Reply With QuoteCan you run that by me again?
Ok, so, the thing is, referees come in for a lot of stick. They get booed off all the time and sometimes quite rightly so.
Red cards get wrongly handed out and sometime the get wrongly ingored. For example, Mike Atkinson in the Merseyside derby earlier this season, Jack Rodwell received a red that was correctly rescinded, but to be fair, in that game, Disco Fellaini could easily have earnt himself an early bath, but that goes for most games I’ve seen Fellaini play in. In that tackle Kyrgiakos went in all hard and Greek and bearded, yeah, but Fellaini fucking stamps on him, stamps on him! But that’s just a drop in the ocean.
It wasn’t just the hottest October since records began that got to Mike Atkinson. In top flight and international football, huge and eternally costly errors are made by officials on a weekly basis. These are the men who know the rules and wave the flags and blow the whistles. But wait. The thing is. It’s not their fault. See, they’re only human, and while you may think you can call a game better after watching it in a pub or on the sofa, well, you’re wrong ok, you’re just wrong.
Although from the sky cameras your hunches may often be correct, unless you’re actually out there running about while it’s zipping around you have no idea what it’s like to call a game. Neither do I, but I had the misfortune of calling a 7 a side game recently after I’d played and the ref had to go, apparently his wife had gone into labour, and the game just descended into kicking each other.
See the thing is, players know the rules too, most of them anyway, not that African guy who charges the free kick against Brazil and belts it away, like a valiant rabbit attempting to disarm the guy holding a shotgun in his face, but yes, players know the rules. But they don’t really care about them.
If Mr Va Va Voom can put France through to a World Cup and in the space of two seconds do more to bring Ireland together in unified hatred of something that wasn’t an integral part of itself than political peace processes ever have, he’s going to isn’t he, and you know why he is. It’s because he’s a clever, experienced, professional footballer trying to get his team through to the biggest competition in the game. Well, maybe the biggest, we’ll go into that another time.
Go back a few decades and find Argentinean deity and coke fiend Diego Armando Maradona forcing a ball passed a prone Peter Shilton with his arm. He has since admitted this in an interview in 2005, the incident of course forgivable in light of his other goal in the game. Fast forward to World Cup 2010 First Knockout round and find offsides that were but weren’t, costing Mexico in one of the largest games in the county’s footballing history against, against South American rivals Argentina, and boasting a damn good side to boot.
You don’t have to travel far to see Frank Lampard celebrating his striking of a ball over the oppositions goal line only to be told his effort had not in fact crossed the line, only it had.
The fact is, they’ve cost teams there places in tournaments, players the chances to win medals, managers their positions of employment, and indeed, the chance for extorted fans to finally be a part of a dream.
Aside from all this the big huge blatant linking thing is that every single one of these incidents were watched by fans everywhere, who all reacted and mentally judged them as they occurred, only to see them played back mere seconds later and have their suspicions confirmed or dismissed, whereas the guy with the whistle who in charge gets to watch it back only hours later at home at go oh, oh shit, erm, I got that a wrong there didn’t I, what a fuck up, ah well, does that Taylor guy still have a job? What? No? Poor man. Has my check come through? I don’t know dear you’ll have to trawl through all these death threats and hate mail.
The kick is, that football is now a huge international industry, beyond a mere game of booting a ball about and winning and losing, it’s a business in which fortunes are invested. And because of this it costs the guy at the bottom a gazillion to go and watch their team for a season. Half a gazillion a match for most premiership clubs. Careers of managers and footballers alike are swayed by mistakes, the eternal perpetuation of inevitable human error. I mean come on, they’re bound to get it wrong, sometimes I fuck up tying my shoe laces, never mind putting twenty two intense sportsmen zipping around me to make forty thousand people boo at me. I’d fucking struggle not to just go ape shit.
