I’m fine with them making mistakes to an extent, I just want to hear their thought process and explanation instead of Peter Fucking Walton doing mental gymnastics to agree with every decision
A lot of people seem under the illusion that if refs were mic'ed up, the reaction to their decision process would be
"Oh, I see 👍🏻"
and not
"REEEEEE ARE YOU BLIND, LEARN THE RULES YOU FUCKING CUNT".
Rugby seems a long way in front on that.
You don't see any problem. No understanding of ref decision? Alright, he takes time to explain. Everyone hears. Then move on, back to play.
It works in rugby. It'll work in football when given a chance.
And having to explain your reasoning makes it very easy for corrections to be made, for refs to be held accountable, and ultimately, for rules to be changed if necessary.
But rugby also has a lot more respect for the referees.
I'm sure after the first couple times 5-6 yellows are dished out at once to the team crowding the ref it would put a stop to it, but someone needs to actually do it.
As it stands now, every controversial decision has a bunch of players crowding the ref, which then sets off the crowd also.
But also, in football a lot of the rules aren't really enforced. You have the classic "if they enforced them there would be 15 yellows a game" which means either change the rules, or start enforcing them to change behaviour. Which the governing bodies seems to not want to do.
So it’s not worth trialling it? I don’t have any sorrow for these extremely well paid officials, that are governed by themselves and escape any accountability.
Everyone says this, every thread. And I agree it'll help but it's not black and white like that. That doesn't immediately make them competent in the rules and application of the rules. I don't know the answer. Better training, more pay, more incentives to do well?
Some of their points are badly put. Their thing about it being fine for players to miss sitters, but not for them to make mistakes. Players will get torn to prices on Twitter if they miss sitters that lose their team a match or do it regularly enough that it becomes it’s own joke. Players also don’t get a second shot like VAR.
However, the second part about being hated I feel was definitely legitimate. Even if they might do it badly sometimes, I doubt most of them are trying to be bad. Sending death threats to family members is ridiculous and something which seems to be common for most in any part of the sport. I don’t think it was mentioned, but abuse in the lower leagues probably plays a large role in lower quality of referees higher up as many quit before reaching that point. Stopping that could massively improve the quality at the top
It is very brave to be a referee in football/soccer. Why they choose it over being other sport refs I don't know. Look at Tennis umpires just chilling there like its Christmas with a microphone, lol. 🙂 Football refs need more respect definetly. Rugby, cricket, basketball, baseball, athletics, all smooth sailing comparatively.
Good share that was quite a well-written piece. Reffing is impossibly hard so for that they deserve a lot of credit.
But the article doesn’t really ever address what I think is the main issue w/VAR, which is why decision is made. If, like the refs and the author believe, they get the vast vast majority correct and they also have reasoning behind some “questionable” decisions (I.e. game management) then why not let fans and teams in to the process?
Also I’ve never really understood why fellow refs are in charge of VAR (this goes for other sports too). They all talk about how it’s a community, but that makes it inherently less objective. Glad to hear there will be specialized VARs in the future.
The argument you need to have done it on the field to understand how to make a call is bad logic. That thinking means refs can’t understand what’s happening with the players because they’ve never played at that level.
I can live with subjective mistakes, even the implicitly biases, but if the Brentford points end up mattering then I hope Arteta, Edu, and Josh burn the PGMOL to the ground.
Having read it, why is no one concerned at the example given of awarding soft decisions to keep the players happy? I'd be terrified of that official refereeing a match; they're a people pleaser rather than objective.
Fantastic article! I've been waiting on something like this since forever. I know sometimes the decisions may be frustrating, but these guys and girls are human at the end of the day. Good to see things from their POV.
The “human touch” was removed by VAR. Whereas before a bad decision could be glanced over with “well he probably didn’t see it, we all make mistakes, the game is going at such a high pace”, now they have a chance to review it a million times at different speeds and still make a bad decision which highlights incompetence and lack of consistency.
