MADRID, 22 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Canarian Alejandro Hernández Hernández, referee who will direct the final of the Copa del Rey this Saturday between Valencia and Betis, said this Friday that it is not the first time he has heard that “refereeing is at its worst” and complained of who “turn the successes into errors”, while he asserted that no president of the RFEF has “ever given him any guidelines” when doing his job.
“I have been in professional football for 15 years and I have heard that arbitration is at its worst moment several times, in several different seasons. Everyone is free to think what they want. We put all the meat on the grill so that everything works out as well as possible”, affirmed the referee, who appeared at a press conference together with Ricardo De Burgos Bengoetxea, who will be in the VAR.
Hernández Hernández was annoyed with people who use refereeing successes to raise controversy. “I understand that when there are mistakes we go out and there is noise because we have made mistakes, but when the success is clear and flagrant, that it becomes controversial is something that we have to make ourselves look at,” he said.
The referee also puts the focus on people close to football. “That many of the protagonists, knowing that we have succeeded, are not able to recognize it and turn it into a mistake, I think it harms us first of all, but also sport, football, credibility,” added the canary .
When asked if the referees felt questioned after the controversy generated by the leaked audios between Gerard Piqué and Luis Rubiales, the Canarian assured that “who had to give explanations has done so”.
“In the 28 years that I have been refereeing, no federation president has ever told me any guidelines to follow and if that had been the case, I would have left the whistle. If I can put my hand in the fire for something, it is because of the honorability of my group. We can boast of few things, but one of them is that we are a target group,” said Hernández Hernández.
The referee was also asked about the possibility of speaking to the media more often, and although he believes that “there should be no problem”, he also made it clear that it could “sharpen a poorly contextualized or poorly said phrase”. “The protagonists in football are the players,” he warned, stressing that he and his team do not want to appear in the foreground. “It’s a bit of dangerous terrain,” he remarked.
“IT IS AN HONOR TO BE ABLE TO ENJOY A CUP FINAL”
Focused on what awaits him on Saturday night in the Cup final, he recognized that “it is a particularly nice game to referee” and that “in these games there is always someone happy, it is a football party and it is an honor to be able to enjoy it and deal with it.”
Regarding the game of Betis and Valencia, he said that both had their way of playing and that this was not going to condition their arbitration. “All ways of approaching a game that are within the regulations are valid and lawful. Let each one use the tools they have in their hands,” he said.
“I have a theory and it is that in the finals there are fewer yellow cards due to the attitude of the teams themselves, because they know they have 90 or 120 minutes to win the trophy, they cannot waste time thinking about the referee,” explained Hernández Hernández talking about the difficulty of a match of these characteristics.
The Canarian referee stated that he was “apart from everything that is going around the networks”, acknowledging that he was “respected” when he had to meet directly with the members of the two teams. “Everything that is outside of it escapes me, each one is the owner of their actions and it is not relevant to face tomorrow’s game”, he pointed out.
Hernández Hernández was also questioned about the controversy raised by the application of VAR. “There are journalists who are very well informed,” said the Canarian, who recalled that “everyone has had and has the opportunity to find out how the protocol works.”
“There are gray plays in which whatever we do we are in complicated situations. There are decisions that are made on one side and we understand that there are people who think the opposite, because this is not mathematics. Football has many grays and that is the difficulty of our work,” he declared.
Finally, he recalled that “football is passion.” “Tomorrow half the stadium wants one thing and the other means the opposite and we know how to deal with them, we have the necessary experience. We have deep respect for the two fans, who deserve our best version”, concluded the referee.