It's been a pleasure to read the various threads posted over the last week as the feel good factor has been restored through some hard graft on the pitch, players playing for their team mates and us getting behind them all the way. However, I still feel like killing someone when I remember what happened on Sunday with the penalty and sending off and the decision of the FA to uphold the red card for Sean Derry while turning a blind eye to Balotelli's behaviour. Before I really get into my stride, let me make a couple of disclaimers: 1 I know as well as any Man Utd fan that the decisions will probably not have affected the final outcome. We would probably have gone on to lose anyway. 2 All fans will be able to recount numerous bad decisions which went against their team. Although we seem to have had more than our fair share of bum decisions this year, poor refereeing and blatant cheating have led to unjust defeats for all of us. I feel as much for the fans of Wigan following the shocking decisions against them at Stamford Bridge. This is not just a gripe from a QPR fan about his team losing a goal and a match because of an obvious bit of cheating. 3 All teams have players who will dive and feign death or serious injury when another player brushes past them or sticks out an inviting foot or arm for them to run into or fall over. 3 Referees don't have the benefit of technology to help them. They make a decision in the heat of the moment. They are human and will get it wrong from time to time. 4 The FA's rules do occasionally make it impossible for them to intervene. Appeal panels are required to give the referee the benefit of the doubt wherever possible. They cannot intervene, apparently unless the incident in question is missed by the referre and his linesmen completely. Having said all that the answers are pretty obvious to all these points. Mason's decision after 14 minutes was not only wrong. It destroyed the match as a sporting contest. The victims were forced to play out the rest of the game with one man less and one goal behind. Bad refereeing and cheating are endemic throughout the game. However we do not have to shrug our shoulders and say nothing can be done about it. Fans can put pressure on the clubs. Clubs can put pressure on the authorities to change the rules to prevent (or at least reduce the number of) bad incidents We have all had drummed into us since we were toddlers that you play to the whistle and you respect the referees decision and authority. That leads some referees to behave as though they were God. The powers that be frequently raise the argument that we would be undermining the referee's authority if their decisions could be challenged and reviewed. In the past that might have been a good argument. However it should not hold sway in modern times where matches are played under television cameras and everyone can see in the instant replays from 75 different angles that a bloody awful decision has been made. We expect our referees to make mistakes. However we have a right to expect that they be man enough to own up to their mistakes when they do. Their ethos should be to get the decision right and to use whatever aids are at their disposal to do the right thing. I actually think that the better referees such as Howard Webb would actually welcome the use of TV replays to correct decisions instantly before any lasting damage is done to the particular match. It works in Rugby internationals. TV cameras are able to resolve most, if not all, disputed calls within a couple of minutes. I for one think that use of TV replays which can be accessed instantly by the 4th official should be introduced at the start of next season in the Premier league. He will then be able to pass on a message to the referee to tell him whether the ball crossed the line/whether another forward was offside and interfering with play/ whether a player was violent to an opponent off the ball/whether a player who goes down was actually fouled/ whether any such "victim" needs to be sent for an early bath. Strictly for the purpose of getting himself ready to audition for a starring role in the next West End tragedy. We now have a culture in which simulation and diving at the slightest touch from an opponent is regarded as acceptable behaviour by players, managers and TV pundits. This needs to be reversed immediately. Penalties should be harsh and severe. Simulation needs to be made into a straight red card offence, a three match ban. If the referee misses it at the time but it is picked up by the TV cameras, the decision can be communicated to the referee as soon as it is spotted. If it is not spotted until much later, for example on close analysis on MOTD the sanction can be imposed then. Harder to achieve will be altering the outcome. It is difficult, save in cases of penalty awards which are subsequently converted, to assess to what extent the cheat has prospered. I propose that the match is awarded to the victim's team. That may seem harsh and drastic but I think you will find that within two weeks of the introduction of such a rule, play acting will be eradicated completely as teams suffer from the consequences. The culprits will soon learn the lesson to stay on their feet. None of this will work for as long as managers condone cheating by their own players while criticising the cheats who play for opposing teams. Similarly managers who do not see such behaviour by their own players even after having had time to study TV replays. That is not a dig just at French managers who seem to suffer from selective myopia! The FA needs to overhaul its rules. We must never have the debacle of a player being wrongly sent off and the punishment standing simply because the ref's authority would be undermined by correcting his obvious mistake. Why should the FA only be able to intervene only if the officials missed the incident completely? What idiot dreamt up that stupid idea? Whatever happened to the idea of bans for bringing the game into disrepute as with Jack Charlton's little black book in the late 60s early 70s? What is so earth shattering about the idea of reversing results to correct bad decisions and root out cheating? I doubt whether the owners and managers of teams that have prospered will dare to say that a result in their favour won by an element of cheating should not be forfeited. This leads on to the final piece of the jigsaw in my grand scheme. Football is a physical game and a contact sport. In the Premier League, anyone who plays, manages, commentates, or gives "expert" (don't make me laugh) opinion to the effect that a forward is entitled to go down if he feels any contact however slight has to be punished financially. Niall Quinn and Alan Shearer, you have been warned. This is a football fans forum. I think each club's fans should be asked to join with us in petitioning the clubs and FA to take steps along these lines to restore an element of morality and fair play into our sport. Please don't say nothing will happen. It won't if we let the moment pass.
