Premier League to curb player behaviour - Scudamore http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/9442760.stm Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has announced a crackdown on the "unacceptable" behaviour by players and managers towards referees. "The clubs unanimously backed the idea that at the start of next season we want to raise the bar," said Scudamore. The new campaign will target abuse of match officials as well as surrounding them and unacceptable criticism and trying to get opponents sanctioned. The Football Association plus referees and players' groups will be consulted. The 20 top-flight club chairmen have acted after a number of high-profile incidents this season, most recently when Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson received a five-match touchline ban for his television outburst at referee Martin Atkinson after his side's 2-1 defeat at Chelsea on 1 March. Scudamore added: "I think we do need to concentrate on the player and manager relationship with the referee this time, as every one of us knows that there have been elements of unacceptable behaviour. "As to what we think is unacceptable; it's vitriolic abuse towards match officials and that has on occasions gone unpunished; the surrounding of referees is unacceptable; the goading of referees into trying to get opponents sanctioned we think is unacceptable; and also the undue criticism, where it spills over into questioning the referee's integrity or his honesty is also unacceptable." I agree with him 100% - players need to show more respect and behave properly on the field. Whether it's United players or anyone else, surrounding and chasing the ref is unacceptable and should be cracked down on. Yellow cards for dissent should be produced immediately, not just after prolonged abuse. The lack of respect is having a knock on effect, with amateur refs now more likely that ever to be attacked as amateur players follow the lead of the pros: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12881426 Is it any wonder that top flight refs aren't top quality if people are being dissuaded from becoming refs due to the abuse they receive? But do we actually think they will take action? Or will this just be another PR stunt like the "Respect" campaign that has done precisely **** all? Comments from all welcome, but let's discuss the issue at hand, not turn it into a "which club is the worst" pissing contest please.
At the start of next season a couple of players will be booked for dissent then it will all be forgotten about
To me, the acid test will be whether this new approach will be applied consistently. It was so frustrating to see Ferguson reprimanded for his recent comments regarding Atkinson, yet Dave Whelan and Roberto Martinez go unpunished the week before. Refereeing standards also need to be addressed and referee's need to be held accountable for errors that affect results. We know they are only human and can't get it right every time but that does not mean they should be shielded from criticism if they repeatedly get it wrong. Ferguson's anger at Atkinson for example was due to the fact that this is the 3rd Chelsea v Utd game that he had made mistakes and effectively decided the outcome. Why on earth did the FA see fit to put him in charge of this game again, watch him make several poor judgements and then reprimand Ferguson for pointing it out how bad his track record has been in these games
Unfortunately this is probably correct. We've seen so many rule changes that are implemented in the early weeks of the season and then slowly, the progress is eroded.
Sadly you're probably right. Some brave ref will enforce the rules then the media and the respective manager will have a go at him cos none of the other refs are doing it and it'll all fade away again. We've seen it too many times in the past - they try to make an example of someone to enforce a new rule but it just backfires and its soon business as usual again...
I propose 2 new rules to tackle bad behaviour towards referees from players and managers: i) for players, only the captain can talk to the ref. Any contravention of this to result in an instant yellow. And if the captain oversteps the mark at all, again a yellow card. I know this has been suggested before, but has been shouted down by people calling for the use of "common sense". I don't think common sense works with this. Some players, when given an inch, will take a mile. ii) for managers (and players), it is forbidden to talk about referees. Whether this is during a post-match interview, the Friday press-conference or even in interviews with their clubs own media, they must respond "no comment". The journalists would soon stop asking their loaded questions, and this would remove the need to analyse manager's comments to see if they "questioned the integrity or honesty of officials". I know people will claim these measures to be too draconian, but it can't be any worse than the current system.
Agree 100%. I think rugby and cricket have the same rules, and there's no trouble at all there. I remember playing rugby at uni and all the refs referred to the player as sir - any swearing or other comments were an instant sin binning. I agree in principle, but in practice that could kill some interviews off altogether. Any manager who was on the end of a dodgy decision would just reply no comment to pretty much every question about their teams performance, cos they wouldn't want to make any negative comments about their team without including the clarification about the decision. I would instead say managers can only talk about the individual decisions, and only state that they either agreed or disagreed with them. No comments about the ref's performance or decisions being a joke or a disgrace or anything like that. Just stick to whether you agree or don't agree with an individual decision.
When building a pyramid you start at the bottom not the top. Steps should be taken to discipline professionals who break the rules but I believe the main focus should be coaching and nuturing the next breed of professional and amatuer players in a way that shows it's unacceptable to treat refs in the manner they are being treated now. Money and time should be spent to ensure we are creating a smarter footballer. This is a lost generation, why can rugby get it so right? Education form an early age.
Possibly, but this would still be better than the current minefield in my opinion. It wouldn't necessarily kill the interview either - there's another rule in rugby, not sure how it's worded exactly but the gist is that when doing a post-match interview, the manager has to take it seriously and not dick around or be deliberately awkward. A manager, Brendan Venter, fell foul of this a few months ago when he basically took the piss by saying how brilliant he thought the ref was despite blatantly not thinking this was the case. He was being obviously sarcastic: http://www.rugbyleagueunion.com/brendan-venters-bizarre-interview-after-loss-to-racing-metro.html I think he'd already been in trouble for criticing officials, so this was his response to that I suppose.
Football is full of ****s, who think like ****s and who behave like ****s....because they are ****s. As Dangerous Marsupial said, education from an early age...it is the next generation that will benefit from this more, but those in the current era should be taken to task to set the example. If 5 players surround the ref and he books them all, they'll tread ****ing carefully from there on in, if not then they'll be down to a reduced number and probably get spanked and have to field weaker teams as the season progresses. Captains only, the rest should shut up, Managers etc included.
Even though many footballers are a bit simple, I still reckon if they got a card every time they spoke out of turn, they'd learn pretty quickly.
Sounds a bit like Sean Connery too doesn't it? Maybe that's what Shteve was doing, he wasn't trying to fit in with the Dutch, he was pretending he was Jamesh Bond. Maybe thinking that because he's British those crazy Dutch guysh would believe it.
I'm sure that went down well with the Germans. Wonder where Shteve will pop up next? And what his next accent will be...
