How can we get better referees in professional football?

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
fatletiss said:
I have now. And yes. Do you recall this coming up a few years back? I’ve barked on about it for years. I’d have considered it when my full time career stopped. Can you just imagine me reffing a final at Wembley, “calmly” listening to the player questioning my decisions point of view, before eloquently putting my opinion .....?? “Oh **** off keano, what do you know? You’ve never reffed the game” <laugh>
Click to expand...

You’d give them 6 tackles to get it right before booking them or sending them off.
We would have a real game on our hands, instead of the game being stopped for someone being in an opponent’s personal space and carded for standing on their shadow.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fatletiss, Archers Road and Brinkworth Saint
Romsey_Saint said:
I think the underlying problem Fats is the culture of football towards referees. A stiker can miss an open goal and his teams fans can sigh and moan and opponents fans laugh. A ref makes one mistake in a game and he is vilified by the whole crowd. The players abuse and argue back with refs at every given opportunity and further undermine their credibility with the fans.

There is little incentive for any young wannabes to take up the mantle of being a referee and until football learns from its peers in Rugby Union and undertakes a fundimental and sustained long term campaign towards it treatment of referees at every level of the game, the situation of developing a cadre of quality referees and a rolling conveyor of talent is never going to materialise.
Click to expand...
That is so true and the RU example is good point. The other thing I've wondered is without crowds how much of what we're talking about would be affected? There's no vocal pressure on the refs which one would think that would help them make better decisions. But as they're not and appear to be oblivious to the mess they're creating along with VAR I fear for the future of our game's integrity and value to it's supporters. It seems we don't matter.
 
Brinkworth Saint said:
That is so true and the RU example is good point. The other thing I've wondered is without crowds how much of what we're talking about would be affected? There's no vocal pressure on the refs which one would think that would help them make better decisions. But as they're not and appear to be oblivious to the mess they're creating along with VAR I fear for the future of our game's integrity and value to it's supporters. It seems we don't matter.
Click to expand...
There is plenty of vocal pressure from the players who make matters worse by their fake fouls and injuries. Take one simple rule from Rugby Union, only the Captain can speak with or query the refs decision. As Fats wrote earlier, any back talk is a free kick followed by 10 yards moving the ball forward. No surrounding the ref either. Ref should raise his hand and count down from 5 lowering a digit each time. Any player around the ref other than a Captain when he gets to 1 gets a yellow. The visual countdown clearly tells the fans and the players what the consequences will be. When players learn to shut the **** up and show some respect, this should feed into the crowd.

But honestly, this has to start at grass roots and if respect is enforced, we might see better football in about 10 years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Osvaldorama, garysfc, MIsaints and 3 others
Romsey_Saint said:
There is plenty of vocal pressure from the players who make matters worse by their fake fouls and injuries. Take one simple rule from Rugby Union, only the Captain can speak with or query the refs decision. As Fats wrote earlier, any back talk is a free kick followed by 10 yards moving the ball forward. No surrounding the ref either. Ref should raise his hand and count down from 5 lowering a digit each time. Any player around the ref other than a Captain when he gets to 1 gets a yellow. The visual countdown clearly tells the fans and the players what the consequences will be. When players learn to shut the **** up and show some respect, this should feed into the crowd.

But honestly, this has to start at grass roots and if respect is enforced, we might see better football in about 10 years.
Click to expand...

Yeah, absolutely .... it HAS to start with respect, but it’s been going on for years. I remember my first father-in-law telling me, with much chortling and glee, about an incident when he played for his local park team in the late 60s. They were so upset at the ref and the way he managed the game that they locked him in the changing rooms and dropped the key down a nearby drain. I was horrified, as I was playing rugby then and would never have even contemplated (well, maybe thought about once or twice) doing something like that. The ref was to be respected no matter how **** he was or how biased he was (one of our worst refs was one of our own who tried so hard to be fair that he gave everything against us!). We even had one ref (turned out he was a local vicar) who gave penalties against us for swearing (and the fact I played for a team full of boys from Leigh Park meant we were screwed, as 4 letters was about as far as many of them could go!)
Get the respect in, stop the players verbally abusing the officials or surrounding them (I love the counting on the finger trick) and move the free kick forward if there’s any abuse. A few matches and it would stop .... whether the fans would get it though is another matter ..... <doh>
 
