Oh feckin' hell NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! How the feck does he get to do both games!! That cannot be right....
Well, if he does both of them then it might actually be 90 minutes of football, so it's only really one game. Or something.
Refereeing mistakes? How about this from Bobby Madley... well not quite. On first glance it looks like the player is on the pitch taking the throw. The shadow is perfectly on the touch line! The white line we can see in the video is the advertising board! Mad illusion
There was a fair amount of random refereeing from Mike Jones yesterday. Incompetent rather than biased but it doesn't alter the fact that one goal settled the match and his total decision making was worth a lot more than one goal. When margins are so fine we need: Higher quality officials Technology to help them Laws that are simple to interpret and that punish cheats
I see what you are getting at but let's be honest .The ball moves faster than any one player. How often do you see box to box players nowadays who are in one area and to the other for 90 minutes. These are the best players in the world who have been plucked as well out of the 100 and thousands of refs. Obviously there needs to be some standard to ref fitness but if you can't expect players to be sprinting up and down all match long I'm not sure I would be expecting the refs to be either
I completely agree but the solution is not to put up with bad decisions because only a superhuman could keep up with play. Have a ref in each half.
Agreed. Having refs in each half brings its own problems (inconsistency in reffing) but at least they won't be tired as mistakes always happen when humans are tired. I was just pointing out if players cant be up and down the field all game I wouldn't be expecting the refs to be which is why I think it's unfair to call refs unfit
In fairness, box-to-box mids and modern day FBs are generally getting up and down the pitch consistently over the course of 90 mins. Asking a ref to be able to keep up physically with the standard of players they're officiating shouldn't be such a huge ask. So many calls have been made from too far away that makes you wonder if the ref is basing their decision with only 50%-75% certainty. The idea of two refs in each half could work but I just think increasing the physical conditioning of referees should be essential.
Yes but presumably we are talking about the times they are too far away. How often do you talk about full backs or a box to box player being out of position because actually they have sprinted forward and they are jogging back (or the team counter attacking has moved the ball too well). I might be wrong as honestly I haven't been looking at the ref and I might be barking up the wrong tree but I see players (see ozil or fabregas) who cover the most ground in games (if you look at stats) but aren't in the right positions half the time, then I struggle to think what refs have to go through
Forget the players, there are 10 (outfield) on each side. Think more about the ball, even if you had a ref in each half there is no way he could keep up with the ball when it's passed 40 yards from one side to the other. Refs aren't the problem, they and their assistants do a very good job most of the time. Interpretation and consistency are more of a problem but not as much as whinging supporters who can do much better than refs after seeing 6 different angles in ultra slow-mo of an incident.
I don't think refs are either bad at their job or intentionally biased but I do think the decisions they effectively have to guess about have a disproportionate effect on results. This could be minimised by simple changes to the Laws. Abolishing penalties would be a good start.
