To Do or Not To Do with Referees…
They are the dark men-in-black and they are always at the centre of attention. For every goal conceded and for every goal scored, there is potentially always a referee to blame. The man with the whistle and his fellow scurrying tosspots are always picked on when anything, absolutely anything, goes wrong in a game of football. Maybe one ought to get rid of them altogether…
Not if you are Arsene Wenger. The Arsenal manger might have sent off to the stands during the Gunners’ UEFA Champions League match against FC Sevilla in midweek by referee Eric Braamhaar but he is not complaining. Instead the Frenchman says that refereeing standards have improved with each passing year and is optimistic that the level of efficiency will increase still.
Great words for the referees’ ears but can we accept Arsene Wenger’s words at face value? Maybe not, for this English Premiership weekend provided one more instance of controversial refereeing. In their 3-2 defeat to Birmingham City on Sunday, Tottenham Hotspurs’ striker Robbie Keane was shown a direct red for what referee Phil Dowd felt was a dangerous tackle on Fabrice Muamba. He was also observed discussing the matter with the fourth official.
Refereeing in Spain and Italy are often drawn into controversies for even the most silly of mistakes, especially in Spain where the referees are often blamed for a title loss. But that’s not exactly without any reason though. Both Sergio Aguero and Lionel Messi scored Maradona-esque Hand of God goals last season on two separate occasions in La Liga but both those misdemeanors went unnoticed by the officials. Although this season there has been a revamp of the refereeing unit and policies in Italy in the wake of the 2006 Calciopoli scandal, some controversial decisions against Juventus have been pointed out as innate flaws in the referees.
More importantly the football culture differs widely in Europe and often the continental club competitions such as the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup as well as the World Cup and European Championships are made victims of this disparity. For example, while officials in England allow tough tackles and accept physicality as an indispensable fraction of the game, their counter-parts in Spain reach into their pockets to dish a card or two for far less.
So what is the solution to this? Is refereeing standard indeed improving or is there still need for more improvement? Or should the referees be shipped off to Neverland and video technology be given the green signal?
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Refs are doing an alrite job sometimes your team will get riduculous calls agaisnt them but you just have to take it on the chin and pick yourself up again if its a full 90mins of bad reffing (like Liverpool vs Everton) Were refs are constantly giving everything to one team then that ref shouldn’t ref those matches anymore as simple as that!!
December 4th, 2007 @ 08:12Keep faith with the refs & they will do well. Most of the time its not the refs who deserve the backlash but the various football federations who give them inconsistent guidelines to work with. Last year’s world cup was one prime example of the refs not being allowed to use common sense & judgement in context. A foul was a foul was a foul was a foul. Therefore you had ridiculous matches like Netherlands vs Portugal where things got out of hand.
December 4th, 2007 @ 08:49more respect for refs, I say…
December 4th, 2007 @ 12:31I have to say that I think referees have for some time now, taken the decision to not get too stressed about stuff on the pitch. I can understand that attitude considering the sort of stick, it has become acceptable to dish out to them over the years. There’s probably no other job that pays so little considering the elevated amount of stress that these guys encounter while doing the said job. Those sort of working conditions would be regarded as unacceptable in most other industries, from a health and safety point of view.
Enough of the understanding and sympathy for the referees though. I don’t think the guy that suggested Robbie Keane’s tackle was no way a Red Card, should then say that English referees allow a degree of roughness in our game. Surely those two things can’t be compatible.
Personally I think that referees are a mixture of incompetent, unprofessional and self interested weasels.
In the Spurs game mentioned above the referee could in no way be considered to have been a homer and if anything was the complete opposite. He got both penalty decisions wrong and failed to book Berbatov for a clear dive (I’m a Spurs fan BTW).
In the Everton vs. Liverpool game a few weeks back the referee also saw fit to favour the away team over the home side. On that occasion I would suggest something more sinister than poor refereeing was going on. That ref clearly didn’t want to be seen to upset Liverpool, when their desire to start well in the league can’t have ever been more fervent. I think he bottled it on the day, did what Steven Gerrard told him to do over the penalty/red card and then refused to give penalties to Everton at the end to avoid any Liverpool backlash after the game.
Everyone knows that the league is run by the 20 chairman of the members and only 1 F.A. official. Their interests are in keeping the fans interest up, which means top players at the big clubs and favourable treatment for the big sides so they can maintain their grip on most of the money in the league/champions league. Any who oppose the strongest clubs will suffer at their hands. I think the Tevez to Man U deal is a clear example where they helped out West Ham to stay in the league, despite clearly cheating, so long as they gave them the player.
Getting back to referees , I suggest that they are under the same pressures not to upset the situation for the biggest clubs in the league. In that sort of climate, obviously their refereeing of other matches will become worse. Once impartiality is lost in any way, then you can never expect to do a good job when it matters, which IMO should be every game.
You saw what happened in Italy and I think the EPL could be going the same way. The only thing more dodgey than a league being run by it’s members chairman, would be if it was run by only one guy. Maybe they should let Vince McMahon take over!
That’d really finish the job and show that there really is no sport and very little entertainment in the EPL. 
December 4th, 2007 @ 21:12