TB EXCLUSIVE | Nikola Kalinić: Before Obradović, I was treating basketball as a hobby. It’s a job now.”

Lately, referees have been making the news in several games. Incidents in Greece, Spain and Turkey are the examples of it. Given all these controversies around refereeing in Europe, can you say referees are temporarily out-of-form, or have they just been unsuccessful for a while? 

Like you said, some big things are happening all around the Europe. Olympiacos didn’t want to play the second half, Real Madrid is threatening to leave the ACB. In Serbia and also in Turkey, there are always some problems. I mean, there is a problem. We can’t close our eyes to it. I think we all should sit down and talk about it. I tweeted as the first step to see if anybody has some good ideas. It doesn’t matter if they’re players, fans, coaches, whoever. That’s a good thing to start and there are [ideas]. I think we should do something obviously because there are problems and they can affect the results, fates of many people from players to fans. Everybody knows it’s a big part of the business. It’s really important. We should do something about it. 

I see there are problems with the refferees all over the continent (Europe 😉).. Players, coaches, fans, journalists, anybody have some constructive idea what to do to improve situation? 🤔🤔🤔 #TBF #acb #greekcup #KupKorac

— Nikola Kalinic (@nikola_kalina) February 18, 2019

If there is going to be a transparent evaluation system after every game, if some independent bodies are going to watch all the games and all the suspicious calls and they’re gonna tell their opinion, if the referees are gonna be rewarded or punished for that, I think that’s the best. When I make a mistake or the coach makes a mistake, he’ll get fired or I’ll go to a worse club next year. This is how it is. Referees are humans and I think they should also be rated and according to that, they should be moved to important or less important games. And it needs to be transparent. It needs to be seen by everybody. I think that’s the first step. 

There are some different ideas as well that in the future, maybe referee should be somebody with the playing experience. I also agree with [the idea] that referees in national leagues should be paid more so they can be more independent. I think transparency and evaluation should be there. They should also have the pressure of getting punished. I’ve got suspended and punished few times but I’ve never seen a referee get punished or suspended. I agree that I did a bad thing; I should totally be punished. But they are also making mistakes. Somebody should take care of that. 

So, you feel like they’re not accountable… 

Yes. 

You’ve explained a lot but we’ve lately seen you complain to the referees more than usual. I understand there are some situations where you feel like you should complain but we’ve seen you do it more than usual. Is this a fair assessment? 

Yes, probably. I was also thinking about it. I always try to be nice to them, talk nicely to them, ignore them and play the game. I’ve been trying everything. I agree; I’m talking too much. I should work on that and I will work on that. I’m promising that I will stop talking so much and I will start playing the game. Like I told you, I watch almost every game I play and I see so many mistakes, obvious mistakes. And I see referees watch me while guys are fouling me. They are not calling them. Then I get angry and mention it during the game. What can I do?

Techical fault for yellow #12? https://t.co/f7xGRTGDG1

— Nikola Kalinic (@nikola_kalina) February 16, 2019

I think there’s a big problem in communication. Maybe it’s because of [language barrier], I don’t know but a referee can’t say to me ‘You can’t speak with me’. That’s a big shame and I’ve never seen that in my life. You can say to me I’m right or I’m wrong. We can talk, we can discuss but you can’t say ‘You can’t talk to me’. Not only to me, but to other players. That’s his job. If you don’t wanna talk, you shouldn’t do that job. His job is to talk to people, calm everybody down, discuss if I ask him why I get a foul. He must tell me ‘You get a foul because of that and that.’ I will say ‘OK, you’re right.’ and I will go. But if he shoves me or pushes me away, then I’m gonna get mad like anybody, of course. I think this is one of the problems we can work on. I also agree that my reactions weren’t the best but many times, I just don’t get an explanation. You should tell me why I get a foul and I will say ‘OK, congratulations, good call.’ I did it many times.