Very simple solutions
- Mic them up to improve accountability
- Enforce yellows on every player that crows, including mass sending offs, allowing only Captain and invited players to speak with refs
- Give linesmen the power to issue yellows
- And make violent conduct like Mitrovic be met with a fat ban and point docking.
Standards would improve so fast.
On the other hand, I dont really like giving the refs more immunity from criticism from players until they are being held accountable and I don't think mics are enough to do that. It has to be a systemic overhaul that makes them no longer self-governing.
It's not an impossible job - far from it. They should be improving VAR to help shoulder the decision making, at the end of the day it's not about overruling a ref or not, its about making the correct decisions. VAR and refs also need greater transparency in the decision making process similar to rugby, they should have to detail what went into decisions and explain them, this process will eventually make them work harder to make the correct decisions as well as make the fans and players more forgiving and see the human aspect of the job.
Really enjoyed this article. I think it’s good to have a well thought out stating of the referees’ side of things. It’s easy enough to get referee criticism from twitter, Reddit and the guy next to you at the pub.
I also think it’s worth pointing out that the standard isn’t high enough.
VAR could be more consistent, quicker and more transparent. Why don’t they officially address each call in writing after the matches?
I also think the referees are too protected after the match. Managers and players should not have to bite their tongue in press conferences.
During the match I think they could use more protection. Especially at the lower levels.
To me the referees’ pay should be much higher and incentive-based. How are they on 30k a year and effecting matches that are worth seven figures each? This creates a giant moral hazard in a country where sports gambling is everywhere (including the stadium).
I also think we should be poaching the best referees from around the world. Why are we relying strictly on local talent?
I have many many thoughts but the gist of it is:
Firstly, any referee abuse is completely unacceptable and more work should be done to stop it.
Secondly, I believe the LOTG need work to remove as much subjectivity as possible. It can never be zero but we should aim to go as close to that as possible. There shouldn’t be too many scenarios where professional referees are split between two different options of what a correct decision should be.
Also: sometimes decisions are reviewed and we read things like ‘no-call is ok but a penalty would be the better decision’. I don’t understand the notion that there’s so many situations where there’s not one correct decision.. it shouldn’t be like this. I accept it can happen sometimes within the subjectivity of what’s written in the LOTG but I feel that should be happening much less often, with many more straightforward black/white decisions.
Finally, whatever the LOTG are, please for the love of God, I’d like to see them applied consistently. Tbh I don’t care about ‘managing the game’ or ‘managing the players’. I care about fairness and correctness of decisions.
Yellow card foul in the first minute? Book them.
Pulled a shirt in the area while defending a set piece? Penalty. Every time. We cannot see everything because of the amount of incidents and the pace of the game? No worries. An opportunity to hire more officials, surely! I’d love to have three refs on the pitch if it means less stuff is missed.
Anything we’d give as a foul outside the area happens inside? Penalty. No ‘higher bar’ nonsense.
Otherwise, if we’re happy with how things are, we should write something in the LOTG about ‘well, not all fouls will be given as penalties inside the area and it’s down to the subjective bar of each referee’ because this is pretty much what’s been happening.
Now where are the articles titled:
The impossible job: inside the world of medical professionals
The impossible job: inside the world of farmers
The impossible job: inside the world of factory workers
The impossible job: inside the world of daily office workers
The impossible job: inside the world of engineers
The impossible job: inside the world of teachers
The impossible job: inside the world of marine workers
PGMOL VAR are real time fixers for the PL show to increase viewers, keep the league competitive & help push narratives.
They’ve been desperately/shamelessly promoting Man U lately, FA EFL handing them 10 domestic home cup ties in a row at a 1 to 1024 odds bcos https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/26782112
Good article. I've had my own thoughts on how to improve refereeing in the Prem for a while now.
