They're told to. It's not a coincidence that a lot of the big games get these "let the game flow" idiots. Officials are being taught that this is a good thing and that they shouldn't "spoil the game".
This is correct. But these plank-ton are enable to reconcile this with the letter of the law. Why is that top-flight rugby refs can allow the game to flow in the presence of infringements to the point of play breakdown, then penalise the offenders well after the fact ??
Can people stop holding up rugby referees as the pinnacle of all officiating? Just look at the amount of crap that happens on a rugby pitch that they're oblivious too and fail to clamp down on - with Australia and France being particularly good at playing the referee and getting away with it.
And if a manager had said after the game that he was deliberately letting players off red cards they'd have been given a touchline ban. They'd be right but still punished. If an "elite" ref admits to doing something like this, God knows what the rest are doing. I've said it many times before. We should be looking to raise the standard of refereeing before we bring in video tech. They're not up to scratch when it comes to basics, like not making up rules on the fly, so how the hell is giving them more responsibilities going to help? It's going to go very badly and my only hope is it's so bad Mike Riley has to walk.
Nobody says they are the pinnacle. But they actually consistently do for real what morons like Clatterf*ck delude themselves into believing they are doing.
I'm not saying that they're any better than what we've got, just that the current job is only going to attract dross. Who wants to be abused endlessly and castigated in public by all and sundry, regardless of your performance? Kids and parents watch this **** and take this attitude to games where the officials are just volunteers. Lots of people walk away from the sport all the time because it's just not worth putting up with that crap. You have to be some kind of nutter to see it all the way through and get into the Premier League, which is why our officials are just that: nuts. The sport needs more sportsmanship, less gamesmanship and a higher standard of official. We're not going to get that under the current system.
I've got a brilliant and/or terrifying idea that would help sort out the standard of refereeing in this country: as it's been demonstrated that English referees are barely of the standard to work as a makeshift scarecrow let alone officiate a top flight football match, refereeing appointments should be handled by UEFA - which means that each relevant association submits the refereeing appointments they had in mind for that weekend, and then UEFA distribute them across all the relevant top flights. With the possibility of bias all but eliminated, as it's impossible for Martin Twatkinson to dick over Spurs for the umpteenth time if he's officiating a Viktoria Plzen match that weekend, it won't take long before it becomes clear which nations need to buck up the standard of their officials - for their own personal wellbeing, if the Portuguese twat we got for our game against Gent last season winds up in charge of a Belgrade derby...
Damn right... We should mike referees up and broadcast the feed live similar to rugby (to better understand how they deal with situations on the pitch so they and everyone can learn from that, and to better regulate and discipline against the tirade of abuse they can get from players and managers) and ask them to explain their on-pitch decisions either to a panel of experts post-match (the transcription/recording of which is then published) or to an interviewer who can show them incidents on the game on a screen on some sort and they can talk through the decisions. I think it would also be interesting to, once a month, have referees peer-review each other's key decisions (with some sort of independent moderation or adjudication) in the public eye, hopefully in a way that can be constructive for them. I'm not saying that referees will ever be perfect, rugby referees are not and they have access to far more tools to enforce the laws of the game correctly, they still make mistakes and miss things. But the objective of all the above is to prevent referees officiating the occasion, rather than the match, and to provide more transparency to help the officials improve themselves and their decision making.
The thing is that, if referees were allowed to review one another's decisions, the most likely outcome is they'd agree their colleagues were correct and there was absolutely nothing wrong with any of their decisions - which is pretty much what happens already, given every time Sky/BT/BBC ask an ex-ref for their opinion on a decision they always side with their former colleagues.
I agree, hence some form of independent adjudication to get them to cut the crap and break up the 'referees union'. Quite who that would be is another matter.
At the moment, there is very little incentive to become a top-class PL ref. Endless grief and abuse and all you have at the end of it is an annual pay cheque equivalent to what most of the yobs shouting abuse at you on the pitch earn in a week. It's a twisted argument, I know, but with the amount of money sloshing around in the game you'd think they'd be able to pay top refs upwards of £100k per year. In addition, they should add a simple bonus system whereby an independent panel reviews each game and scores them out of ten. None of the ex-player ex-manager bollocks they use for reviewing simulation. 3 completely impartial people - potentially refs from the continent. That score is then averaged out and multiplied by 1,000 for a nice fat juicy bonus of up to £10,000 for a superbly officiated game. I loath to defend them but if I was paid that much per year (I'm paid much less, but with much less grief alongside it) to do that job, I'd probably also cave in to the media narratives and earn myself a place on the Chinese/Indian/Arabian gravy train too.
Hackett? He's not afraid to call out underperformers and was a top ref. I think he's largely unpopular with them which is what's needed to break up the current failings.
I am a qualified referee and so is my 17 yr old son. I don't ref anymore (my knees won't let me) but I go with my son to his matches and I have regularly run the line for when my sons play and I can completely concur with PNP on this. I have received more abuse as a 'volunteer linesman' in youth football in the last 6/7 years than I ever did reffing mens Sunday league football in the 90s. My son is already a better and higher qualified ref than I was and I can assure you that if he had a pre conceived plan to ref a match and lost control like Clattenburg did due to him not enforcing the laws he would be taken off of matches for a number of weeks and disciplined by the Kent FA who take the quality and performance of their young refs very seriously.
Clattenberg has sold every referee at every level down the river. The idea that you decide how to approach a game, in advance, and irrespective of events, is an affront to any player injured by a bad challenge where suitable punishment isn't administered. No doubt he'll enjoy a hugely lucrative TV career in the USA. ****er.
Referees are influenced by crowds, managers, players, and reputations of clubs and owners. No ref is sacked for being ****...ever. A ref rules a goal offside when a player has the ball passed to him when he is in his own half yet nothing happens. A referee doesn't give a goal that is at least 3 feet over the line yet nothing happens. A keeper kicks the ball out of a ball boys hands when he picks it up to let a team take a corner in the 20th minute of a match to waste time and the ref refuses to book him yet nothing happens. A keeper is the last player and kicks a forward who would score if not fouled and only gives a yellow instead of the manditory red card yet nothing happens. None of these things were marginal or 50/50 judgement decisions. I haven't looked any up they are just 4 instances off the top of my head. Fans here or from other clubs could think of many others. I get mistakes like whether it was a foul or offside (which replays could solve) but these are purely incompetent. Until refs are sacked for being **** then this will continue.
