The Other Side of “Respect for Referees”
Generally I try to steer clear of criticising referees. I am a believer that they have a very difficult job and am in the camp that doesn’t like the analysing of decisions from all conceivable angles in super slo-mo by the experts on the television.
Despite this, I have to speak out about one particular referee who seems incapable of making a correct penalty decision.
I read an article recently by a journalist who attended the Watford versus Stoke City game at Vicarage Road a couple of weeks ago. In that article the writer condemned the Watford fans for the vitriol directed towards the match referee Rob Styles. He said that Rob Styles is a nice man and didn’t deserve the abuse. He may well be a very nice man, but in my opinion, he is a very poor referee.
In that game, Styles had sent off the Watford captain John Eustace for a dangerous tackle. The Watford fans were understandably upset, although video replays showed that Styles may have actually got that call right.
What the article didn’t go on to say was that Styles’ performance in the rest of that game was totally unacceptable. His demeanour and his decision making were all wrong. He upset the Stoke fans every bit as much as the Watford fans and awarded Watford a ridiculously soft penalty in the game.
Rob Styles was in the news earlier this season for the ludicrous penalty he awarded to Chelsea in their game at Liverpool. On that occasion Malouda ran into Steve Finnan from behind and Styles gave a penalty against Finnan. As a result of that mistake, Styles was demoted for a while. Referees supremo Keith Hackett said at the time as he demoted Styles from the Premiership, “It is just like with players, if they miss an open goal they are likely to be dropped.”
A few weeks later I was watching the West Ham against Manchester City clash in the FA Cup when Manchester City were attacking and their left sided forward player, Petrov, was running at Anton Ferdinand in the West Ham penalty area. He jinked inside and Ferdinand left his leg hanging, clearly catching Petrov and sending him tumbling to the ground. To his credit, Rob Styles was in a perfect position to see the foul but then amazed everyone in the ground by waving play on.
On Saturday Styles took charge of the Birmingham City versus Manchester City game. I don’t know how Styles has crept back into the Premier League, but he has obviously done so. With the score at 2-1 to Birmingham and the ball in Manchester City’s area, Sun Jihai and Gary McSheffrey challenged for the ball. McSheffrey leant into Jihai and ‘out muscled’ him in a perfectly fair shoulder to shoulder challenge. From a distance of only a few feet away Styles awarded Birmingham a penalty for a foul by Jihai.
This was a disgraceful decision. The panel on match of the day laughed at the unbelievable nature of it.
Unfortunately, none of these decisions are funny. Who knows what would have happened to Liverpool and Chelsea’s seasons if that penalty hadn’t been awarded? Who knows whether Manchester City or West Ham might have been in the FA Cup semi-finals if that penalty had been awarded? Who knows how Bolton feel after their nearest rivals in the relegation battle were struggling to hang on to their 2-1 lead over Manchester City but were then given the lifeline of that amazing penalty.
All of these decisions, and I won’t include the Watford penalty because Darius Henderson missed it anyway, could have had far reaching effects costing clubs millions of pounds and fans hours of unnecessary heartache.
In my opinion Rob Styles should not be allowed to referee in the Premier League any more. If that were to happen, he shouldn’t then be given Championship promotion battles like Watford and Stoke to referee either. He should be seriously and properly demoted.
Tottenham keeper Paul Robinson made a few mistakes earlier in the season and he temporarily lost his club place and more seriously lost his International place. That was right and proper. If you are not up to the job it should be taken away from you until you are.
Using Keith Hackett’s words, Mr Styles has missed several open goals this season and deserves to be dropped. He hasn’t displayed that he is up to the job and should never have been brought back to the top level.
Originally published at 4sportsake.com. Graham Fisher writes at Views of a Fan.
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Discussion - 7 Responses
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I’ve been a strong advocate of the need to respect referees. That being said, they need to be accountable on and off the pitch for their decisions AND every possible measure must be taken to ensure that they can give as many right decisions as possible.
Part of that accountability comes with demoting referees, as you suggested.
Still, are they any better referees in the lower leagues who could replace Mr Styles?
uh… Video replay. C’mon, reversing this idiotic decisions would take all of 10 seconds. In these situations it would actually IMPROVE the flow of the game, not diminish it. How people can continue to say it’s a bad idea in the light of this sort of nonsense is completely beyond me.
Hi firstly I would like to point out I feel that the best treatment of refs can be seen at a Rugby game - Union or League. They are called sir by the players and in my experience the refs always seem to know the players names. But familiarity should not be confused with respect.
Now I will say what my thoughts are about your article.
I hear this about criticism of referees being wrong all the time. Whyso?
Referees chose this ‘profession’ and yes I use this term very loosely.This point I will hope to explain later.
Now you have taken your stand and I fully support your right to do so. You are now however doing what every right thinking football fan has/is/and will always do.Being a critic, do not feel dirty or that you are betraying a belief. You are commenting on many instances where you believe the referee to be ,- wrong, mistaken, inconsistent, and downright blind.
Blindly supporting ineptitude will never lead to betterment.
Why should this be wrong? I would argue that anybody, arbiter etc that is not answerable to the general football ‘community’or in fact seemingly anybody, invites not only constant questioning but ridicule.
Let’s face it there have been several incidents as you yourself have said caused some laughter from pundits and public alike. Why? The answer is that the average football watchers’ pet goldfish could see the ref has got it wrong. The response from Keith Hacket is …….. nothing.What he may think is anyones guess.
