Blatter for professional referees

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has called on national associations to back his proposals for professional referees in order to prevent further corruption scandals. Blatter said he was confident the sport would recover from German referee Robert Hoyzer's admission that he accepted money from gamblers to fix games. "I was really sad when I first heard about this matter, but when scandals like these break there is always a positive echo," Blatter told Reuters. "The positive echo in this case is that we now know that it has happened and that we know how to go forward, how to better protect referees and how to make sure that this doesn't happen again." Blatter said it was now up to the individual associations and leagues to respond to the governing body's plea. "The idea of professional referees is one that has long been proposed by FIFA's refereeing committee, technical committee and football committee," he declared. With public prosecutors in Germany still investigating Hoyzer and several other referees implicated in the scandal, Blatter said that FIFA would wait before putting forward any concrete proposals. "If this was only a sporting matter, then we would expect to be at the head of the table but when there are public prosecutors and legal bodies involved then of course we cannot intervene."

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