AIFF to appoint 50 referees on contractual basis for ₹80,000 per month

AIFF President Kalyan Chaubey said that the standard of refereeing can be improved if the Indian referees earn enough money to run their families and work full time on their profession

Aiming to lift the standard of refereeing in the country, the All India Football Federation is set to appoint 50 referees on contractual basis and pay them a “significant” amount as monthly salary, in order to help them earn their livelihood form this alone.

AIFF President Kalyan Chaubey said that the standard of refereeing can be improved if the Indian referees earn enough money to run their families and work full time on their profession. Foreign coaches of Indian Super League teams used to criticise Indian referees for their “errors”.

“Every year, there is complaint about quality of refereeing in India, about refereeing error whether in the ISL or I-League or Santosh Trophy, which has affected the fortunes of the aggrieved team. But there is more to this issue,” Chuabey told PTI on Tuesday.

“The remuneration of a referee per match is very low. In state leagues, a referee gets ₹2500 to ₹5000, and in national leagues from ₹8000 to ₹10,000. This comes to ₹2.5 lakh to ₹3 lakh a year, which is insufficient for a referee to maintain his family by doing refereeing only.

“To address that, we have decided that 50 referees will be appointed and each of them will be given state government level salary of around Rs 50,000 to Rs 80,000 per month, which is fair enough for a referee to maintain his family.” He said only then the referees can focus solely on their jobs.

“So, we are giving contractual jobs to these 50 referees of between 18 to 45 years of age. This is a policy decision we have made and the finer details of how to appoint referees on contractual basis will be chalked out by the AIFF secretariat.

“Also, we have the Chief Refereeing Officer (Trevor Kettle) who is well qualified and a hugely experienced man. He will work with the AIFF Referee Committee. They will make the criteria of the appointments.