What do you call 500 refs at the bottom of the ocean ? ... A good start ...Top two things ruining the game today are diving and refs
Bit unfair, players coming up with new ways to con the ref. New directives come out that immediately get broken, but if the ref dares to punish the players or team involved the press and supporters scream and cry about it. The speed of the game and athleticism of the players is such that there's no way they can keep up with play and have their eyes everywhere. And that's without the psychology factor of ref'ing in big stadiums with tens of thousand of rabid loonies screaming for your blood. TBH, I wouldn't want to do it unless there were a few stuffed brown envelopes in it for me, ofc.
And this is exactly why we don't have the best officials. We need to introduce rugby style respect for the refs from the players and managers. It's bad enough at the top level, but it filters down to the kids that watch it and they do it, too. Who wants to put up with that **** when you're volunteering and not getting paid? Things won't get better until it's a job that people want to do. You'd have to be mad to put up with the **** that they do at the moment. I do recognise the irony of me saying this when my username's basically me slagging off a ref!