Since when have those running football ever listened to the fans? Matches are being ruined by crackpot rules that seem designed to ruin matches as a spectacle before the game is even into it's stride. Some sendings off are totally warranted but Derry, for example, made only the merest of contact with the side of Young, yet he went down as though he'd been kicked in the air. Another sending off that was barely warranted was Bassong against the Arses last night. If he'd chopped down Walcott you could understand a sending off but there was clumsy contact that gave Walcott the excuse to go down and that was game over. Spectators are paying a fortune to see games ruined by incompetent refs who are simply looking to impress the assessors in the stand rather than use common sense in judging the severity of the act and punishing accordingly. Go back to the 60s & 70s when players like Chopper Harris, Norman Hunter and Peter Storey were kicking players all over the park and getting little more than an occasional booking, they wouldn't last a handful of games in this era...
Your first port of call is to go and have a chat with Mr Blatter. If you want to change the world then go straight to the top.
I think it really sums up football these days when Mohamed Al Fayed actually talks sense about refereeing...
That's a very good summary Yorkshire. What you don't address is the flip side. In many decisive situations viewers of TV replays with the 75 angles still do not agree on what happened - did he dive or not, did he mean to break his leg or not, was it a pen or not. So you have to have some kind of expert panel as I think they do in Rugby to decide, and they will probably be appointed by the FA, biased and in favour of the big clubs! Use of film replays has to be limited as well to a very few per team complaining a ref decision per game, or the referee seeking help himself, otherwise the game will be killed by interuption. Rugby, Cricket, Tennis, American Football which all stop and start all the time have no hit with a few more stoppages. Football flows a lot more, and I don't think many stoppages for viewing incidents will work. Goal line and sideline technology can and should be used yesterday, but for the rest it ain't so straight forward for me.
Other than point 1, I agree with all that you've stated here Yorkie. That is a very good piece indeed. So how do we ( as fans ) go about trying to implement these changes? Why does this site repeat the last word in a sentence twice?
Like all of us I was incensed when Derry was sent off on Sunday and I still have a burning sense of injustice. But the thing that I find inexcusable is the FA refusal to rescind the one game ban. Everyone accepts (or should) that referees make mistakes especially when they aren't given any support from technology. But the FA is there to correct any unfairness. Clubs can put their case to them if they feel a player has been harshly treated and the FA themselves can intervene if they think the ref has missed something. The refs know (or should) that they get it wrong sometimes, the FA intervening will not undermine them, it's just a question of fairness! If they needed to in this case the FA could easily have saved face by deciding that the sending of was enough punishment and revoked the one game ban. No admission that the ref was wrong or Young cheated and some justice done. But no they stick to the easy safe option red card upheld. Its time the whole disciplinary process was overhauled !
You lost me when you said "the better referee's like Howard Webb"..........the man is just another incompetent fool. It really angers me how shi7 they all are. I honestly believe you could get 10 people from the street, as long as they've played the game at any half-decent level, to do a better job than the 10 we get each weekend in the Premiership. It is so obvious that most of them have never played the game and have no real idea of what is going on out on the pitch. Clattenburg is more concerned about his rug than getting decisions right, Webb gives 90% of decisions to the home team, Mike Dean is the most arrogant looking man I've ever seen, Mason is a fat useless idiot, Oliver looks like a lost little boy, Dowd another unfit mug who gets everything wrong with a look of contempt, I could go on. However, as for Atkinson, he says he saw Balotelli's tackle and deemed it ok? If that's the case, what is he doing out there? He couldn't see the ball 2 yards over the line at Bolton, thinks Balotelli's challenge was fine and despite all the furore surrounding those incidents is rewarded with an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley!! You could not make it up.......I sincerely hope he makes another huge fu<k-up in the Chelsea-Spurs game (hopefully in Tottenham's favour) and then the whole world can see what an idiot he is and what useless twats we have in charge of the FA.
