Kevin Galvin (@kjgalvin93)

One of the common themes running throughout this Indian Super League season has been the shoddy standard of officiating, directly affecting many of the games thus far, and causing some supporters to go as far as venting their frustration to the hierarchy of officiating in this country.

The fledgling competition is now worth big money, with Hero paying approximately $25 million for title sponsorship rights at the beginning of last year, and domestic players’ salaries growing by over 103% in its first three seasons – Bengaluru for example paying almost $2.5 million on their squad in Season 4 – every result has a huge financial ramifications.

In its fledgling years the ISL was unofficial, but now having been accepted by the AFC, and success earning passage into continental competition, the league still has an ‘official’ problem.

Since this season began one can point to any number of major errors by referees that have had a massive impact in games – take this eight-day old month alone, with the debacle between Kerala and Pune and the phantom reversed goal by Thakur, or Ramchandra Venkatesh giving controversial decisions the way of Bangalore twice in one week.

For an outsider looking in, this refereeing situation in a league which commands some of the highest attendances in the world is utter madness, and those involved in Indian football have rightly had enough with the substandard state of officiating spoiling an otherwise ambitious ISL project.

This isn’t the first time the league has been plagued with refereeing issues, with the association putting out a press release this time almost to-the-day almost two years ago, condemning the ‘unwanted criticism’ of referees, but is the latest wave undeserved?

This head-in-the-sand mentality will do little to serve the AIFF or indeed its members, clubs, players, and particularly referees, who should be receiving the highest level of training possible.

As strategic partners to the Indian Super League, the Premier League have a wealth of experiences and resources in this regard, with three PGMOL referee coaches (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) – Chris Foy, Alan Wiley, and Steve Dunn – all former Premier League referees who have big match experience behind them (Foy took charge of the 2010 FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Portsmouth).

The AIFF proudly announced the pre-season workshop held in Navi Mumbai for referees ahead of this season, but bizarrely while PGMOL Senior Match Observer Robert Shoebridge commented “All the teams start with a blank canvas”, the head of referees at the AIFF, Ravishankar Jayaraman, said the very point of the course was to “deal with the emotions of the players who are notorious for committing offences”.

Mr Jayraman has a lot more to answer for, particularly when it comes to the scheduling of referees, which brings us back to the Venkatesh examples.

On Halloween night, the Chennai-born referee awarded a dubious free-kick for Bengaluru against ATK, from which the Blues would score in a 2-1 win. The criticism that drew would make it difficult for any referee to officiate again five days later, nevermind take charge of an encounter involving the exact same team – a frankly mind-bogglingly inept piece of scheduling by the referees association which cheated the players, the fans, and Venkatesh himself.

In truth, the still-young referee should have been given a few days off to reflect on his mistakes and step out of the limelight, taking the game in Kochi as a fourth-official, but another terrible error handed Bengaluru another three points, and sees the 29-year-old now under intense scrutiny, let down by his own association, struggling for numbers to fill the gaps now that the ISL and I-League run concurrently.

Goan Uvena Fernandes seems to be something of a poster child for the referees association to show how progressive they are, but despite 38-year-old Fernandes’ vast experience at international level in major tournaments, she hasn’t been entrusted to officiate a single ISL game in her career.

There’s been suggestions in some quarters that the AIFF should hire in referees from the outside, but that is short-termism, and doesn’t fulfill the ISL’s mission to develop Indian football in its entirety.

However, referee exchange programmes have proven to be extremely successful in Europe and indeed Asia, with Japan regularly swapping referees in and out to great effect, improving the standard of refereeing in their own leagues, while offering home officials the opportunity to take the experience of officiating abroad – something Indian referees seldom have the chance to do – and apply it to better themselves at home.

One thing it seems will be finally done is the introduction of Video Assistant Referees to help men in the middle over the course of the game, a no-brainer in a league whose TV and stadium resources make it easy to facilitate, and in a country whose primary sport has already embraced television officiating.

Just ask David James, the Blasters head coach was against the introduction of VAR as lately as January of this year, but having seen “four matches in six where decisions haven’t gone our way” the former Liverpool goalkeeper has changed his opinion.

“If the standard of refereeing isn’t up to the standard of football, VAR in the elite league slows the game down. In the developing countries, it could help the referees.

“If you are trying to attract quality players, they want to be playing in quality leagues where quality (refereeing) decisions are taken.”

This is the crux of the matter. In an uncertain footballing climate the ISL – with all its cash – is forcing its way to the top of the Indian footballing pyramid, but with continuous substandard refereeing nobody will take it seriously, home or abroad.

Not the managers, not the players, but most importantly not the fans.