But do you know what happens when a top flight cricket umpire makes a mistake? Well the team that has been wronged gets to go no, wait, no no no, that’s bullshit that is, have a look at the fucking film ump. Then they stand around, the crowd go ooooooh and it say’s out or not out and the game continues accordingly as if the correct decision had been made in the first place.
And when a tennis umpire or lineperson, well when they go OUT and the player is like, well I hit that ball in, and he knows he did because he saw it and he hit it, and it would have won him the match, he gets to go, woah, hold your horses, have a look again, and they do, and he’s right, well he get’s to win the tournament and the acclaim he’s earn. Alternatively, if such a system were not in place, the other player could have stormed back and took the match the tournament and history thereafter changes. All because some guy said OUT when it wasn’t OUT.
It’s not about swings and roundabouts, it’s about common fucking sense.
Can you run that by me again?
if all the officials would decide exactly what a red card is what the offside is matter like that and stick to it rather than one rule in one game and another in another game then we wouldnt be so pissed off.
FAI = Footballing Apartheid in Ireland
What is and isn't a Red card (or a yellow) is laid down in the laws of the game.Originally Posted by Norn_irish_stu
Where the disparity comes in is the phrase "In the opinion of the Referee", as fans we all have our own interpretations of what is a foul and what isn't, well Ref's are the same, every Ref sees every game differently to another.
Every season all Ref's get together in their counties, and are given guidelines for the coming season, these guidelines are fed down from FIFA to the FA and County FA's via the Ref's association and County secretaries, the biggest one this season being that a two footed tackle is a Red card, end of, and all ref's should implement it, the Ref NOT doing it is in the wrong, NOT the one who does, thats where the inconsistency lies.
correct the problem for me is that they dont seem to get punished when they make mistkaes of do not give decisions that they ok they ref a championship game for a week then are back no wonder it doesnt improve.
FAI = Footballing Apartheid in Ireland
I agree with that, but the FA are stuck between a rock and a hard place, if they suspend every Ref in the Prem who makes a cock up, they would soon run out of experienced Ref's for the Prem, and you would have championship standard Ref's in the Prem.
Getting to the Prem as a Ref is along hard road as you will appreciate, and there are not that many promotions each season, it's very difficult to "fast track" to the top in a profession that relies on experience for promotion.
Rock and hard place couldnt put it better myself, maybe they should put fines in place instead demoting refs i know that sounds harsh but im not talking a lot but something that will make then think twice.
FAI = Footballing Apartheid in Ireland
We need more ex players to take it up.
Unfortunately they are so well paid today that there is no need for them to work when they retire.
Cricket shows the way home...The best umpires are all former players.
could be a shout players arent going to argue as much with ex players but most player now are as you said so paid they have no need to work again or they go into punditry or coaching/managment.
FAI = Footballing Apartheid in Ireland
Maybe lower league players should consider it?
The concept sounds good, but in practice it wouldn't work under the present system, Ref's like Webb, Dowd & Halsey have been doing from a very early age, it takes two years to progress a level, so if you start at 14 (min age) for a level 8, it takes sixteen years to progress to level 1 and beyond to premiership standard. You can only apply for promotion in season you are not being considered for promotion.
Players from lower leagues retiring at 30 would be too old for the Prem by the time they reached the required level.
My son and a lot of other young lads give up refereeing because of the abuse they suffer from managers and parents at minor league level, one manager even threatened to punch my son, he was 15 at the time, I was pitch side, and told my son to abandon the game, he did for his own personal safety, he got called in to explain his actions, the manager got away with it, even though three independent people said that he had threatened my boy, so my boy told the County FA to shove it.
The abuse I get at my level is quite bad, but I've got the experience to deal with it, I've sent off players for foul and abusive, I've also sent managers and coaches to the stands for comments directed at me or my assistants, I've even reported a whole team for comments made about one of my assistants in the dressing room after the game, you have to have balls of steel to be a Ref, but when it comes down to it, you have the final word.
it really is just a thankless job no wonder no one wants to do it
FAI = Footballing Apartheid in Ireland
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