At the match yesterday the players on the pitch got paid anything from £10,000 up to about £200,000. For this they are expected to train all week for the game, attain peak physical fitness, and be among the best in their field. Despite that they made plenty of errors - hitting posts, scuffing shots, mistiming tackles, and misplacing passes. The linesman was paid about £400, and is part time (cue boring claims of "look how easy that makes it for Utd to bribe him"". All linesmen in the PL are amateurs, with full time jobs that they fit around their officiating commitments. They receive almost no training. The referee is paid around £57,000 a year following the move to implement professional refereeing in 2001. However they are not full time. They have fortnightly meetings with the PGMO, and commit to "training and development over several days each month in addition to their match commitments". In spite of this, ProZone stats show that referees get around 92% of decisions right and linesmen around 99% of decisions. If a footballer achieved a 92% pass completion rate over the course of the season he'd be a candidate for player of the year for any club. If he achieved 99%, well, he'd be Xavi or Scholes. It begs the question of how we can expect officials to be perfect when they are effectively part time at best, with referees receiving less than half the training of footballers, and linesmen getting next to no training. 90% of the contentious decisions could be avoided if all refs and assistants were made full salaried professionals, and required to train four days a week throughout the season rather than one or two days a week. The current annual cost of the 18 select group referees and the 48 assistants is probably around £2 million. If the budget was boosted to around £5 million, all assistants could receive a salary and the FA could pay for top class former referees like Collina (who is currently head of refereeing in Ukraine!!) to train the refs and assistants properly. The net cost to each PL club would be around £150k a year, or less than 1% of the TV money each club receives. If we want refs and linesmen to get all the decisions right we need to pay them and train them. It's hardly rocket science. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...emier-League-referees-right-92-cent-time.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/aug/14/premierleague1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/1386841.stm
People just need to realise that officials are human and they make mistakes. None of this conspiracy crap.
Swarbs 100% agree I suppose it is too bloody obvious that you couldn't expect the morons at the FA to see and implement that. These referees and linesmen (or refs assistants) are so crucial that they need to be paid well i.e in line with their importance and relative to what other "performers" are getting on the pitch. One other point is crucial IMO: there should also instant sanctions for really bad errors. The right decisions at Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford were not difficult to make. They were not even close and I would say the errors were verging on the inexplicable. They were so barnstorm and could easily be seen in real time. If these people are paid well then mistakes such as these must be punished VERY severely. The individuals involved must be "banned" for a number of games and their fee withheld. It is high time we do not rely on fairplay and sense of professionalism only. Money and sanctions talk.
Robbie Savage was saying this weekend on 606 something like referees just do not understand the game because they don't play the game. People have said why don't ex-footballers become referees, surely they'd make the best referees as they've played it. IMO that's a nonsense arguement. Firstly, most players have played for many clubs, could be a logistical nightmare if such a ex-footballer could only officiate at some matches because he's played for 3 or 4 clubs in that particular league. Bias would always be a factor. Secondly, what does Savage think referees get involved for- the pay!? Probably not, I know the top referees get paid quite a bit, probably a lot more than the average salary. So they must do it because of the love of the game. Often the best managers and coaches were never the best players, would it be any different for referees? I'll admit, the only aspect of refereeing that I've done is being an assistant referee and it's not easy. You get abuse hurled at you, people threatening you. And granted, people will always say, if you can't take the stick then you shouldn't be involved in such a job where the stakes are so high. But footballers often can't stand the pressure and they never get lambasted as much as referees and their assistants do. It's quite ironic that the linesman that made the (right) decision to rule that N'Zonzi had carried the ball out and thus rule out Pedersen's goal has almost been forgotten in the furore of the this weekend. Until good decisions made by referees are seen as positives and not simply as "not making a mistake", they will always be seen as scapegoats. I think it's time officials were judged the same as players.
No point in making lame excuses for the refs they are all **** and they bottle giving decisions against United at Old Trafford evey single season. End of.
If the OP think the officials in the prem are clean he is very naive I am not talking about yesterday but in general, I have seen games where I am fkn certain RA had linos in his pocket. There are dirty refs and linos but we can only speculate which ones, which makes this just that, you can rationalise what happened any way you like but big bucks don't play fair, that we can be certain about
I agree that there's no 'conspiracy' as such but as with any profession people want to get to the top and a way of doing so is erring on the side of the teams more likely to be involved in bigger matches. Of course, big sides can have poor decisions go against them too but it really is far more often than not that the smaller team doesn't get the rub of the green. Yesterday there were minor incidents, corners and throw-ins and the like, where Mason and the linesman looked blankly at each other without a clue what to give and the default decision was goal-kick/throw-in to United.
People who go on about corruption, do you really think that if that sort of thing was going on it would have been kept completely quiet all these years? Don't be ridiculous!
