What are the main instructions for referees this season?
"The aim will be to encourage action and entertaining football. The idea is to have matches that run as smoothly as possible, without necessarily intervening with micro-contacts that add nothing to the flow of matches, and to incorporate a new provision that the IFAB [the guardian of the laws of the game, ed.] introduced on 1 July concerning additional time. Any time lost after a goal has been scored will be recovered in extra time. This is an important element that will have an impact on the duration of matches, as we saw at the World Cup in Qatar in 2022 or what we are currently seeing at the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand."

So there will be time added on?
"Everything will depend on what happens during the match. But when we saw 13 minutes of stoppage time during the French women's team's match against Panama at the World Cup, it's possible we could have the same scenario in Ligue 1 or Ligue 2."

How would you assess the use of VAR so far?
"Video assistance has been in place since the 2018-2019 season. It has shown that it is really useful, as it allows obvious mistakes to be corrected. We're not calling it into question. In 2022-2023, 83% of major errors were corrected thanks to video assistance. It's a real added value and we're going to continue to use video assistance in the hope that the correction rate will remain as high as ever. Video assistance will also be introduced in Ligue 2 from the 2024-2025 season, so the Refereeing Department will have to recruit and train new video referees."

Referees who use VAR are given low ratings. Will you be going back on this point?
"Until the 2022-2023 season, the use of video assistance had an impact on ratings. I was appointed in January 2023 and I didn't want to change the rules during the season. But I did undertake to change the way referees are rated. Either the use of video assistance is linked to a technical fault on the part of the referee on the pitch: poor positioning, poor movement, poor cooperation with the assistant referees. In this case, the rating will be affected. On the other hand, in situations where the referee met the technical requirements on the pitch but was unable to see an infringement that only the video was able to identify, there will be no impact on the score. Video assistance is a decision-making tool for referees and should not be a source of fear."

What's the latest on the issue of microphones for referees?
"This is a very important issue for the Federation. On 19 January, the President of the FFF officially referred the matter to the IFAB with a view to launching an experiment with live and continuous sound systems and the communication of VAR decisions to the public. On 21 April, the IFAB said no to these two requests. We have taken note of this. But the message is clear: France is ready to be involved in any way in these advances in refereeing. We will need a framework when the time comes, but that's the way things are and we will continue to experiment from time to time."