Despite signs of improvement, African football is suffering due to bad or corrupt refereeing and a system that has so far proved unable to secure proper education and remuneration of referees.

For many years there has been an intensive public debate about the utilization of video reviews in the area of sports refereeing. Many sports fans feel that, with the existence of modern methods, it is self-evident that video review should be given a more prominent role. But the reality is considerably more complex, Christer Ahl concludes discussing how to use video reviews in sport.

In response to recent tragic incidents involving football and handball referees in Europe, Christer Ahl, former President of the International Handball Federation’s Playing Rules and Referees Commission, calls for new reforms within sports federations to attend to elite referees’ wellbeing by creating support networks to help them deal with their increasingly demanding profession.