Ivan Matić from Osijek was involved in several serious refereeing errors later confirmed by the HNS commission, and he has now been assigned to another Hajduk-Istra match that sparked fresh controversy.
The second round of the SuperSport HNL was marked by refereeing at Poljud, where Hajduk and Istra drew 2:2. The main referee was Mateo Erceg, while Ivan Matić from Osijek was in charge of VAR technology. His name quickly came under the spotlight on social media.
The team from Pula twice appealed for a penalty, and reacted particularly strongly to the duel between Alec Van Hoorenbeeck and Hamza Jaganjac in the closing stages of the match. Istra posted footage of the disputed moments on their profiles and asked: "What is going on?!" However, the dissatisfaction culminated in an official club statement expressing concern over refereeing decisions at the start of the season.
In the statement, which was published in full, Istra 1961 pointed out that they were already disadvantaged in the first round by a disallowed regular goal, and in the second round they were denied an obvious penalty. "After the first two championship rounds, it is hard to remain indifferent to the obvious refereeing errors we witnessed on the pitch," the club said, adding that such decisions directly affect the flow and final outcome of matches. Istra emphasized that they demand responsibility and discipline from their players, but in return expect the same treatment. "We are not asking for preferential treatment nor do we want to seek excuses for mistakes. We only ask for equal standards and conditions in which the result will primarily depend on what the teams showed on the pitch," the statement reads. The club expressed hope that the refereeing standard will be unified so that after matches the talk is about football, not refereeing.
It is important to note that the HNS has not yet issued an official assessment of the disputed details from this round. Tomislav Kujundžić Lujan, who once refereed and worked as a refereeing controller, believes that Istra was not wronged in either of the two situations, and also thinks that in the second half of the match they could have been left with a player less.
Nevertheless, Matić's name attracted great attention due to his VAR interventions from the previous season. On the HNS's Semafor, he is classified as a specialized VAR referee and a member of the elite circle, and the Hajduk-Istra match was his first VAR assignment in the new season.
The most notable incident occurred on March 4 in the Cup quarterfinal at Rujevica, where Rijeka defeated Hajduk 3:2. The main referee was Patrik Kolarić, and the very next day the HNS determined that two Hajduk players should have been sent off.
In the 17th minute, Ron Raci stopped Daniel Adu-Adjei in his run towards the Hajduk goal. Kolarić showed a yellow card, and VAR did not intervene. Bertrand Layec, an analyst for the HNS refereeing commission, emphasized in his official analysis that it was a denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and decisively stated that VAR should have intervened.
The situation with Ante Rebić drew even more attention. After his elbow strike, a recording of the conversation from the VAR room surfaced. During the review, Matić noticed an additional movement by Rebić, but despite that, he confirmed the yellow card to Kolarić. The HNS later determined that Rebić should have been sent off for violent conduct.
After that match, Sportske novosti reported, citing unofficial information from the HNS, that Matić would not be used as a VAR referee for the rest of the season. It was not a formal suspension, but rather information from sources within the Federation.
That plan, however, did not hold until the end of the championship. Official HNS data shows that on May 22, Matić was again in the VAR room for the match between Hajduk and Vukovar, which ended 6:3. And it was against the same club that he had another controversial episode a few months earlier.
On December 21, Hajduk celebrated a 2:1 victory, and Matić called referee Zdenko Lovrić from the VAR room to check the foul on Michele Šego on the monitor. After the review, Lovrić sent off Mario Tadić. In the published communication, Matić assessed that the other Vukovar defender "would not make it" to Šego.
Layec's analysis after the round was the opposite. The HNS concluded that the VAR intervention was wrong, that the second defender could have entered the duel, and that Tadić did not deserve a red card. Vukovar was thus, according to the official stance of the refereeing commission, significantly disadvantaged.
Another incident occurred during the match between Varaždin and Dinamo in August last year. With the score at 1:1, Scott McKenna hit the net, but the goal was disallowed for offside. Matić was the VAR, and in the middle of the review, the power went out in the VAR room.
The HNS revealed in its official analysis that the VAR had already concluded before the power cut that there was no offside. Although the review of a potential foul in the attacking phase could not be completed, Layec assessed that Matić made a mistake because he should have changed the assistant referee's decision and awarded Dinamo the goal. The match ended 2:2.
Despite a turbulent previous season, Matić entered the new one as a member of the elite group of VAR referees. The HNS no longer officially lists him primarily as a field referee, but his category is "VAR". Due to all of the above, his appointment for the Hajduk - Istra match drew additional attention after the Pula club publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the refereeing. Of course, this in itself does not mean that Matić made a mistake against Istra, nor that earlier errors prove any bias. The final expert opinion on the two disputed situations from Poljud has yet to be given by the HNS refereeing commission. However, the review so far shows that last season, as a VAR referee, Matić was involved in several major errors that the HNS itself later documented.
