It’s Time to End the Scourge of Referees for Good
We’ve all experienced it.
You’re watching a Premier League game, taking in the glorious spectacle. Perhaps you’re supporting one of the teams, or perhaps your betting slip is. You’re in it to see the greatest players on the planet strut their stuff, and you’re starting to really enjoy it when BAM! Up steps the referee to make the mind-squishingly insane decision to send a player off for practically nothing.
Instantly, the ref has ensured that the attention of the thousands in attendance and the millions watching at home is turned away from the players and onto his preening self. It happens at least once a week, and it’s infuriating.
One person who agrees with me is Tony Cascarino, discussing the Tottenham-Arsenal match:
Perhaps Emmanuel Eboué’s two yellow cards were warranted, but I hate it when referees make decisions that destroy the spectacle.
Damn straight, Cas. There is a serious problem that all referees share: they’re referees. They simply do not understand football. These people have a responsibility to the game: to ensure that “the spectacle” takes precedence over all.
They can drone on all they like about how there is a set of rules to which the participants must adhere in order for the contest to proceed in a fair and safe manner. This just shows how little they know or care about the sport they are meant to be serving. They are paid to do a job, and as anyone knows, once you receive money to do something, it behooves you to do it infallibly. Refs fail on this score repeatedly — yet they demand respect!
Cascarino, on the other hand, knows. He is one of the select few who have successfully made the journey from ex-professional footballer to professional ex-footballer. Thus, he can sense the truth from his observations of the game in a preternaturally instinctive way, like a shaman turning his face to the wind and divining the thoughts of the spirits. His conclusions may appear counter-intuitive, but that’s probably because you have not been made privy to the ancient wisdom that resides in those who have been on the inside.
He recognises that Eboué’s offences deserved — according to the “Laws of the Game” — bookings. But that is to ignore the greater truth. We don’t want to see the referees stepping in and grabbing the glory. We don’t want to see the post-match analysis and the newspaper headlines dominated by a policeman from Pudsey or a civil servant from Stourport-on-Severn. Remember, it’s about “the spectacle”, and the referee has no part in it. It should be up to the players and the manager to determine it. If they want to turn it into a swear-off or a martial arts exhibition, what business has the ref interfering?
The real issue is this: what can we do to improve the dire standard of officiating in the Prem? One suggestion is to publish each ref’s score as awarded each game by an assessor in the stand. This is initially tempting: it would be nice to have some kind of empirical basis for our diseased, frothing, gut-twisting abuse of the man in the middle. But there is a flaw: the assessors are former referees themselves. One must ask oneself how reliable such a system can be. It’s like cops investigating cops. Masonic cops.
The best idea so far put forward is that refs should be given the opportunity to explain their most controversial decisions at a post-match press conference. I agree with the spirit of this, but it needs to go further. What’s required is a method by which officials can be held properly accountable for their errors, presented in such as way that it would grip football supporters as well as attracting new people to the game. After much profound, Cascarino-esque meditation, I give you: The People’s Jury.
The concept is simple, and when I say simple I mean simple. Every Monday evening, the referee of each of the weekend’s Premier League matches would be brought forward and made explain their most contentious calls. The Jury would be made up of players (because they are the people who really matter), managers (because they are the people who really matter) and fans (because they are the people who really matter). If a ref’s testimony is deemed unworthy, he would be condemned to punishment. This could be the publishing of his home address and telephone number, the compulsory wearing of gimp suit and mask during his next game, being forced to address any England international as “sir” (actually, I think that’s already a rule) or, if he offends any of the Big Four, the ultimate punishment: being made to ref a crunch, end-of-season, top-of-the-table under-10s’ match, replete with baying parents.
The whole thing would double as one of those reality shows that children and women always go on about. Interest would be immense, and would add another few million to the Premier League’s television income, thus ensuring the clubs will be able to afford to pay still more lawyers to extract money from minor football federations for the use of their assets players. Everybody Wins!™ (Everybody Wins™ is a trademark owned by the Football Association Premier League, Ltd.)
I don’t know if this is the best solution to the plague of atrocious refereeing. Scratch that: of course it is. But it may take more than this idea alone, however majestic it is, to turn things around. If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Better yet, contact your local legislator and demand that they act. Email them, call to their house, ring them every ten minutes until they agree. After all, whenever a referee makes a bad call; whenever he “sticks to the rules”; whenever he “destroys the spectacle” — it’s your dignity he’s killing; it’s your sensitivities he’s offending; it’s the souls of your dead relatives he’s playing hackysack with. Let’s do something, people.
Fredorrarci will be leading a march culminating in a protest rally in Soho Square this Friday. Proceedings get under way at noon sharp. Bring packed lunch. The revolution will be blogged at Sport Is A TV Show.
This is rubbish. “The Peoples Jury” give me a break. The entire article is nonsense.
I’d just to put on record that I did meet Tony Cascarino once, briefly, a long time ago, and he was lovely.
Hilarious article, i dont know if anyone else watched the England vs Spain match, but that was a perfect example of a ref ruining a game, although no major descisions the ref blew up every time a player went down, which meant that even though we lost, we also lost the chance to see the world class quality of spain that was shown during the euros
Pretty much crap. Do I need to show you all those tapes from long ago of unskilled defenders relentlessly scything through talented attackers without so much as a word from the referees?
