The Saudi Arabia football federation has approached leading English Premier League referees including Michael Oliver as well as Szymon Marciniak, who took charge of the World Cup final last December, about the prospect of transferring to work in the new Saudi Pro League.
Approaches thus far are understood to be informal although there is ambition on the Saudi side to appoint the world’s best officials in the same way that they have gone after the game’s best players in their remarkable acquisition spree over the course of this year.
In charge of the recruitment is the former Fifa official, Manuel Navarro, a Swiss national who worked in the world governing body’s referee department for eight years until he moved to the Saudi federation in July 2020. Now the chairman of the SAFF referee association, Navarro was first brought in to bring Saudi officials up to scratch – but the league’s ambitions have raced ahead.
The question of contracts and salaries has not yet been discussed but the Premier League is well aware that it now faces the possibility of attractive offers to some of its leading officials. The referee’s organisation PGMOL, co-owned by the Premier League, the Football League and the Football Association, has permitted its officials to freelance in big games in the Middle East if requested.
Oliver took charge of a Saudi Pro League game between Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal in April and was back in the United Arab Emirates this week taking charge of a league game between Sharjah and Al-Ain. He was accompanied by an English team of officials. That trip was signed off by Howard Webb, the PGMOL chief refereeing officer, who himself worked as referees’ director for the SAFF for two years until 2017.
Meanwhile, the independent panel of former players and managers convened by the Premier League to judge referee performance has ruled that Darren England was wrong not to change his decision to penalise Crystal Palace’s Chris Richards for his tackle on Ollie Watkins this month. The KMI Panel was created by the Premier League to stand in judgement on PGMOL officials, with former England internationals including Rob Green and Karen Carney serving upon it.
The Aston Villa forward Watkins was awarded a penalty by England at Villa Park on Sept 16 for the challenge by Richards. The Var sent England to the monitor to review the decision and after five minutes pondering the footage he stayed with his original decision. The panel voted 4-1 that he should have changed. The panel also voted 3-2 that Sander Berge’s handball that resulted in a winning Burnley goal being disallowed against Nottingham Forest, should have been overturned and the goal allowed to stand.
Unfortunately for England he was the Var on duty that day supporting referee Robert Jones. The panel did, however, judge that the correct decision was reached by referee and Var review to award Luton Town a penalty for the handball by Joao Pedro in the draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
