According to Marca, Fran Soto, president of the Spanish Referee Technical Committee, spoke on COPE radio about the lack of Spanish referees at the World Cup and introduced several new rules that will be implemented in the new season.
Fran Soto, president of the Spanish Referees Technical Committee (CTA), reviewed the current state of the Spanish refereeing community on the COPE radio program "El Partidazo de COPE," revealing several key pieces of information, especially regarding changes for next season. One of the most anticipated announcements by fans is that the water break, which garnered significant attention during the World Cup, will not be implemented in La Liga. Soto explained that this measure will only be activated when the temperature exceeds 32 degrees Celsius, thus ensuring that the vast majority of matches will not be interrupted. He also explicitly ruled out the 28-minute break seen in the World Cup final. With a touch of joking, Soto added that Spanish football will remain more "romantic," continuing with the traditional 15-minute halftime break.
Another major focus of the interview was the CTA's dissatisfaction with FIFA. The reason was the extremely low presence of Spanish referees at the World Cup; only Hernandez Hernandez officiated matches throughout the entire tournament. Soto described this result as "very negative" and admitted that the refereeing system was both surprised and somewhat annoyed. He emphasized that the level of Spanish referees did not match the limited number of participants, and also mentioned the good performance of Hernandez Hernandez and assistant referee Alejandro in the Brazil vs. Haiti match, which made it untenable to explain the situation solely from a competitive standpoint.
The Negreira case has been brought up again.
When asked if the Negrera case might have influenced FIFA's decision, Soto did not rule out the possibility, but admitted he didn't know the real reason. He stated that if the selection of Spanish referees truly lacked any objective standards at the refereeing level, it could only mean there were off-field factors at play. Soto emphasized that referees were among the groups most affected by the Negrera case and confirmed that the CTA was waiting to arrange a face-to-face meeting with FIFA officials to formally request an explanation, rather than communicating through letters or written statements.
rule
Looking ahead to the upcoming season, the CTA president revealed several new rules, all stemming from those first piloted at the World Cup. These include shortening dead ball time: substituted players must leave the field within 10 seconds, otherwise the next substitution will be delayed by an extra minute; a review of the second yellow card ruling process; and the use of match balls with built-in microchips to automatically select the most accurate frame in offside calls. Speaking about this technology, Soto cautioned against oversight. He said that while the technology can solve the automatic frame selection problem, it doesn't eliminate other technical glitches, such as errors in the player tracking system. Last season, Atletico Madrid had to manually draw lines during their Copa del Rey match against Barcelona due to this issue.
Despite the disappointing results at the World Cup, Soto still gave a high evaluation of his first year in charge of the CTA. He specifically mentioned the performance in the final stages of La Liga and Segunda División last season, believing that the promotion playoffs were clean and efficient, with no VAR intervention, making it a smooth process. He was even more proud that four referees were promoted from Segunda División to La Liga in one season, which is extremely rare in history. At the end of the interview, the chairman of the Referees' Committee called on referees, clubs, and fans to understand each other in the new season, and given the inherent difficulty of the profession, he hoped for more tolerance from the outside world.
