The obvious answer to this question is yes, we can. But does the current working method in the football association and the referees committee lead to that? Of course not. And if work continues on this path that the referees committee is currently pursuing, we cannot produce a World Cup referee, not even after a hundred years. The current method is based on having a foreign expert as head of the referees committee, with members consisting of retired local referees whose past work was marked by failure.

Another issue is responding to club pressures. We see some referees closely linked to certain clubs, accompanying them in most of their matches. You can hardly find matches of some of these teams without specific and fixed names of referees, and the observer knows the name of the referee who will officiate the upcoming match for this or that team days before it takes place!

The third disaster in the current working method is the lack of accountability for a referee who makes catastrophic mistakes that the observer sees as elementary, mistakes that cannot be made by an expert or international referee, and that affect the match result! On the contrary, the observer feels that this referee is rewarded for his mistakes by being assigned in the next round to officiate a match involving the same team that benefited from the referee's errors in the previous match! So how can we produce a successful referee amid such work marred by administrative disasters!?

Perhaps everyone remembers how the best local referee was eliminated when he was a candidate for the World Cup but disappeared completely from the scene: Mohammed Al-Huweish, after the incident of sending off player Cristiano Ronaldo in the Super Cup semi-final in Abu Dhabi. As if he had committed a crime by strictly applying the law and his correct decision of a deserved red card!! He was then punished by being sidelined for almost two seasons, returning in a different form, as if he were a novice referee, lacking confidence in himself and the ability to manage matches with vigilance, accuracy, and firmness.

Faced with these mistakes and disasters in the work, the board of directors of the association did not intervene to hold the committee accountable for its errors and correct its course. The board should have formed an independent (neutral) technical committee of foreign experts to monitor and evaluate the committee's work and provide recommendations in this regard.

But that did not happen. So for years, the referees committee under 'Navarro' continued to work on a cycle of failure. When it reaches its peak, it returns to the beginning and follows the same steps.

Thus, to produce a generation of different Saudi referees who can be relied upon for a dignified participation in the World Cup, the referees committee must be completely replaced, and a new committee must be formed led by a foreign expert from the leading names in this field, with all committee members being foreign experts chosen by him, and approved after reviewing their resumes.

It is shameful that we have a huge sports project supported by the state and generously funded, yet we do not have referees we can boast about who participate in international tournaments. The weakness of the local referee has reached a point where he has no place in Arab or Asian tournaments, let alone global ones.

Angles

* Developing the Saudi referee is part of developing the Saudi football system. Just as programs are put in place to develop the Saudi player through academies, and a strategic plan is set with goals to have a strong national team in the World Cup finals hosted by our country in 2034, we should have Saudi referees officiating some matches of the tournament.

* Gulf and Arab countries smaller than the Kingdom in area, with fewer population, and less financial spending on sports development, have had referees in the World Cup who officiated more than one match. Meanwhile, our referees went and returned without blowing a single whistle.

* When describing the non-assignment of any match in the World Cup to the nominated Saudi referee as a success for him, this is a blatant deception of the official and an insult to intelligence.

* The Saudi sports development project should include a radical change in the football association, its board of directors and all its members and committees. A new board and new committees should be formed, and specialized competencies and cadres should be selected to lead the work, with no objection if the majority consists of foreign experts. Time is passing, and money is being spent with no return or benefit. The expected success seems like a mirage.

* Al-Ittihad Club offered Egyptian player Marwan Attia an annual salary of $2.5 million, while he receives $250,000 with his club Al-Ahly Egypt. That is, Al-Ittihad offered to multiply the player's salary ten times! The offer was rejected by Al-Ahly Egypt, demanding a higher offer. Unfortunately, our clubs waste money unreasonably.