560 euros per year arbitrators are tax deductible

Since October 10, the France has some independent workers 153.000 more potential. The. Referees of sport, these "men in black", today most often dressed in red or yellow, benefit from the vote by the Assembly of the proposal for a law adopted in June at the Senate of a real social and tax, very specific, status of status of self-employed to ensure their freedom of judgment sporting institutions. "It also allows to continue to exercise another trade, which is the case of almost all", adds lawyer Marie-Thérèse Leclerc de Hautecloque, author of the report commissioned by the Ministry of Sports.

Strengthen their protection

The Act also recognizes their activity as a public service mission. The arbitrators are now assimilated to firefighters and other public service officers. For voluntary violence leading eight days of incapacity for work, tariff amounts to five years in prison and 75,000 euros fine, three years and 4,500 euros in common law. "Now, all perpetrators will be brought to corrections." "This will strengthen the protection of the arbitrator," summarizes Bernard willow, President of the National Union of football referee (Unaf).

This protection has become necessary. In early November, a young amateur football referee was hit in the carotid artery in a cloakroom on the outskirts of Bastia. These last years, the number of violence against them has continued to increase. The Unaf, reported, only for football, some 300 arbitrators struck each year. The phenomenon is European.

Fiscal transparency

Involved in the scandal of the Italian football championship, where club executives were sentenced to be involved in the designation of the men in black, and the multiple challenges of the coaches of the French Ligue 1, these cases underscore the urgency of a "social recognition". "It was a sea serpent, person had led so far," welcomes Jean-François Lamour, Minister of youth, Sports and associative life, which inspired the proposed Act. "Fiscally, we went to transparency."

So far, the benefits paid were a very opaque tax system. Now, until 4.560 euros per year, arbitrators are tax deductible. Others are theoretically subject to the regime of the liberal professions-specific non-commercial profits. Socially, many uncertainties were erased with the paradoxical choice for workers independent of the connection to the general social security scheme. "The coverage is better in terms of the judgment of disease injury", argued the Minister.

Encourage vocations

This choice did not to happy, because the Act indicates what the federations and professional leagues delegated to pay social security contributions (according to procedures to specify by Decree). If this is near-neutral for the first who manage the amateur sport, it is not for the seconds, for the professional football league (LFP).

Considering that the arbitral body needs "to be supported and to benefit from a true professional status", the League of professional football was implemented in 2006 a Charter of progress which the main measure was an immediate increase of 30 of the remuneration and a doubling of the "global pay mass", to 5.6 million euros per year (for 40 referees in League 1 and League 2 and their assistants), on the horizon of June 2008.

But when he brought the average annual earnings of its adjudicators of 53,000 euros to 68.900 euros, Frédéric Thiriez, President of the CSA, unaware that the Act imposed to pay payroll taxes on these amounts. His exasperation was growing when the Safe, the new Union of referees for the football elite, chaired by Tony Chapron, claimed in vain for the moment the status of employee for its members, status reserved for some international rugby referees.

These quibbles on loads are only 500 professional arbitrators, all disciplines combined. For the volunteers (20 to 30 of workforce affecting that refunds of expenses) and the compensation, the new status continues to encourage vocations. The French Association of sport referees (Afcam) lost 20,000 members in ten years. At the French football Federation, 60 of new adjudicators ceased their activity after three years and 30 after a year.

The support of the private sector

To promote their activity, the arbitral body agreed, in 2003, to sponsoring private with purpose, that invests approximately EUR 3 million per year in meetings of arbitration, organized on its 350 sites. "Each of our points of sale has the means to help, with allocations in equipment, the arbitrators of the amateur clubs," summarizes Daniel Fontaine, President of the sign of stores including support soon supported by a new partner has all relevant sports. Because no referee, no competition cannot be organized.