years old. The eldest is Bas Nijhuis (47 years old) and the youngest Jannick van der Laan (29 years old). If we compare this with the 2004/2005 season, we see that the average age was higher twenty years ago: around 41 years.

According to Van der Ende, young referees come to referee at a high level far too quickly and this is reflected in the quality of the arbitration.

“In those four years you can easily referee 150 matches. It is better if you first stand with your feet in the mud for a few years. Now they have just lost their baby teeth and they are already refereeing in the first division. Twenty years ago you had a little more characters among the referees.”

It does not appear that the group of Premier League referees is larger than before. This season, twenty different referees came into action in the first sixteen rounds. For comparison: in 2004/2005 there were also twenty, but over the entire season.

And then the question is whether the top referees spend less time on the field to give other referees the opportunity.

Danny Makkelie, Gözübüyük, Joey Kooij, Allard Lindhout and Van der Eijk are the Dutch referees who refereed in the main tournament of the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League this season. They are also assigned most of the Premier League matches, together with the two oldest referees: Bas Nijhuis and Jeroen Manschot.

What would be a solution, according to Van der Ende? “Nowadays you have to start refereeing seriously no later than the age of 23 or 24 if you want to have an international career. It would be good if referees could still join at a later age.”