Whatever mod deleted my post laughing at little LUKE, gave the reason "no insults"..... Yet none were used in my post. Any chance of some clarification on that please?
Calling someone a "mascot" who has been " bum rimming the absolute rectum" out of people isn't insulting? Give it a ****ing rest.
One of Pochs biggest mistakes was backing down and apologising for his outburst at Mike Dean, that was the first sign of real weakness and it seemed to affect him and the team. He should have pursued Dean who clearly initiated the outburst with something he said got away scot free.
If a footballer has a string of bad displays, they are (usually) dropped. If a manager has a bad run of performances, chances are that they lose their jobs. If referees make consistently bad decisions, they are immune from culpability and carry on like nothing has happened. The IFAB, FA and PGMOL need to get their ****ing act together because they are doing everything they can to absolve themselves of responsibility; the implementation of VAR (which I, in principle, advocate) has been a total farce, their tinkering of the football rules are outrageous and the standards of current officials are simply not good enough. I don't know what all the criteria or requirements are to be a Premier League referee, but if Craig Pawson, Lee Mason, Stuart Atwell, Mike Dean and Jon Moss can all be referees, then I may as well put in an application too - I'd love to be **** at my job and get paid close to 6 figures a year with unrivalled job security.
Not only do they not suffer any disciplinary consequences, they don't have to justify themselves in the media either. There's no comeback on them at all.
It's inside the Arctic Circle, isn't it? One of my brothers lives there. Let's be kind and say it's not for everyone.
Typical bloody Gooner! Kevin Friend lives in Leicester, so that's ok. He's from even further South though, as he was born in Bristol and supports City. Both are outside the 100 mile exclusion zone around London, so he's fine. You have to claim that you follow Shepshed Dynamo or something, though. Just checked an old article and it's funny how a number of these refs now support top-flight clubs. Not that they've changed their support, but a group of teams got promoted while they were reffing... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36075347 Leeds, Newcastle, Villa and Sheffield Utd. Hmm...
While I agree that referees need more oversight and accountability and should see some sort of consequence for their mistakes, I also think that an element of caution needs to be retained in how it’s done. Refereeing at any level is a largely thankless job and the abuse that one or two members of my family have had refereeing games at a junior level and senior women’s level is sobering to hear about. The game can’t run without referees at any level and I think more needs to be done to promote talent up the ranks and get them qualified to ref higher-level games in order to have a viable talent pool to promote up the leagues in place of some of the sub-standard officials we see at the top of the game. I’d also like to see a pan-European initiative where referees from other leagues independently review each other (not live obviously because that’s not feasible, but periodically throughout the season) in terms of performance, and to see referees interviewed on record after games in order to account for decisions. I also think the audio feed from referees, assistants, and the VAR should be included in broadcasts, as it is in rugby, so everyone can get a clearer understanding of how they are communicating between themselves and with players.
