Former first league and international judge Pavlín Jirků.
Robert Neumann
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So you’re not in favor of a video referee project?
I’ll start like this. When I meet young boys who are whistling an international match, I tell them: You oxen, we flew in threes and you can’t get on a plane. You are for one match like dogs. There are more and more of them. I can’t even count them with video judges. I’m not a big fan of VAR. It occurs to me that football becomes a computer game. The decision moved from the court to the video judges’ booth. It is an exaggeration to say that in a few years, it will be determined from the cabin which of the two imaginary teams will have the ball.
Do you think that current arbitrators are not personalities?
They can’t even be them. They rely on VAR. Technology will help, the personality is thus pushed. On the other hand, they are under enormous pressure, monitored by several cameras. There were a maximum of two in my era. I whistled in Prešov, from the match in the evening they showed a winning goal on TV, one chance. I drove home for Vihorlat for three days and was quiet. There are a lot of cameras today, there is always a mistake, you just can’t beat this. I was watching a league match recently, when the main referee did not whistle a penalty after a fight in the big lime. Then he went to watch the video and changed the verdict.
He was in favor of football.
I don’t question that. For the referee, for example, there is a huge benefit of technology that monitors whether the ball has crossed the goal line. If so, the judge’s watch will vibrate. Splendor. I would like that. But it occurs to me that referees in contemporary football are half personalities. Technology rules. Specifically, the situation from the last final of the MOL Cup, when the main one was instructed by a video referee to go and see the fight between Spartan Frýdek and Malinský in Liberec.
He still evaluated him incorrectly with only a yellow card.
So. If Pavlín Jirků, who had never met VAR, whistled, and someone would tell me to go see, I would answer him: I’m not going, I saw the fight. Or I would go see and then a red card would have to fall, not a yellow one. I do not understand the procedures that lead to a final verdict. VAR should serve to make everything more accurate. But I like the expression that we are more papal here than the pope.
In other words, nothing should be exaggerated.
Exactly. How many times the situation when a player is offside is solved. I definitely wouldn’t want to whistle at this time. If I was thirty, I’d probably get used to it. Now that I see the judges, it occurs to me that they are robots. I just miss what I liked. That the people in the pub scolded me, that I whistled badly. Now, in fact, this is not even possible, it is usually not possible to determine which of all the judges was fundamentally wrong. When I started whistling, the rules were seventy pages. Maybe two hundred today. The more complicated we make football for people, the wrong it is.
Did players once have more respect for the referees than now?
If he was a referee, experienced players helped him manage the match. I knew that when I whistled to Sparta, I had to communicate with Rape. I said to him, Beet, help me steer the battle. Look at Frýdek, he’s still talking. He scolded him. Today, it seems that when the referee gets out of the car in front of the stadium, he wants to give out the yellow cards. Everything is impersonal due to technology.
Did you have “your” player in each team?
He had. I knew very well what I could expect from whom. The good ones never fell, the criminals were teased. I couldn’t upset you. I did not forgive them anything fundamental, but both sides had to be on the same ship. If not, the match was split and fifteen minutes to go was like a whole year. I had to build a position for older experienced players to take you. In my opinion, this only works if you are used to making your own decisions. Once I even preceded the time, I waved a goal from the position of assistant. At that time, the principle was that the principal did not reach the sixteen. The President of the Judges, Jirka Stiegler, really screwed me over.
For something else?
Hey … What I was doing. But I knew when I could afford it. I like to remember, for example, the derby between Brno and Drnovice. The home team led by three goals a minute before the end, in the stadium thirty-eight thousand spectators who made the Mexican wave. The ball was just captain Drnovic Róbert Kafka, so I shouted at him: we are not playing, we will look at the wave. Robert stepped on the balloon, we all turned in the stands twice and the game continued.
What did the delegate tell you?
Robert Matušík was there at the time. He tells me: Pasha, what were you doing there? You’re a jerk. And that was the end of it, it was calm. If the match was heated, even, I wouldn’t dare. But these things football spice up. I was sandblasted for them, called a jester and accused of downplaying the league. But I would do them again. They were spontaneous, they emerged from the situation. For example, the one in Pilsen.
Talk to me.
Viktorka played at home with Opava, a very boring match without goals. As the ball went into the car, the boy-feeder ran sluggishly behind him. I gave him a yellow that served slowly, people roared with laughter. I became famous for giving yellow to my dog.
What?
During the match Slavie in Karviná, a dog ran onto the field, he didn’t have to leave him, so I reprimanded him. When they invited me to explain to the jury, I tell them: find in the rules that I can’t give a dog a yellow. They threw me out the door, studied the rules for an hour. Then I was not occupied for fourteen days. The incident had another aftermath.
What kind?
The corner was kicked, the Slavist Robert Vágner stood by the stick, the dog ran to him. He pushed his foot. The dog jumped, the scene appeared on television. A letter from conservationists then came to the union. Or a duck in Liberec. The delegate tells me before the match: Pasha, you are an international referee, keep the fractures, you are a personality. But before the end, the duck landed on the lawn.
What did you do?
I took three quick steps, the duck must have eaten something heavy. She just took off five meters and sat down again. I’m behind her. The whole stadium encouraged me to catch her. I ran, bald head, legs to iks, people yelling.
And caught?
Her goalkeeper Láďa Maier caught her and threw her behind the fence. The evening on TV was the whole shot from the match about how Jirků chased a duck. Nothing happened in the match. If I hadn’t landed the duck, the report wouldn’t even have taken place.
You had to be on the jury often.
Pretty much. Sometimes I even laughed at her. In the Slavia-Olomouc match, we forgot about the card in the card half-time. In the first half I handed out seven yellow ones, in the locker room I wrote carefully on the name card. But I just put the paper back in my pocket, the cards remained on the table.
Didn’t your colleagues lend you?
At that time, he only had the main cards. The fifth minute of the second half, Radek Látal made a foul, I run up to him and find out that I don’t have cards. So I pulled out a ticket in a flash, as if I was warning me. And he quickly hid it. But the cameras, of course, revealed it … But I’m glad I had another time.
Are you dating former colleagues?
I was closest to the Moravian judges, so the boys and I go to see Tonda Kordula to Ratíškovice. The exit is connected with a wine bar, with cellars. Or to Benecko to Jard Jar, there are twelve of us there. Krondl, Vodička, Vidák, Gray, Amler. We remember and we are the very best (laughs).
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