Graham Poll - 'The FA's position has cost Referees a huge amount of credibility'

A good article by Poll in today's DM.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...erver-shouldve-taken-action--Graham-Poll.html


Disciplinary action is determined by national federations and ours - the FA - are now in a position where Callum McManaman, of Wigan, cannot be charged for a career-threatening challenge on Newcastle’s Massadio Haidara.

Let’s be absolutely clear: this is not a matter of application of the laws of the game and it is not something dictated by the law-makers (IFAB) or the world governing body, FIFA.

What they do say is that when a referee issues a red card, the player must serve at least a one-match ban — unless it is a case of mistaken identity.


The FA, however, choose not to support our referees. They overturn red cards that their disciplinary panel decide are incorrect. All too often a former referee is not part of that appeals panel.


The FA’s inability to take retrospective action against McManaman — when any neutral observer can see that they should — follows a short-sighted decision before the start of this season.

The FA announced: ‘Following consultation with the game’s stakeholders (the Premier and Football Leagues, the Professional Footballers’ and League Managers’ Associations, Professional Game Match Officials Ltd and the National Game), it was agreed that retrospective action should only be taken in respect of incidents which have not been seen by the match officials.


‘Where one of the officials has seen a coming together of players, no retrospective action should be taken, regardless of whether he or she witnessed the full or particular nature of the challenge. This is to avoid the re-refereeing of incidents.’ Yet by overturning red cards the FA do re-referee incidents and undermine officials.

Good referees know that the one thing their decisions must have is credibility. Their bosses must know the same; yet the FA’s position has cost referees a huge amount of credibility

 

I wrote some bit in the NSFW thread on this as well. It's really short sighted of the FA. You can't expect a linesman to make a decision 60 yards away from an incident if he thinks a referee 10 yards away will by a mile have a better view of an incident. And can you imagine how upset we'd get if a linesman 60 yards away went flagging for a foul when the referee who's 10 yards away waves play on?

The FA claims that one of the 3 officials vaguely saw the incident, or if 1 of the 3 saw they can't retrospectively do anything more...

If that's the case why restrict the linesmen to one width and one side of the pitch? Why not have 3 referees on the pitch for 3 different angles?

Let's say I'm a linesman, if the play is not on my side of the pitch I'd obviously be looking over at whatever's happening on the other side, however I could be a mile away from the action, with only one exact angle. The angle might never be the best one, and just because the linesman WAS looking they take it as "incident referee-ed"? How poor is that?! The dude 60 yards away with one angle, and half his mind on the defensive line in front of him for any counter-attack ball to happen anytime, is expected to make a decision for a referee 10 yards away?

The integrity of the game is at stake here...when officials are reluctant to make decisions that they can't see and nobody is willing to help. At this rate, Pardew might as well ask 1 of our bigger players like Sissoko to block the ref's view on all occasions while we're defending and then go in hard and gangtackle for the ball.

 

I am always a little bit defensive of referees, probably stemming from the fact that my Dad was one. Graham Poll is making good points here. The FA's inability to see that justice is done has harmed the position of match officials. I actually feel that Mark Halsey is getting a bit too much abuse on this. Yes he had a shocker of a game. Any game where there are so many key decisions missed is not one that a referee will feel proud of (even when he has been very badly let down by his assistant referees who are supposed to be there to assist!). The referee is human, and I believe honest. Nobody seriously expects a referee to get everything right. In terms of the game we have to be good enough to overcome missed or mistaken decisions. On Sunday we weren't. The desire for punishment of Callum McManaman is not born out of sour grapes. The FA should have SUPPORTED its officials by sending out the message to players that even if the referee misses your thuggery we will not. Commit a career threatening tackle and you will be dealt with harshly. Failure to send out this message only means that referees will have more to deal with, and will come under more scrutiny for their mistakes - because the FA have now decided that no matter how serious the mistake it cannot be undone.

 

The problem is lads, you're just the latest victims of the FA rule book. This won't change anything, the rug that everything gets swept under at the FA has no room left under it, they're buying a new rug any day now I hear. The inconsistency is the most annoying part and I have absolutely no doubt it boils down to what mood the 'panel' are in on that day.

A statement that says something along the lines of 'If an official has seen it, we won't re-referee an incident', ok so that's written in the rule book, fair enough let's move on then sha....hang on, what about rescinded red cards? Well that's obviously an exception to the rule, because a player who shouldn't have been sent off, will retrospectively have his ban reversed and he will not serve a ban. So somebody who didn't get sent off but should have been sent off can't retrospectively be sent off (banned)? Not quite, the ref and every other official must not see the incident, if they do and they don't send him off, the FA can't undermine that decision. But the FA can undermine a decision in another circumstance. Selective undermining. Make it up as we go along.

Of course, there's going to be an exception to this rule as well. We'll find out what it is soon enough no doubt. The problem isn't Halsey either, despite the FA kissing his arse I have no doubts that this man would prefer it if the FA could grow a set and make the right call with the benefit of video footage to analyse, further more, I doubt there's a referee out there who would oppose getting rid of the 4th, 5th, 6th and 24th official and replacing it with one, solitary piece of video technology; Halsey could have watched that incident at least 10 times over whilst Haidara was receiving medical attention.

 

I'm not surprised that rugby types look down their nose at football. Rugby has got its act together in terms of its disciplinary procedures; football is run by a bunch of spineless cowards who hide behind the 'rules'. When players can get away scot free with vicious tackles it's no wonder that people in this country are turning away from the game.

As a result of the FA's inaction, you can bet the red cards will fly like confetti next weekend. The refs will be too scared to be shown to be completely in the wrong as Halsey has been.

 

Is this the same Ref who doled out 3 YELLOW cards to a serb in the samr match?
I'd have thought he'd be better keeping quiet!

 

Beat me to it!

 

To be fair, Graham Poll was one of the better referees, and there was a plausible reason for him confusing a Croatian with an Australian player; the Croatian was brought up in Australia and spoke English with an Australian accent.

 

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