Personally, what do you all think would earn respect for referees? What would make you respect referees more or less? In other sports, such as tennis or rugby, the referees/officials are a lot more transparent and their decisions can be challenged or they might use technology. Yet in those sports, the officials are respected a lot more by the players and spectators. In football, the governing bodies spend so much time trying to defend the referees and prevent lack of respect and discipline on and off the pitch but I think it's all been done in the wrong way, creating the sense that referees are untouchable and can't be challenged. Does this create more respect? Does this really protect the referees? Does it create respect if a referee makes a decision that has a lot of repercussions, including loss of money, and a manager or player gets in a heap of trouble for criticising him? Football may well be the most difficult game to officiate as there are so many players on the pitch and the game hardly stops for longer than a few seconds. And this is why referees need more help. We can accept that referees are people who make mistakes. So perhaps our problem isn't with referees but with the refereeing system! It is foolish for football to not move on and learn from other sports. It seems that the governing bodies are just too stubborn as this could have happened years ago. Anyway, please answer the original question at the top!
The problem is FIFA, for whatever reason, will not bring football into the 21st century. In fact the current system of referee and two linesmen dates back to the 19th century (1891) and apart from the fourth official, who has no role in the actual playing side of the match, things remain as they were 120 years ago. For a sport that generates billions of pounds worldwide the lack of technology to assist officials is scandalous. One of the reasons there appears to be more respect in Rugby for instance, is that the referees can penalise a side 10 metres for dissent and generally the attitude of the players to referees is shaped from an early age, something sadly lacking in children's football these days with parents physically assaulting and abusing amateur referees on an almost weekly basis. It is ridiculous that managers are contractually required to give interviews a few minutes after a match when adrenaline is high and a referee has made an obvious mistake that has cost the match and can be put on an FA charge as a result, but referees can walk away without explaining their mistakes and, often compounding the mistake, the FA refuse to rescind a red card when a decision is clearly wrong. Worse still is the rule that yellow cards cannot be rescinded, even when a blatant mistaken identity is involved. Until technology is utilised and a system introduced to eliminate serious refereeing 'errors', respect will be hard to give. A system of say two appeals per half for each team may be the way forward, but I would like to see something along the lines used by Rugby where the referee actually asks 'Is there any reason I should not award a goal?' which could be analysed while the players are doing their ludicrous goal celebrations, so not a great deal of game time would be lost. The fourth official could then actually contribute something worthwhile to the game...
I don't think it's necessarily a question of referees 'earning respect'. The root cause of the problems at the moment is the vast sums of money in the game, and the fact that much of this goes straight into the player's pockets. Referees can, will, and do, make mistakes, because the game is so fast. However, calls for them to be more accountable and to own up in post-match interviews about these mistakes won't work. Example: yesterday's game at The Emirates. You could argue (and Alex McLeish surely is) that had the referee seen van Persie's "elbow", the result would have been different and Villa would still be in the cup. If the ref admitted he missed it and would have sent him off, then he's open to litigation from the losing team - at the very least for the loss of winnings between rounds 4 and 5. Technology could help in some cases, but all that would do is push the problem down further, and the issue with referees and respect is primarily at the top of the game, not in the lower leagues where such technology would not be available. What we need is simply for the players to show respect. If a ref makes a decision, players should NOT surround the referee. As in Rugby, only the Team Captain should be able to talk to the ref - anyone else harassing him like we see should be a yellow card. Same as waving imaginary cards should be a yellow card offence. When people start missing games and teams start losing because they cannot treat the officials with respect, then you'll start to see a change in their behaviour, because the fans will demand it. It's that simple, IMHO. The problem with lack of respect for referees isn't about respect being earned, it's about respect being shown. Once this is sorted, referes can be far more confident in their decision making, then can work without the fear of being castigated, and we'd see less 'evening-up' of decisions which ultimately was what cost us a goalless draw on Saturday. It has to come from the players forst - no question in my mind.
You can see from those sports using such technology, the number of times the main ref / umpire is unsure what to call and signals for a quick review. Our refs are no different. Need tech support - as do we all in this regard.
