The Spanish Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) is outside the Spanish professional league, under the umbrella of the Spanish Football Federation. It is the way to give it independence and avoid pressure from the clubs. However, that does not mean that it is not the Professional Football League that is responsible for the amounts to be paid to all referees, assistants, fourth officials, VAR, AVAR and observers of professional football in the First and Second division. This is included in an agreement between the presidents of the League itself and the RFEF signed on 9 August 2018, which is valid until the end of the 2022-2023 season. This season, professional football will pay around 17,434,920.6 million euros for refereeing activities. This only affects referees, assistants, fourth officials and observers in both categories. To this amount it should be added what each referee who acts as VAR or AVAR receives in a league match. In the case of Primera, it is around 2,000 euros as VAR and 850 as AVAR. This season, only the international referees and the specific VAR group, made up of four former referees, act as VAR in First Division matches. The rest of the members perform work as AVAR. A specific VAR receives a fixed salary of around 57,500 euros per year spread over ten monthly payments. In the Second Division, each VMO receives around 900 euros as VAR and 400 as AVAR. In addition, the agreement includes that the League assumes the expenses of the stays and trips of the referees to the matches, situation that supposes annual expenses of more than three million euros. Added to all this are other items such as training courses (close to 700,000 euros), improvements and maintenance of the VAR structure and support (a little more than 100,000 euros per year) and a working capital for the referee establishment (a little more of 150,000 euros). It is also the employer who bears the expenses derived from the contribution to the Social Security Regime of the referee establishment and that is estimated at around 1,950,000 euros per season.
All these amounts are reflected in the annual contract that each member of the refereeing group has signed with the RFEF. It is a professional contract of only one year duration and that has just been renewed last September in its second season. Before that, they issued invoices for their referee services. It will be next June 30 when it ends and when the CTA decides who will renew it for the next season. The contract states that the worker (in this case referee, assistant, etc.) receives a fixed annual gross amount plus match fees. The fixed amount is around 115,000 euros gross per year and is divided into ten payments (11,500 euros per month). The match fees are more than 4,000 euros for each match refereed in the First Division and around 2,000 in the Second Division. Taking into account that they usually do an average of two matches a month, this means 8,000 euros more for a referee of the highest category and half in the second division. When they act as VAR or AVAR, international referees, who are the ones who now perform this function, receive around 2,100 euros per game as VAR and close to 1,000 when it comes to AVAR. Adding up all the amounts, right now a Spanish international referee receives around 23,500 euros per month, which means a total of 235,000 euros per year for refereeing in the Spanish league. In the case of non-international referees, this amount is reduced to around 215,000 because this season they do not act as VARs, but only perform AVAR functions. In the second division, a referee makes an average of 175,000 euros per year. The amounts they receive as per diem or travel to matches are not included here.
The same contract includes specific actions of the members of the refereeing group. Thus, for example, the annual working day of any referee must be 1,792 hours spread over 12 hours per week of fitness work plus 4 hours for the analysis of their performance. They must have a day and a half of rest and have the right of 30 vacation days per year. It even goes as far as to set how the training sessions should be scheduled, which must also later be uploaded to a platform on a daily basis. They are required to pass a series of fitness tests during the season. Not passing them implies stopping refereeing until they succeed and, in case of repeating it for the second time, it can be a reason for exclusion from the professional referee group. Professional Spanish referees are dedicated exclusively to refereeing starting from the 2021-2022 season.
Source: The Objective