We can all blame human nature and say the small teams do not get decisions, especailly at the big grounds. Having said that we have had the manager of the scousers lambasting the referee for NOT giving decisions in his favour ...at Anfield and against the Villa. Now if your theory is correct, then we can only conclude that the scousers are now seen as a smaller club than Villa and Anfield is no longer a big scary venue The referees should all be assessed on their decisions in a wide range of situations and where they made them and whether their errors were biased for/against the home teams. We want good referees. Giving the benefit of the doubt to the home team should not be accepted as normal or understandable .
Its funny when United get a couple of decisions go in their favor, the anti-United brigade all start to jump up and down and shout corruption, yet when United get decisions going against them we usually hear the standard "these things balance themselves out over the season" argument. It's the same with the classic penalties at Old Trafford argument, if I remember correctly over the past half a dozen year or so many teams, including Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton, Spurs, Villa and even Bolton, have had less penalties given against them at home yet somehow the ref's still favor United and refuse to give penalties at Old Trafford. I shouldn't really be all that surprised though, some people just need to justify why their own teams are so bad and the ref is usually the easiest scapegoat.
The more people cry when we get a decision, the more it makes us smile. I personally wanted to win the league at the council house in the 99th minute from a dodgy penalty Unfortunately the **** ****s up the road dont even have the balls to challenge for the title, ****ing joke
Corruption has not been kept quiet. Its been proven and prosecuted time and again. To suggest there is none is indeed niave. Still, without any proof of corruption right now in the PL its just speculation that the refs are biased towards any club. If such evidence did come to light, the interesting thing is no one would be shocked.
If there was corruption it would have been unearthed long ago, just as it has been in Serie A and the Portuguese League. There is zero evidence of corruption, no matter how much the ABU's try to convince us otherwise.
Great thread, I would think that an increased budget for referees and assistants would be welcomed by all affected parties (clubs, players and fans), 3 million a year is nothing compared to the total TV money that rolls in every year. Rival fans love their conspiracy theories about United, but the best club wins the league, every year. The season is too long for one decision to make such a difference, when you are scoring 90 points. However, the margins are so much closer in the relegation battle, look at the Wigan vs Chelsea match on the weekend. One bad decision (especially on the last day of the season) could easily relegate a team when goal difference is often the deciding factor in relegation battles. Since Liverpool are such a massive club with a worldwide fanbase of very happy (smiley-faced) fans, perhaps they should use their considerable clout to ensure that the budget gets increased? It's in their interest after all; if their form in 2012 continues into next season they might well be relying on a final day survival based on goal difference, and one bad decision could cost them dearly...
By all means I think they should increase the pay and training etc to the officals. However I don't buy into the out cry for technology. Human error is part of what makes football great in my opinion and have we all debate on here, in the pub, with our mates etc. Sometimes they go for you and sometimes they go against you but I'd rather have that than each issue being reviewed via video.
I am not sure about that. I used to think like you. Uncertainty, human error, unfancied team winning through a dodgy decison, excitment, controversy, anger, lots of talking points etc...may make the sport exciting but when it occurs to such an extent that very important outcomes result from those decisions then you have to reconsider. Wigan: two offside goals, lose the match, and they could go down by one point. United: We are already being accused of benefitting from the refs decisions. Never mind Newcastle's penalty at OT was a good tackle by Rio. Chelsea: won the premiership ahead of United when they beat United through some offside decisions. We have had the situations reversed this year. Relegation has a potentially huge impact on thousands of people. Their morale, their town and businesses etc. The game is too fast for the officials. A ball crosses the line and it is a goal. Why cant they benefit like most sports (tennis, rugby, cricket). It should take seconds.
I don't mind the idea of goal line technology it's more the refering to a video ref for penalty claims and offside etc.
I would be fine with offside, as those are almost always clear cut, tho' there's the obvious problem of what do you do if the lino calls the player offside incorrectly. You can hardly take the play back to how it would've been had the flag not gone up. But I agree we shouldn't have video refs for fouls - the definition of most fouls is so subjective that a video ref wouldn't necessarily make the situation any better - it would just be the video ref's call as opposed to the actual ref's. If anything it would make the situation worse, cos any controversial decisions would be jumped on by the nutters as evidence that the ref must be biased cos they still made the 'wrong' decision in spite of the replay. Look at the Berbatov pen against Liverpool last year - the video replays prove there was contact but the scousers are still convinced it wasn't a penalty. Ditto the Welbeck pen against Chelsea this year - the replay proves there was contact but the chavs still claim it was the wrong decision. Also worth noting that in cricket, tennis and rugby the video tech is only used for clear cut decisions, i.e. would the ball have hit the stumps, was the ball in or out, did the player ground the ball or not, and only ever used during a natural break in play. It's never used for in play decisions like holding on the floor, and isn't even used for offside in rugby.
video tech will take all the essence out of the game, the heat of debate, the banter, and above all......................the conspiracy theories!
