Before I start, apologies for this "essay": Once upon a time -- not that long ago -- match officials were rather like members of a religious order. They arrived, kept themselves to themselves, performed their duties, and left. Criticism grew of this way of doing things. Officials, it was said, were aloof, didn't understand the workings of the game, or a player's mind, and were answerable to no-one; they needed to be forced to abandon their cloistered retreats and enter the real football world. Along with this process of "humanising" the officials, came technical areas where managers could manage as the game progressed, and a fourth official to "manage" them and on whom said managers could vent their spleen. Rules were drawn up allowing "access" to referees by coaching staff, and on the field referees were encouraged to "communicate" with the players rather than just referee the game according to its rules. So referees are now referred to as good or bad at "talking" to the players, or establishing a rapport with them, and like police officers going into schools to show what good chaps they are if only you behave, referees are invited into clubs in the interests of mutual respect, harmony and understanding. All well-intentioned no doubt, but had no-one heard of the law of unintended consequences? Making referees more approachable and institutionalising access to match officials, combined with ubiquitous tv coverage, has presented players and in particular managers/coaches with new ways of influencing the outcome of a game. To the tactics and strategies deployed on the field have been added "touchline" tactics and strategies geared to influencing the officials to your advantage. Among the chief exponents of this dark art are those who complained most bitterly about the inaccessibility and aloofness of officials. No need to name names. But while some may be more effective manipulators than others, all managers now play the touchline game. Has anyone watched a game recently, in any competition, when the fourth official has not been harangued from either technical area? Take the case of penalty shouts. Some time in the first half, challenged by a defender, team A's striker falls in the box. The referee judges there was no foul. Team A's manager leaps about waving his arms and tells the fourth official it was a cast-iron penalty. TV replays show there was contact and the pundits solemnly pronounce "I've seen them given". At half-time someone on the Team A staff goes to see the referee to tell him he got it wrong; "We've seen the replay and it was a pen". Now, does anyone believe that this makes no difference to the referee's decisions in the second half? Imagine that late in the same game Team B's striker is blatantly fouled in the box. The ref is close to the incident but waves play on. Nobody, players, coaches, spectators, viewers alike, can believe it. "He's evened things up" comments a pundit, nudge nudge, wink wink. To say, as SAF said yesterday, that refereeing errors even themselves out over the season might well be true IF each decision were made independently of previous decisions, so that a decision, right or wrong, made at one time played no part in the refs decision-making at another time. But access to match officials during the game and the touchline tactics that it gives rise to, inevitably mean that it doesn't in fact work like that. And don't we all know it?
It has been well established that refs are biased in favour of the 'bigger' teams, for various perfectly understandable reasons - leaving aside the various corruption scandals.
We have to have well paid professional referees to keep pace with the modern game they said 20 years ago. And undoubtedly, for whatever reason, officiating has got worse so making that assertion complete bollocks. What do we do? Go back to amateurs who get paid a fee instead of relying on it for their livelihood.
refs in this country are not biased - lets make that clear! however, they can be easily influenced without probably even knowing it. often people can't differentiate between these factors also, i don't necessarily believe that the officials have got worse - its just every mistake they make gets highlighted through endless replays and radio/tv talk shows. officials have ALWAYS made errors but they get spotted more often by more people these days.
"Working the touchline" used to be what wingers did; now, like diving, feigning injury, time wasting, on-field reaction to decisions, etc., it is a means of manipulating the outcome of a game, or -- since officials have memories -- games.
My point is that they are now more open to being influenced consciously or subconsciously due to the process of "bringing them in from the cold". I agree that they are not biased in any corrupt sense, and I agree that standards have not fallen. As I have said many times on other threads, changes in the rules and procedures in recent years have made matches much harder to referee, as also has "cheating" in all its forms.
difficult to disagree with that robbie. i'm as bad as anyone at blaming officials if they make a bonkers decision but in the cold light of day i can take a step back and see things differently. they make mistakes - not a lot anyone can do about that - its human error; but i agree with fergie that overall, decisions will tend to even themselves out. maybe not over a season, but eventually they will. some teams are luckier one season than another but i still feel that if you went back far enough you'd see all teams tend to get it 50/50. the penalty decision at old trafford the other day was a clear penalty, but the one given against united against newcastle wasn't yet was given. in two incidents its evened itself out. i know its not perfect but even the big clubs get bad decisions against them - its just they rarely seem to happen against the smaller clubs and thats what everyone like us gets annoyed about!