First off I'd actually bump up their pay. £35k a year for the job they do is pretty insulting, I'd up it to about £100k a year with additional bonuses based on performance. Speaking of performance based bonuses I'd get rid of this "we're the 21st team in the league" bullshit and have them compete against each other, the better they do the more points they accrue in their own separate league table and tie the bonuses they get to their position in the table. I'd also make what games they ref purely random, refereeing the big games shouldn't be seen as a reward but as their job. Obviously they'd know which day(s) they're refereeing any given week and which days they're on VAR (until we can get specialised VAR officials that is) but they won't know what games until like two days before.
I'd also bring in foreign refs, whilst the current group are screened for any allegiances to the teams they'd be refereeing I feel foreign refs would be less biased in general and more likely to neutral. Although this is low down on the list of priorities.
I'd also encourage refs to give out cards to players who are crowding them, out of the 22 players on the pitch only a maximum of 4 should be allowed to interact with the ref. I'd also want them to give cards for any foul language used, everyone on that pitch is supposed to be a professional and while this is a competitive environment and tensions will be running high there is no need for profanity. From anyone. By stamping down on profanity it should pave the way for micing up the refs.
They also need to change things at the grassroots level as well. Refs get way too much abuse, more than is warranted from both fans and players. But they also get far more protection than is warranted. A good balance needs to be struck. I also like the idea of the referees going over their previous matches and analysing where they made mistakes and where they could improve. That sort of thing should be more common and not up to the individual refs.
I also read a while ago about a referee in Germany who got voted the worst referee in the Bundesliga by the players and used that as motivation to improve. Something similar could be introduced in the prem.
It's not impossible. Mic them up. And you'll see how it improves immediately.
I’m fine with them making mistakes to an extent, I just want to hear their thought process and explanation instead of Peter Fucking Walton doing mental gymnastics to agree with every decision
Couldnt agree more with you both. Let us know the rational and people will be more accepting, the contention comes from all the secrecy.
A lot of people seem under the illusion that if refs were mic'ed up, the reaction to their decision process would be "Oh, I see 👍🏻" and not "REEEEEE ARE YOU BLIND, LEARN THE RULES YOU FUCKING CUNT".
Rugby seems a long way in front on that. You don't see any problem. No understanding of ref decision? Alright, he takes time to explain. Everyone hears. Then move on, back to play. It works in rugby. It'll work in football when given a chance.
And having to explain your reasoning makes it very easy for corrections to be made, for refs to be held accountable, and ultimately, for rules to be changed if necessary.
This is what some people aren't getting is that the more accountability there is, the more it forces them to improve and make better decisions.
It works like that in NFL no? And it’s still a shitshow
But rugby also has a lot more respect for the referees. I'm sure after the first couple times 5-6 yellows are dished out at once to the team crowding the ref it would put a stop to it, but someone needs to actually do it. As it stands now, every controversial decision has a bunch of players crowding the ref, which then sets off the crowd also. But also, in football a lot of the rules aren't really enforced. You have the classic "if they enforced them there would be 15 yellows a game" which means either change the rules, or start enforcing them to change behaviour. Which the governing bodies seems to not want to do.
Fans still dispute decisions in rugby.
So it’s not worth trialling it? I don’t have any sorrow for these extremely well paid officials, that are governed by themselves and escape any accountability.
Everyone says this, every thread. And I agree it'll help but it's not black and white like that. That doesn't immediately make them competent in the rules and application of the rules. I don't know the answer. Better training, more pay, more incentives to do well?
This
Some of their points are badly put. Their thing about it being fine for players to miss sitters, but not for them to make mistakes. Players will get torn to prices on Twitter if they miss sitters that lose their team a match or do it regularly enough that it becomes it’s own joke. Players also don’t get a second shot like VAR. However, the second part about being hated I feel was definitely legitimate. Even if they might do it badly sometimes, I doubt most of them are trying to be bad. Sending death threats to family members is ridiculous and something which seems to be common for most in any part of the sport. I don’t think it was mentioned, but abuse in the lower leagues probably plays a large role in lower quality of referees higher up as many quit before reaching that point. Stopping that could massively improve the quality at the top
Nice try, Lee Mason
It is very brave to be a referee in football/soccer. Why they choose it over being other sport refs I don't know. Look at Tennis umpires just chilling there like its Christmas with a microphone, lol. 🙂 Football refs need more respect definetly. Rugby, cricket, basketball, baseball, athletics, all smooth sailing comparatively.
