The National Football Federation of Guatemala launched An answer to the crisis that Guatemalan arbitration lives with the publication of an agreement where a new modality is established to make the appointments of referees for the final phases of all the leagues of the country.
The act where the measure was made official, dated February 17, 2025 dictates that:
“The designation of referee and semifinal and final assistants of the different leagues tournaments will be made by The draw procedure which will be as follows“
- It will be public for which the representatives of the clubs classified to these phases, presidents of the leagues or in their case will be invited to the managers in writing and media for live coverage.
- It will be held at the headquarters of the Department of Arbitration 48 hours before the day you try.
- The referees and assistants will participate in the number that corresponds that at the time they have the best qualification of their performance in accordance with the ranking established in article 33, numeral 6 regulations of the referee commission.
What do these measures mean? Free press He consulted with the ex -arter and now arbitral performance analyst, Jonathan Polanco, about the meaning of this new modality to determine the appointments of the final phases and determined the following:
“The procedure to make arbitral appointments is carried out by the referee commission. In the National Federation there are two arbitration entities, there is the referee department where there are salaried persons, they are workers of the Federation who are responsible for the formation and correction of the arbitrators. They issue a statement to the commission when an arbitrator makes mistakes for the commission to sanction them, the arbitration commission is made by ex -art. They perform their ad honorem functions, “he explains.
“The referee department sends them a list and say ‘Look, such referees can’t go out for these errors‘, then the commission sanctions them and does not name them, only sees the list of referees enabled to make appointments. Here in Guatemala, unfortunately who is currently appointments is only José Luis Camargo and Carlos Fuentes, who are from the Department of Referees, that is, they are not respecting due process, “he says.
What Fedefut seeks with this new agreement according to Polanco’s words is that the referees commission meets before the certain dates and Make appointments publicly, thus being more transparent tanco with the teamsas before the League.
“The Federation is doing it as a palliative measure to the pressure that it currently has for the rugged theme of how they are making appointments, that is, the crisis has already passed at an administrative level,”
“The modality of making appointments is already in the statutes of the FIFA, that is, the Department of Referees and the Referees Commission, that is already within the statutes each federation has to adhere,” he says.