The general supervisor of arbitration, Neji Jouini, decided to throw in the towel and to resign due to accumulated problems which gnawed Tunisian arbitration. With the bankruptcy of the FTF, which aggravated the situation and the numerous promises made to the arbitrators to pay them their rights, even with staggered payments, Neji Jouini opted for resignation.
Neji Jouini was shocked by discovering the financial situation of referees and assistants, and learning that young referees had not received their payments for three years, and that the bill of the referees, amounted to more than 3 million dinars.
He was forced to send a special message to the Ministry of Youth and Sports to inform the outgoing minister of the critical situation and the suffering of the referees.
The general supervisor of arbitration has often exerted pressures on the president of the Standardization Committee of the Tunisian Football Federation, Kamel Idir to ask him to pay part of the funds to the referees. An agreement had even been concluded to pay the arbitrators to 800,000 dinars, of which 400,000 were to be allocated to young referees, the rest being distributed to the arbitrators of the elite.
Neji Jouini was surprised when it was informed that the FTF was incapable, for the moment, to provide the required amount of 800,000 dinars and was ready to transfer only 200,000 dinars for the referees. Enough to anger the general supervisor of the arbitration, especially after learning that the FTF had planned a private flight for the trip of the national team to Côte d’Ivoire, costing 600,000 dinars.
Jouini quickly set out into contact with the members of the National Arbitration Directorate to inform them of the collective resignation and published a press release explaining the reasons for this withdrawal, criticizing the former federal office which had not respected its promises despite the payment of 867,000 dinars of arrears to the arbitrators.
The collective resignation press release mentions that the arbitrators suffer enormously and that the FTF is unable to settle their rights, despite the sacrifices and the voluntary work of the members of the committee, as well as the vain promises.
We have learned that the settlement committee has accepted the resignation of the general supervisor of arbitration and other members of the Management, and began to establish contacts in order to form a new team to supervise the arbitration.
However, the referees announced protest measures, and until yesterday, 400 referees decided to boycott all the competitions and submit a petition to the FTF and to the Ministry of Youth and Sports. For his part, Kamel Idir asked to meet the minister to offer him the names that will compose the new management of arbitration, with candidates like Laaroussi Mansouri, Zoubeir Nouira and Hichem Guirat.
It should be noted that the association of football referees called to boycott sports activities until the payments of the referees are carried out and that their working conditions are improved.
Also note that Neji Jouini had tried to find a Qatari sponsor to support the referees in our championship, but he failed in his approach. Be that as it may, Jouini left a high invoice of 500,000 dinars to the FTF concerning the housing of the referees in a luxurious hotel in Gammarth during the internships, which Kamel Idir will have to examine.