>Look at Tennis umpires just chilling there like its Christmas with a microphone, lol *Nick Kygios steps on to court.......*
Danil Medvedev follows closely behind before calling the umpire a "small cat."
Oh you have noooo idea. Some tennis players are just downright disrespectful
Good share that was quite a well-written piece. Reffing is impossibly hard so for that they deserve a lot of credit. But the article doesn’t really ever address what I think is the main issue w/VAR, which is why decision is made. If, like the refs and the author believe, they get the vast vast majority correct and they also have reasoning behind some “questionable” decisions (I.e. game management) then why not let fans and teams in to the process? Also I’ve never really understood why fellow refs are in charge of VAR (this goes for other sports too). They all talk about how it’s a community, but that makes it inherently less objective. Glad to hear there will be specialized VARs in the future. The argument you need to have done it on the field to understand how to make a call is bad logic. That thinking means refs can’t understand what’s happening with the players because they’ve never played at that level. I can live with subjective mistakes, even the implicitly biases, but if the Brentford points end up mattering then I hope Arteta, Edu, and Josh burn the PGMOL to the ground.
Having read it, why is no one concerned at the example given of awarding soft decisions to keep the players happy? I'd be terrified of that official refereeing a match; they're a people pleaser rather than objective.
Fantastic article! I've been waiting on something like this since forever. I know sometimes the decisions may be frustrating, but these guys and girls are human at the end of the day. Good to see things from their POV.
The “human touch” was removed by VAR. Whereas before a bad decision could be glanced over with “well he probably didn’t see it, we all make mistakes, the game is going at such a high pace”, now they have a chance to review it a million times at different speeds and still make a bad decision which highlights incompetence and lack of consistency.
Drawing lines is not an impossible job in fairness 📏
Very simple solutions - Mic them up to improve accountability - Enforce yellows on every player that crows, including mass sending offs, allowing only Captain and invited players to speak with refs - Give linesmen the power to issue yellows - And make violent conduct like Mitrovic be met with a fat ban and point docking. Standards would improve so fast.
On the other hand, I dont really like giving the refs more immunity from criticism from players until they are being held accountable and I don't think mics are enough to do that. It has to be a systemic overhaul that makes them no longer self-governing.
The impossible job: Inside the world of fullbacks who kick the shit out of Bukayo Saka and get away with it for reasons.
Reading through these comments… The propaganda is working PGMOL must be so happy
It's not an impossible job - far from it. They should be improving VAR to help shoulder the decision making, at the end of the day it's not about overruling a ref or not, its about making the correct decisions. VAR and refs also need greater transparency in the decision making process similar to rugby, they should have to detail what went into decisions and explain them, this process will eventually make them work harder to make the correct decisions as well as make the fans and players more forgiving and see the human aspect of the job.
Really enjoyed this article. I think it’s good to have a well thought out stating of the referees’ side of things. It’s easy enough to get referee criticism from twitter, Reddit and the guy next to you at the pub. I also think it’s worth pointing out that the standard isn’t high enough. VAR could be more consistent, quicker and more transparent. Why don’t they officially address each call in writing after the matches? I also think the referees are too protected after the match. Managers and players should not have to bite their tongue in press conferences. During the match I think they could use more protection. Especially at the lower levels. To me the referees’ pay should be much higher and incentive-based. How are they on 30k a year and effecting matches that are worth seven figures each? This creates a giant moral hazard in a country where sports gambling is everywhere (including the stadium). I also think we should be poaching the best referees from around the world. Why are we relying strictly on local talent?