I'm not sure, beyond goal-line technology, how this will help. In cricket, the number of contributory factors in whether a player is out LBW mean that several things all need checking before a player is given out on appeal. In rugby, there are a number of things that would prevent a try being awarded, such as losing control of the ball, touching down with downward pressure, actually touching the ground, secondary movements, etc. Football is simple - is all of the ball over all of the line. If so, it's a goal. Technology could help there, but cannot help when a player is flagged incorrectly for offside. We can tell afterwards, but what would you do during the game? The goalscoring chance has already gone. Same as diving to try and win a penalty (which for me is as serious an offence as a professional foul). We can tell afterwards having looked at it from all angles, but how will that be reflected in the on-pitch, in-game decisions? By that time, a goal has probably been scored, a player may have been sent off, both wrongly. I can't see how technology would change that, without taking away the essence of the game. The closest comparison to football I can think of, and the most obvious demonstration of the inevitable results, is NFL. Stop-start, no momentum, individual 'plays' replacing the ebb and flow of our game. Trust me - bring in too much technology and that's where we will end up. and that's also the other game where the players get played stupid amounts of money to play. games are scheduled, timeouts are taken, in fact the whole game is arranged, around the television schedules and ad-breaks. I don't think anyone wants football to go down that route. Before technology is introduced, there needs to be other, very strictly observed, rules introduced. Like TWO 'appeals' per side, per half. And ONLY THE CAPTAIN is allowed to appeal. Anyone else approaching the referee and questioning a call is yellow-carded (or maybe sin-binned). and the events that can be appealed will be specified clearly. It will also mean that the Offside rule needs to be clear-cut. No leaving it open to interpretation, but definate on/offside. Which will have to mean - if you're stood beyond the last defender, you're offside. No ambiguity there. If you run out of appeals and then something goes against you - tough. This will prevent too much stop-start in the game, it will stop players surrounding and harrassing the referee, it will allow certain decisions to be reviewed, and it will begin to create the atmosphere where respect returns to the football field.
The frustrating thing about Referees is that they do not appear to be accountable for their mistakes. As Joe Hart said in his interview when asked about the Micah Richard penalty, the Ref just told the players to go away. City should have had one on Djecko. A referral system would have changed both these decisions and Man City would probably still be in the cup. (Two of my sons are Liverpool supporters so no bias, but the Ref got it wrong on both occasions). When was the last time a Referee came out after a game to give an interview? When was the last time a Ref held his hand up publicly to a major game changing mistake. When was the last time the FA farts banned a Referee from officiating for a few games because of his mistakes. The statement of "they are only human" is not good enough in todays world of football. If the Ref is deemed to be good enough to actually referee a match why is the FA saying we need more officials at games. One behind each goal, 4th official who is a waste of time and money standing at the side of the pitch doing nothing but worrying if the Manager is 2" outside his designated area. The FA is run by a boring load of old farts who have only their best interests at heart and wouldn't make a decision if it jeopardise their own jobs, so they stall and hide away blaming everyone else, and terrified of the changing times in football. Rant over, but you see my point. Referees bah humbug!!!
I have zero respect for them and the FA, when their take protecting the officials over the integrity of the game, you know something is wrong. The barton red card proves this. The FIFA could help them out so much by making it a yellow card to appeal or argue with the ref and also a yellow for choosing to go down and a red for going down without contact. Also a player would need to be subbed if the game is stopped for him. That would be an instant end to play acting, cheating and bad behaviour.
I'd respect referees when they get a vague level of competence and/or accountability. For example, Howard Webb deserved shooting for his performance in the World Cup final, not an MBE.
In american football there are various umpires around the ground who flag incidents that the referee may not see. The referee then gives the appropriate signal and using his mic announces why the decision was made. This is probably the most transparent system in popular sport and even if you don't like what the ref says at least you know why he said it. The call for technology started with goal line and has swiftly moved onto penalties, red cards, off sides, off the ball incidents etc. It is bad enough when we get a sh1t referee at Loftus Road where the game is forced to stop and start after every third pass because the numpty doesn't let the game flow. This would be further compounded if you had to request VT replays of any disputed incident. I'd like the refs to attend the post match press conference to answer questions, not necessarily directly from either manager but by journalists who were at the match and may have something to say about mistakes they had witnessed. If this were to happen I can guarantee that the refs would demand more money, a bit like actors and Equity, a speaking role would command a higher fee. We've been on the end of propper spankings and I would rather lose a game 4-0 and be totally outplayed than go down to a goal caused by a poor referee.
One method frequently called for is a challenge system similar to tennis, where a team gets one challenge per half (and one more in extra time) should the ref miss something, or make an error. For example, Micah Richards' "handball" should never have been a penalty, and City would've been right to challenge the award (Liverpool would've complained, but that's what they do about everything anyway so no harm done) Of course, it won't take long before some teams start using the system for unfair advantage, for example a team concedes a blatant penalty, but the team challenge it anyway to unsettle the player before they take it to regain advantage.
If they did, they would lose their only chance to appeal against any other, more obvious mistakes. I think that this kind of gamesmanship would be few and far between.
Refs are human. They make mistakes. Some great points mentioned above. I agree with most of them. Only a Captain should be allowed to tak to the ref like rugby. This would immediately help and stop the stupid scenes of surrounding a ref that we see teams like Utd do. Secondly, the ref should be able to quickly refer game changing decisions to the 4th official ie goals, penalty decisions, red cards etc. That way we are giving the ref a decent chance to get the critical decisions right. We all know that refs can genuinely miss incidents, but technology and the 4th official could address this within seconds. Finally, i would really like to see more ex-players wearing the black jersey. Ex players should be retained by the FA on a good salary and put in a Prem pool for matches. They know the rules, are fit, know how to watch for cheating, and would command greater respect from the players. Simple rule being that you can't ref a match for a team that you have previously played for.
