The National Technical Director of Arbitration of FPF, João Ferreira, stated that the federatives are “tremendly satisfied” with the performance of the referees of the professional competitions, highlighting improvements in game time and reduction of faults and cards.
© Lusa
09/10/2026
by
Lusa
O National Technical Director of Arbitration of the Portuguese Football Federation (PFF), João Ferreira, today declared that the federative leaders are “tremously satisfied” with the referees of the professional football competitions, whose action evaluated as “fantastic”.
“ The evaluation made to the work done in these first weeks of official season until the stop [for selections] is very positive and the way the referees have applied is fantastic. We are tremendously pleased with its performance and the numbers illustrate it,” João Ferreira said, after a training action for journalists in the City of Football in Oeiras.
João Ferreira supported these praises in the numbers presented by FPF in the session, which, in comparison with the same period related to the transatlantic season (seven days elapsed), increased by about five minutes the useful time of playing the matches valid by the Portuguese League football (from 52.56 to 57.44 minutes per match), a record, the leader indicates, “close to what is happening in the Champions League”.
There is also a marked decrease in the number of absences (less than 14%, from 1,816 to 1,569) and cards displayed by arbitration teams (less than 22%, from 342 to 268), as well as a number of video-arbitration reviews (less than 41%, from 27 to 16, shorter waiting time in the analysis (from 2.12 to 1.59 minutes) and a considerable accuracy, greater than 97% (97.6%).
The training action organized by the FPF lasted just over two hours and aimed to address the changes to the gambling laws for the period 2026/27 and the orientations given to the referees, allowing to clarify doubts about each of them with examples of practical cases, using the display of plays in professional soccer competitions such as the World Cup2026, the Euro2016, the Champions League and the English and German championships.
In the end, FPF promoted a visit to the renewed facilities of the video-arbitral operations center (VAR), on a guided tour by Bruno Marques, the arbitration technology coordinator.
Football City now has 12 spaces supervised by an observation room and a ‘master room’ that allows access simultaneously to the contents displayed in each of these locations.