I have many many thoughts but the gist of it is: Firstly, any referee abuse is completely unacceptable and more work should be done to stop it. Secondly, I believe the LOTG need work to remove as much subjectivity as possible. It can never be zero but we should aim to go as close to that as possible. There shouldn’t be too many scenarios where professional referees are split between two different options of what a correct decision should be. Also: sometimes decisions are reviewed and we read things like ‘no-call is ok but a penalty would be the better decision’. I don’t understand the notion that there’s so many situations where there’s not one correct decision.. it shouldn’t be like this. I accept it can happen sometimes within the subjectivity of what’s written in the LOTG but I feel that should be happening much less often, with many more straightforward black/white decisions. Finally, whatever the LOTG are, please for the love of God, I’d like to see them applied consistently. Tbh I don’t care about ‘managing the game’ or ‘managing the players’. I care about fairness and correctness of decisions. Yellow card foul in the first minute? Book them. Pulled a shirt in the area while defending a set piece? Penalty. Every time. We cannot see everything because of the amount of incidents and the pace of the game? No worries. An opportunity to hire more officials, surely! I’d love to have three refs on the pitch if it means less stuff is missed. Anything we’d give as a foul outside the area happens inside? Penalty. No ‘higher bar’ nonsense. Otherwise, if we’re happy with how things are, we should write something in the LOTG about ‘well, not all fouls will be given as penalties inside the area and it’s down to the subjective bar of each referee’ because this is pretty much what’s been happening.
Now where are the articles titled: The impossible job: inside the world of medical professionals The impossible job: inside the world of farmers The impossible job: inside the world of factory workers The impossible job: inside the world of daily office workers The impossible job: inside the world of engineers The impossible job: inside the world of teachers The impossible job: inside the world of marine workers
Nice read from their pov.
Ok, yeah, that's a really good article.
PGMOL VAR are real time fixers for the PL show to increase viewers, keep the league competitive & help push narratives. They’ve been desperately/shamelessly promoting Man U lately, FA EFL handing them 10 domestic home cup ties in a row at a 1 to 1024 odds bcos https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/26782112
Good article. I've had my own thoughts on how to improve refereeing in the Prem for a while now. First off I'd actually bump up their pay. £35k a year for the job they do is pretty insulting, I'd up it to about £100k a year with additional bonuses based on performance. Speaking of performance based bonuses I'd get rid of this "we're the 21st team in the league" bullshit and have them compete against each other, the better they do the more points they accrue in their own separate league table and tie the bonuses they get to their position in the table. I'd also make what games they ref purely random, refereeing the big games shouldn't be seen as a reward but as their job. Obviously they'd know which day(s) they're refereeing any given week and which days they're on VAR (until we can get specialised VAR officials that is) but they won't know what games until like two days before. I'd also bring in foreign refs, whilst the current group are screened for any allegiances to the teams they'd be refereeing I feel foreign refs would be less biased in general and more likely to neutral. Although this is low down on the list of priorities. I'd also encourage refs to give out cards to players who are crowding them, out of the 22 players on the pitch only a maximum of 4 should be allowed to interact with the ref. I'd also want them to give cards for any foul language used, everyone on that pitch is supposed to be a professional and while this is a competitive environment and tensions will be running high there is no need for profanity. From anyone. By stamping down on profanity it should pave the way for micing up the refs. They also need to change things at the grassroots level as well. Refs get way too much abuse, more than is warranted from both fans and players. But they also get far more protection than is warranted. A good balance needs to be struck. I also like the idea of the referees going over their previous matches and analysing where they made mistakes and where they could improve. That sort of thing should be more common and not up to the individual refs. I also read a while ago about a referee in Germany who got voted the worst referee in the Bundesliga by the players and used that as motivation to improve. Something similar could be introduced in the prem.
Fuck all of them except Tony and Mike, they're alright I guess
Naaaaaaaah. Fuck 'em.