Refereeing mistakes are part of the game. It no doubt happens every week in the premier league. But players and managers choose what they see and this may be different to the opposition team. The only one who is going to see the whole thing is the officials. Then in the post match interview the players give their side of te story and that's that. Even pundits are no good at seeing the whole picture. They are most likely ex-footballers stuck to their allegiances and they are used to the bias nature of football from their playing days. At the weekend, when we played Wolves I noticed that Jackson was offside when the ball was passed to him before he set up Holt for his first goal. On this occasion the officials didn't realise it, the Wolves defenders didn't notice but Jackson probably knew it. Is he going to moan to the ref? No. This evening out of decisions needs to be judged objectively, not subjectively, because they say what they want to say that would benefit their team and not the game.
Indeed. Surely there are enough statistics available now to provide a bit of objectivity on this sort of issue? Take the question of whether penalties are more likely to be awarded against away teams than home teams. There's a common perception to that effect, but do the stats bear it out? If they do, further analysis is required to find out why. Likewise the perceived favouring of so-called "big" teams. If there is a difference in favour of "big" teams, is this because they are "big", or for other reasons, e.g. big teams have "big" managers who work the systems behind the scenes. The idea that things even themselves out over time is only true for more or less random events, events which are all equiprobable. You can manufacture dice which approximate to absolute equiprobability for any outcome on any throw; but to ensure that referees' decisions are similarly "unbiased" is impossible. Hence my general point that so-called "improvements" to the game and how it is managed have taken us further away from the ideal, not closer to it as is no doubt intended and often claimed.
I haven't seen a "stonewall" (whatever that means) penalty this season, apart from shirt pulling! Oh yes there was slight contact, we hear the pundits cry, how the **** is a referee supposed to see 'slight contact'? It's cheating plain and simple. Just leave your leg dangling, touch the keeper with it, go into a swallow dive, pretend your leg is broken, look up to see ref has awarded you a penalty, broken leg now miraculously heals itself just in time for you to take penalty and become a hero! YOU ARE ACTUALLY A CHEAT, not a footballer!! When exactly did the rules change? Having watched and played football through the 60's, 70's and 80's, said leg would either have to be actually broken or torn off completely to even get the ref to consider giving a penalty. The only way to stop this is for referee's to stop awarding penalty's completely and when the Fergies of this world go into a rant, send them off, keep doing it until they stop and tell their players to start playing football and stop cheating. ILD OTBC
I would consider that to be 'slight' contact DM!!! I'm joking, I wasn't at that game, so in the words of Arsene Wenger, I didn't see it!! ILD OTBC
Exactly The pundits will be sitting in the comfort of their studio, watching four or five slow motion replays from different angles before coming to the conclusion that there was some very slight contact. In the meantime the referee has just one realtime view and is surrounded by two sets of players and a partisan crowd baying for the 'right' descion.
A sports journalist did an adjusted table for last year. His method is detailed on his site, but hes only changed definite discrepancies. Guess who suffers the most for this readjustment? Good old Man U, followed by Man City and Chelsea. Best of is West ham and Blackpool. In fact Blackpool and Birmingham might still be in the PL if decisions had 'balanced out' as SAF loves to say! please log in to view this image http://www.thesportscaster.net/news.htm
Battersea. Trouble is, it is only a single year; so all we can say is that, in the 2010/2011 season, the perception that "bigger" clubs benefit more was borne out. That said, Man U and Arsenal came low down in the "most benefitted" table, which runs contrary to common perception. We need similar analyses season after season. Also, it would be better to have decisions "reviewed" by a panel of experienced referees (which presumably is already done by the PGMOB but without the results being made generally available).
So,it seems that the losers are the smaller teams and the winners the bigger ones.In a way that supports SAF's assertion in as much as that it doesn't affect where the trophy goes.man City will be whining about the Fulham penalty incident but only a week earlier they got one against Chelsea that wasn't.
I remember posting about this earlier in the season and I completely agree. Do this over 5 seasons then look at it.