I do advocate video usage. There is a fourth official that at present holds up ’subs’ boards and scolds managers for squaring up with handbags. There are also an array of lap- tops /tvs with undoubtably live feed at the side of the pitch .. remember the world cup headbutt that was brought to the refs attention by the 4th official.This should be put to practical use if not by the 4th official the another person to advise the referees.
How many times have we seen a ref surrounded by hearly all the team over an incident that may continue for several minutes, where even if not all the time, there could be a difinitive answer by the guy next to the tv in seconds. The arguement goes that even that cannot give the exact answer. Well I would humbly suggest that the picture would be a lot closer to correct than a referee out of position,eyesight,looking at seagulls etc. that is being hounded and possibly ‘lost it’.
I would make sure however that if this was instigated the man left in charge of the tv viewing would be situated out of reach of managers with their helpful dispositons and traits.. ‘Fergie-time’ and Wenger-vision.
It will eventually happen but again I think the ref’s will indeed be self-destructive. It is plain knowlege that certain ref’s instruct their assistant ref’s to obey their will and not do anything other than watch for off-sides that the ref may or may not listen to anyway.
I feel this would be the same if we had a camera viewing aide on the side of the pitch. That is one aspect to refereeing that really ,in my opinion , cannot be quantified. Their personality!
You cited an instance where a certain ref was a decent ‘chap’ but an awful ref. Many a time I have been at a match and thought ” Oh no! Not him!!” to be proved I was right later in the game. Certain refs are dispised before they blow the whistle to start a match , in my opinion rightly so ( OK not despised but you get my drift) they are the usual suspects . I do not now mean about making mistakes . I would say these refs will RUN a game as opposed to acting as an arbiter for fair play. They have to put their stamp as it were on the game.They will inevitably make a decision that will cause despair to home/away fans and this is the most damning response .. to impartial football fans who have no axe to grind with any of the teams playing on M.O.T.Day !!!
I have my own team that I follow and have been at the wrong end of your featured Refs decisions and had to watch the smirking arrogant so and so do his dealings . I would also say I am 100% sure he knew he was doing his ‘thing’ rather than making a correct decision. I have also seen same ref do the wrong thing in games where my team were not involved, so I would grudgingly have to say it is not just my team he ‘tampers’ with.
What recourse did I have to complain? Shout down my mates ear at the game, yup did that. Complain to my team, nah they already knew of it . Watch match of the day , yup they confirmed it. Took action and filed a complaint? No,… simple reason being K.Hacket probably has a lot of toilet paper anyway!!
I know deep down capital punishment is a no no ( for now , heh heh)and a match can not be altered after the fact ( in most cases) so I will at present have to suffer the pompous smirking,arrogant,inept,egotistical demigods. Harsh ? Yes ,very. Wrong ? Don’t think so.
I do not think every ref is like this . It IS a very difficult job and I applaud them as a rule.
To get back respect of the footballing nation for goodness sake be answerable!!!!
Players and Managers are either contracted ( by Sky?) or feel obliged to come and comment after a game and are regularly put under interrogation by the tv commentators in times of great pressure. Some of them have been censured(?) by the F.A./ Football League for their honest answers, concerning refs decisions etc. Managers and players have had their careers affected by their own actions yet seemingly Refs are immune to this.
No Ref in recent memory has come out and said anything. I swear that if one ref came out and admitted ” Yeah I totally messed up that” or .. ” Well I gave that decision because of…. ” I would have new respect and think well we all do it ,.. good on him. I may not like what he is admitting to but it is something I could actually quantify.
I have an idea that they are not allowed to comment mr. Hacket confirm? Yeah right he’s going to answer that one hah hah ……….
Graham - great article, you’re fast becoming one of my favourite writers (alongside Ahmed and Martin Samuel!)
Styles is pretty shoddy, and has a tendency to attempt to ‘level out’ games that he has affected with errors, but Ahmed has a point that if there were better referees out there, they’d be taking his games.
What we need is to seriously up the wages of the referee. Create some desire for people to become one. Get some pre-Sky players, who need the cash, to do it, they couldn’t be too bad.
Fergie was spot on when he said refs need to be accountable. Obviously not with fines or anything but with suspensions. Retroactive punishment should become possible too, up to a certain length of ban. The problem is that there just aren’t enough top-quality referees out there. Maybe this could be improved by having the ref, linesmen and 4th official form part of an officiating team. They do all their mathces together and perhaps this fosters a bit more trust, reliance and communication between them. Or something.
The simple fact is Football is under officiated. The pitch is too large and packed with too many players for one ref and a couple of linesmen to cover. Coupled with the increased pace of the game/players and it’s no wonder no one’s happy. 4 linesmen and 2 refs are necessary, or limited video review. The refs are human beings for chrissakes. I think that we’re asking too much of most of them, and yeah, the PL needs to compensate time very adequately. The best league (and best paid) deserves the best officials and should compensate them accordingly.
If a referee is considered not up to premiership standard, then why on earth should he be considered fit for the Championship or any of the lower leagues ? The rules of the game are the same in every single division, so why should poor decision making by referees in the premiership be acceptable in the lower leagues. Football is not just about the premiership !!
> I am … in the camp that doesn’t like the analysing of decisions from all conceivable angles in super slo-mo by the experts on the television.
Well, you’re wrong. Your own article proves you wrong. In other words, it’s about time for the video ref. Maybe by “analysing from all conceivable angles in super slo-mo” they’ll be able to make better decisions.