The spectacle dies when the talented footballer is carried off the pitch with a broken leg. Without referees, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Robinho and Messi would spend a lot more time on the treatment table.
And Eboue was a moron anyway.
Just reread the article and understood it. So just take all I said in the previous post as directed to Cascarino.
Fredorrarci,
This entire article is absolute crap.
” if he offends any of the Big Four, the ultimate punishment: being made to ref a crunch, end-of-season, top-of-the-table under-10s’ match, replete with baying parents.”
Why should the so-called “Big Four” get any special treatment from the ref?
Rules are in place for a reason. If you want an out-and-out brawl, play street ball. Leave this to the pros.
The only answer in this case, TV REFS!!!! Ordinary refs will always make mistakes, (look at how rubbish Howard Webb is, I pray whenever my team plays that we don’t get that clown.)
so we need SOMETHING there a least, I know this will slow the game down a bit but I think it would be worth it, if it rightly saves a team from relegation or wins them a trophy.
What smells? Oh, I know, it’s this so-called article! You’re always going to need the refs — get over that fact will ya? Why not help them instead of throwing them to the street. Sure, everybody would love to see instant-replay decisions. Perhaps each team gets two per game. It keeps everybody honest and we don’t have to listen anymore of these types of articles.
Fredorrarci,
I don’t know if these comments could have possibly made you any happier.
I would have replied expressing my support sooner, but I was still packing my lunch for tomorrow.
Mark
Fredorrarci, you write some good stuff – but this, I couldn’t disagree more. The same people who say that the referee should use common sense are the same people whinging on about inconstistency among referees the following week. Simple solution – if players don’t foul, cheat, dive, crowd the referee on every single decision and swear, they don’t get yellow cards, and then, as an added bonus, the spectacle that is the game isn’t ruined. As for summoning referees to explain their decisions – nah, I’d much rather referees gave back to managers what they get, e.g. “I thought Wenger’s tactics were naive today”; “I couldn’t believe that appalling miss by Saha”. Perhaps people would learn a lesson then.
@markwithoutspin:
Looks like it’s just you, me and yukona, then. And there I was, staying up all night making placards with pictures of referees with Hitler moustaches like a sucker.
This is ridiculous. The obligation of referees is not to uphold the spectacle. That’s what the players are supposed to do, and that’s why they’re being paid many times more. The referees’ job is to uphold the rules of the game.
If you think refs calling fouls rules the game, your complaint should be with the players who make the fouls, not the refs who see them.
Fredo – I’ll support you on twitter (best I can do from far away).
Don’t mind the intellectuals on this site, can’t understand where they came from, they know too much about the sport and ruin it for the rest of us…
Once again Fred is guilty of a wit so dry that nobody gets it! I’ve missed the sublety myself in the past but at this stage am wondering what’s the point really Fred?
It’s not really funny and as the comments show, most people just don’t get it.
I personally think that the problem is that players think they are bigger than the referee’s!!
@Brian – what? it’s quite funny
Absolute rubbish. We have survived for years with a referee running the show and I may say, football is still as popular a game as ever, despite all the misgivings.
Now we want to add in more uncertainty and subjectivity with a People’s Jury, bah!
HAHA – I read the first part of the article and was about to get ready to fire off in the comments. I managed to control myself and continue reading and realised you are actually making the exact point I would have wanted to make.
There’s a really annoying problem with football fans that they don’t seem to know even the most basic rules of the game, what’s even worse is that most players, coaches and managers don’t seem to have a clue either – yet all of the afore mentioned have very strong views about how the referees are doing everything wrong.
I can’t for the life of me understand why a refereeing course isn’t mandatory for all players, coaches and managers – they should be required to referee some Sunday League matches to get a better understanding of how the match looks from the referees point of view. Ajax have all their youth players play in all positions on the field, maybe they should add refereeing to that?
I don’t entirely agree with the blogger, but I agree with post no.3 – Jay.
The worse spectacle killers are the referees that don’t allow the game to flow. The England vs Spain ref really ruined the game. There was no flow. Everytime a player went down from a 50/50 ball, either Spanish or English, he would blow his whistle.
This is one of the things that ruins the World Cup: the different styles of refereeing. The “standard of referees from different continents” debate always comes up during the commentary.
I suppose it’s lucky we don’t have that continental style refereeing in the Premiership. It may indeed be one of the reasons why the Premiership is so successful. The games flow better because the referees allow it to be more physical and aren’t so whistle happy. So in some respects, the refs here aren’t too bad and could be a lot worse. They could be both whistle happy as well as poor decision makers.
Whichever way you look at it the refs of to-dat are no-where near the class of the officials 20/30/40 years ago.
So maybe its something to do with their training. TV technology has to come in, we will not survive without it. It is used succesfully in all other sports. Why must the old fashioned adminstartors hold the game back. With technology the game will become fairer for all and take a massive strain off the officials and also make it even more intriging.
How did the march go Fred? If you’re making another one this week count me in.
Great stuff.