I think you've solved your own problem Huddle; it isn't necessarily a lack of quality/training/expertise - after all, PL-level referees usually come in with years and years of experience. And they are only human. As the game gets faster and modern technology is able to dissect every moment of a game in 4K and at 28 different angles with cameras that see quicker and clearer than the human eye, it is only inevitable that mistakes will be made more frequently and will be open to more scrutiny. That, I can live with. It's the current set-up that's killing the PGMOL. As Brunel said, in how many other industries can so much sustained crap be met with continued job security? Even when a ref is 'demoted' to the Championship, as Dean was in 2017, the 'punishment' tends to last no more than a week or two (i.e. until the newspapers and social media have moved on and the smoke has cleared) - it's the sporting equivalent of missing afternoon break because you set fire to the classroom before lunch. There is zero proportionality in the method and it also says to the Championship - whose clubs contribute £50k pa to the big pot of PL refs salaries - 'you're the detention room'. No. If a ref is too crap for the PL, he is too crap for any level elite sport, full stop and inflicting him on the Championship is as much of a punishment for them as it is for him. No. He can either go and officiate on the Hackney Marshes while completing a refresher/additional training course, or **** off home and get a new job. As for the PGMOL itself, the whole thing is a cartel. From the fact that the executives are almost all former referees who made exactly the same mistakes as the ones they're meant to be criticising, to the fact that VAR is manned by other referees and no-one can hear a word being said between them. I don't know about you, but since that muppet Clattenburg came out with his 'narrative' after the Leicester season, I don't trust a word any of them says. Where is the transparency? Why are refereeing decisions conducted like some sort of state secret? Why is there such reluctance to admit error? Are we meant to believe that they are gods? The fact that not a single apology has ever been uttered by any of them despite the entire world seeing that a mistake was made, is what has led to the ridiculous situation where managers are openly insisting that they don't want to be reffed by certain officials ever again. If the PGMOL thinks this is less damaging to their image than offering a sincere, humble apology and admitting human error, they are beyond hope. And then there are the competing interests at work within the PGMOL. It's a sordid, murky world. A plainly capitalist endeavour that bizarrely operates like a Trade Union. Try researching who actually funds the thing and pays the Select Group's wages. Good luck. From what I dug up, it appears to be a combination of clubs, the PL, the FA and various corporate sponsors (currently EA Sports). Who knows how many influences are at work there? The FA wants player development, the PL wants good TV, the clubs want promotion, the sponsors want drama.
Nail on head CK. What we want from officials is accuracy, consistency, transparency and accountability. I can accept some drift on the first two because like you say, despite the technology now available, the game can still be very hard to judge at times, let alone in a way that preserves the natural flow of a match that we all want to keep. Sure, improvement needed there though. The latter two qualities are utterly lacking and the fact that it would be frankly trivial to make changes to rectify this, and it’s never been done, smacks of an organisation that has motives other than being what it should - a servant of the game we all love.
Chris Foy. ****ing cyclist. Same ref for the utterly abysmal loss to Stoke, where he ****ed up absolutely everything and all in one direction. Now a senior referees coach for the PGMOL. The prick.
Southampton are requesting that neither Mike "****" Dean or Lee Mason be allowed to referee their matches Wait, we can make requests? Okay, let's request that neither Mike "****" Dean or Martin Twatkinson be allowed within twenty miles of one of our matches
Oh crap, I'd forgotten about that Stoke match. After years of therapy you now remind me about it. It's not like it contains the worst decisions that have ever gone against us, but I don't think any game has ever had so many so wrong.
If anything sums up the state of refereeing in this country, it's the following incidents at the World Cup 2006: Graeme Poll books Josip Simunic twice without sending him off until giving Simunic a third yellow after the final whistle 2010: Howard Webb ****s the bed while refereeing the final to the point both Spanish and Dutch fans were equally ****ed off with him 2018: Not a single English referee is selected for the tournament All of those instances should have been a cause for embarrassment within The FA, as they either showed what was supposedly the top official of the country looking like a clueless berk who couldn't control a medicated tortoise let alone a high level football match, or that between FIFA and UEFA they couldn't name a single English official who they believed could be trusted to take charge for so much as a dead rubber between Panama and Tunisia without ****ing it up in some way The fact that Premier League refs keep coming out of World Cups as either an international punchline or somebody who has a list of internationals queuing up wanting to punch them should have told The FA that the standards of their officials clearly leaves a lot to be desired, but what did they do to remedy this? **** all, that's what they did Can anyone honestly imagine the German, Spanish, Italian, French or Dutch FAs seeing their top officials make a complete fool out of themselves on the international stage and respond with a shrug of the shoulders and carrying on as if everything was fine?
It's a minor point considering the major f-ups discussed here, but why is it that refs never seem to add on any time when the game is already in extra time? Barring serious injury, everything else seems to be ignored. I've just seen the end of the Leeds/Everton match where Oliver at one point in extra time made a point of telling the Everton keeper not to waste time, while at the same time he didn't appear to add that time back on, and even worse, the time he spent telling the keeper to get a move on!