Even though goal-line technology would be a good step, the "appeal" idea isn't so simple, would you be happy if you saw a ball crossed the line but it was blatantly obvious the goal shouldn't stand for another reason? With rugby the ref can call for a TV review of a try, to confirm the ball was down, the players foot didn't touch the line, wasn't a 2nd movement etc. However, if that player received that ball via a clear forward pass, the TV ref cannot disallow the try as that is something the ref has simply missed during the game. So, yesterday's game between Sunderland and Middlesbrough would have been a perfect case study, Craig Gardner equalised in the first half, however, it was chalked off for "offside"? If Sunderland could appeal, quite rightly, that it wasn't offside, Wickham never touched the ball and wasn't in the way of keeper, should the goal stand? Even though, Gardner clearly handled it before scoring? Would you be happy only being able to appeal the decision made, even though there is an obvious infringement in the build up? I actually really like the idea of being able to "challenge" 2 decisions during the game and like the NFL, if the appeal is upheld you get to keep both "challenges" you only lose 1 if the ref doesn't change his decision. However, where the NFL is in a better position to do this is that there is a natural 40 second gap between each play, it isn't a fluid sport like football, waiting another minute for the referee to review the incident is not really a problem and as Willy points out, it gives the TV companies a chance to chuck in some more adverts. Where I disagree with Willy is with the accountability of referee's, they would get a lot more respect if they admitted a mistake, maybe not immediately after a game as that could cause problems. However, coming out later and saying that he got it wrong would send a much better message than keeping quiet and then having the FA back them up at the appeal process, even if everyone can see they got it wrong. Also, most Monday's head of referee's, Dermot Gallagher, is in the Sky Sports News studios to go over the refereeing decisions of the weekend, I can't remember him once ever saying the referee got it wrong. He has said, on very rare occasions, that he "might have given something different", just come out and say "Yep, hands up, we got that one wrong, we're only human", keeping a quite and not admitting an error just smacks of arrogance.
There is an issue of how to apply technology fairly (since a team in the fourth tier of the game is still fully professional and a bad call could still be the difference between promotion or relegation and nothing). That said, top-tiers (the Premier League being a separate entity from the football league for example) has the capacity to run things slightly differently. They could pay an additional premium to the FA in order to accommodate additional technology - particularly the cut and dried "has it crossed the line?" capability that has been tried in different forms but, seemingly, disappeared. They should also subsidise a full time review panel to counteract my current bugbear which is the review system. Why do the FA pander to popular outcry rather than a full, comprehensive analysis? The Balotelli incident last week is a prime example - it was probably a terrible incident (there's a small amount of doubt since his standing foot wasn't fixed) but it was very visible so it got dealt with by the FA whereas there was less outcry over the Lescott elbow which wasn't reveiwed along with countless unsavoury moments. It is arbitrary and leaves a feeling of injustice for all other incidents. Refs are having a shocking year, decision-wise, but the lack of support from the top echelons in correcting their mistakes is, IMO, the bigger issue because it backs the missed or poor calls rather than setting and adamantly stating a desire to progress towards a better decision making future by sweeping everything under the carpet. The games are so quick and the refs, despite ear-pieces etc are left isolated and, therefore, the objects of hate and derision. If they were part of a greater set-up (both at the game and in the administration of fair-play) then they would get the respect that such a difficult job would warrant.
Also in the NHL, they release a video pointing out exactly why a player was suspended. Id love to see the FA try to do this with the Barton incident http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=60&id=148388 Watch that and see how hard it would be to justify the Kompany red card while identical tackles are let off. For football to regain its credibility, all you have to do is punish divers/cheaters and use video evidence. Then it would be played cleanly.
If the 4th official was actually watching the game on a screen he could make the decision quicker than all the arguing about right and wrong. He doesn't seem to be doing anything proactive in any of the games I have seen to date so he is a waste of time and space at the moment as far as I can see.
I agree with the retrospective punishment of divers and cheaters, should have been done years ago. I like the German system, a referee can ask a player during a game if he handled it, dived etc, if he says no and the ref gives the decision in his favour and it's found later he blatantly did handle, dive etc, then he gets a massive ban.
Would a system of employing 4 linesmen work, one on each half side of the pitch. An offside is given if both linesmen agree, if only one flags then we play on. If a goal or another form of advantage is gained by the attacking team, then the offside decision can be reviewed. If nothing comes from the original play then just play on. Also, this may be a little far fetched, a system could be introduced where 2 or 3 of the 5 officials (ref and 4 linesmen) have to agree on a descision before its given - not 100% how this could be implimented though
Linesman are useless anyway, a foul can happen 2 yards in front of them and they wont put their flag up until the ref has blown, theyre too concerned with not contradicting the ref rather than getting things right 90% of the time.