  • Like
Reactions: Romsey_Saint
davecg69 said:
Yeah, absolutely .... it HAS to start with respect, but it’s been going on for years. I remember my first father-in-law telling me, with much chortling and glee, about an incident when he played for his local park team in the late 60s. They were so upset at the ref and the way he managed the game that they locked him in the changing rooms and dropped the key down a nearby drain. I was horrified, as I was playing rugby then and would never have even contemplated (well, maybe thought about once or twice) doing something like that. The ref was to be respected no matter how **** he was or how biased he was (one of our worst refs was one of our own who tried so hard to be fair that he gave everything against us!). We even had one ref (turned out he was a local vicar) who gave penalties against us for swearing (and the fact I played for a team full of boys from Leigh Park meant we were screwed, as 4 letters was about as far as many of them could go!)
Get the respect in, stop the players verbally abusing the officials or surrounding them (I love the counting on the finger trick) and move the free kick forward if there’s any abuse. A few matches and it would stop .... whether the fans would get it though is another matter ..... <doh>
Click to expand...
I totally agree, but the respect has to be earned, surely? Rugby referees are brilliant, the way they talk constantly to the players, warn them if they’re about to stray offside, explain exactly why a penalty has been given, and so on and so on. I would love to see the 10 metre rule introduced into football though, it would soon stop dissent in its tracks. Oh, and do the same if a manager shouts abuse from the touchline, too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Osvaldorama, Romsey_Saint, Saint Jimmy and 1 other person
ChilcoSaint said:
I totally agree, but the respect has to be earned, surely? Rugby referees are brilliant, the way they talk constantly to the players, warn them if they’re about to stray offside, explain exactly why a penalty has been given, and so on and so on. I would love to see the 10 metre rule introduced into football though, it would soon stop dissent in its tracks. Oh, and do the same if a manager shouts abuse from the touchline, too.
Click to expand...


100 percent this. I remember a few refs who pre match would speak to both teams honestly and say there will be things they miss throughout the match but they be consistent, fair, and always give explanations for why they have made decisions providing we approached them respectfully. Unfortunately these refs stick out in the memory because they were the exception to the norm.

Also get fed up with the amount of times pre season there’s been a big announcement how refs won’t tolerate dissent and players surrounding the ref etc will be punished only once the season gets underway refs allow players to surround them with no repercussions.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Romsey_Saint, garysfc, ChilcoSaint and 1 other person
tomw24 said:
To be fair the introduction of sin bins at grassroots level has helped a lot with dissent. Teams have discovered that being down to 10 men for 10 mins isn't fun.

And when I go over to The States to referee in a youth tournament over there in the summer all the American players and coaches called me Sir which I really liked!
Click to expand...

Thats the slippery slope right there. First you demand to be called sir, then you want to be carried out on a litter, next thing you're pulling out red cards to your own theme music with a dance routine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Schrodinger's Cat and StJabbo1
SaintinNZ said:
Thats the slippery slope right there. First you demand to be called sir, then you want to be carried out on a litter, next thing you're pulling out red cards to your own theme music with a dance routine.
Click to expand...
I'm not arrogant enough to demand to be called sir! They just did it!
 
tomw24 said:
To be fair the introduction of sin bins at grassroots level has helped a lot with dissent. Teams have discovered that being down to 10 men for 10 mins isn't fun.

And when I go over to The States to referee in a youth tournament over there in the summer all the American players and coaches called me Sir which I really liked!
Click to expand...

Is that Minnesota? My old company we based there... they told me that s-i-r was slang for “w4nker”
 
ChilcoSaint said:
I totally agree, but the respect has to be earned, surely? Rugby referees are brilliant, the way they talk constantly to the players, warn them if they’re about to stray offside, explain exactly why a penalty has been given, and so on and so on. I would love to see the 10 metre rule introduced into football though, it would soon stop dissent in its tracks. Oh, and do the same if a manager shouts abuse from the touchline, too.
Click to expand...

I agree with the sentiment, but not the wording. For me in this instance, Respect needs to be lost, not earned. They should start being respected and then earn the right to keep it. Half the problem is they start with no respect from anyone
 
  • Like
Reactions: davecg69, ChilcoSaint and tomw24
fatletiss said:
Is that Minnesota? My old company we based there... they told me that s-i-r was slang for “w4nker”
Click to expand...
Yep. I think the players realised that a referee's tolerance level might be quite low when they've refereed their 6th or 7th game that day in the scorching heat! <laugh> (That did happen BTW, although they weren't 90 minute matches).
 
  • Like
Reactions: fatletiss
fatletiss said:
I agree with the sentiment, but not the wording. For me in this instance, Respect needs to be lost, not earned. They should start being respected and then earn the right to keep it. Half the problem is they start with no respect from anyone
Click to expand...
1000% agree with this. I tend to keep the respect of the players by simply talking to them. My pre-match talk to the players is simple: the less I get involved the happier you'll be. I'm also happy to explain my decisions to them but if they come up screaming and shouting in my face they'll go straight in the bin. I must be doing something right because I've only sent 2 to the bin since it was introduced.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fatletiss, davecg69, ChilcoSaint and 1 other person
fatletiss said:
I agree with the sentiment, but not the wording. For me in this instance, Respect needs to be lost, not earned. They should start being respected and then earn the right to keep it. Half the problem is they start with no respect from anyone
Click to expand...
Yes, that's a better way of putting it. Respect the uniform, unless and until the person wearing it does things to cause loss of respect.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fatletiss
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back