The change only has one last procedure left so that it can take effect from the beginning of the next season, 2020-2021, as was the intention of the Referees Committee and the RFEF. The RFEF Delegate Commission recently approved this historic change in the employment relationship of the Spanish referees. Now there is only the last step that passes through the approval of the CSD Board of Directors for its implementation. Something that could occur in the coming weeks, except for the setbacks due to the coronavirus, at the same meeting where the electoral process will be approved in the Ciudad del Fútbol de las Rozas.
As a consequence of this change, all professional football referees and assistants will leave the current situation, where they were in an administrative relationship regime, to move to the Social Security regime to which the majority of employees who work for a company are subject. It is a status for which the referees of Spanish football have been fighting for many years and which will finally see the light of day next season. This historic step has been possible following many months of conversations between the Spanish Federation and the Ministry of Labor. The new agreement will only apply to professional referees and it will not be applicable to the rest of the referees in other categories (Second Division, Third Division, etc.). This new scenario will have an immediate impact according to the professional referees’ remuneration agreement signed by the League and the RFEF in August 2018 and in force for five years, with respect to the Social Security that was totally frozen. Once the legislation will enter into force, the referee group will receive the 1,900,000 euros agreed in this agreement and destined to cover precisely these payments for the 2019-2020 and the previous season. In addition, the Commission adopted another change that affects Spanish referees and it has to do with the age of the referees. The RFEF also wants to remove the age limit set at 45 and thus join the FIFA standard that already eliminated it in October 2015. In this way, the decision would be in the hands of the Referees Committee (CTA) at the end of each season, as it happens in the English Premier League. In Portugal, for example, the limit is 48 years, but after 45 you must meet certain requirements to be able to keep on blowing the whistle. In Germany, the limit is 47 years and in Italy, although it is 45, exceptions are established for those who are in certain conditions.
Source: Time24News