Interesting points Yorkshire. I agree with most of it although don't think post-game analysis should result in game forfeits. Can you imagine the outcry as cash rich teams book titles a few days after the season ends due to overturned decisions by the FA. You pretty much got the answer though - a few weeks of thorough, retrospective suspensions would see players clean their acts up (either of their own volition or by the managers' insistence). I'd like to see an appeal system a bit like tennis or cricket (sorry for using the "C" word Cerny) whereby a team gets 2/3 chances to get a decision reviewed. Get it right, you keep the appeal but get it wrong and it's one less chance. Refs could also be assessed on the number of decisions that get overruled. Easily implementable in top leagues but, alas, unlikely. In terms of reffing, the FA should have a panel of retired players who, individually, look at all videoed matches and highlight points for discussion and review. Open and honest but, again, our FA, who took such umbrage at Blatter's antics will always prefer their closed door back patting sessions.
Good post as always YH. Cheating starts here (Ferguson on Wednesday's game with Wigan): Ferguson on Mason: This is where the poison, the cheating starts. It's worth pointing out here that Ferguson was hit where it hurts him most, in the pocket, after these quotes. (Actually he wasn't but Mason learned his place eh?)
There is no denying that the FA's appeal system on material decisions made by their referees is a travesty of justice. It reeks to high Heaven. However, we all appreciate the difficulties in on the spot human decision-making, and Mason's errors on the pitch in failing to see the offside and in ruling on a contact that was not made, is precisely that: simple errors in judgement, i.e. not in themselves an offence. What is offensive here is Mason's failure, with the benefit of hindsight, to have included these errors of judgement in his written report. It is most unlikely that the concerns had not been brought to his attention by then; and the fact that he failed to report as much (thus making it possible for the appeals committee to overturn the red card decision) leaves Mason's integrity and competence seriously in doubt. His choice. As such the only conclusion is the one currently being levelled against him in the public domain: the man is a cheat and must be removed from office. If that doesn't happen, the FA's position becomes untenable.
Some good responses here. I do believe however that only fans can do something about it. If we can agree on this board the key action points we can go to other clubs boards and try to get a groundswell of opinion to sort this stinking mess out.
I hope that by the Man City game we are safe {and i think we will be }, and that City need a win to win the league . With the game at 0-0 in the 99th minute i'd like to see Sean Derry 'accidently' score an own goal . Only then would Mr Ferguson get what comes around .
Its never going to stop, the FA are too busy covering their own backs, why in the ****ety **** wasnt Carroll banned? He was a yard away from the keeper when he dived. If they wanted to stop it, both Carroll and Young would have been banned recently. Its hard to put all of the blame on the refs, virtually all of it should go to FIFA and the FA for encouraging it.
The voice of reason Oslo! Football would be destroyed if replays were allowed to interupt the action. And you see plenty of situations where referees wrongly book players for simulation when a penalty should in fact have been awarded so an automatic sending off would actaully compound an already bad situation with regard to refereeing errors. Where replays could and should be used is after games. If a player is clearly shown to have been simulating (and as you say Oslo, it is not always clear cut even on replays) then the FA should be able to retrospectively ban him for 3 games. That would radically reduce the problem IMO.
Here's a comment from a smart journalist who has been around for decades! "" Brian Glanville/World Soccer: Rotten referees: Premier League suffering from rash of bad decisions "The Premier League is suffering from a plague of rotten referees and lamentable linesmen. Last weekend there was more depressing evidence of this. ....The following day at Old Trafford Manchester United were favoured, yet again, by a double decision which ruled poor Queens Park Rangers out of contention. When Ashley Young of United received a pass from Wayne Rooney in the penalty box, he was plainly in an offside position. Some have blamed the linesman Ceri Richards for not raising his flag automatically. Others defend him by saying that he wasn’t given any chance to do so by the hyper active referee Lee Mason who instantly whistled for a penalty when Young was brought down – somewhat too easily – by the QPR defender, Shaun Derry. To add substantial insult to painful injury Derry, as the last man, was sent off into the bargain condemning Rangers to play for most of the game with ten men, losing 2-0. It was the second time in short succession that QPR had been traduced by wretched officiating. At Bolton, they had scored a perfect good goal which would have put them ahead, the ball having undoubtedly crossed the line. But neither the linesman nor the referee noticed it. The ball was cleared, no goal given, and Bolton went on to win a game vital to both sides as they struggled against potential relegation..." ""
