Pretty sure this the only profession where you don't get called to account for glaring errors. Yesterday we saw, for not the first time this season, an abysmal refereeing performance which cost us the opportunity to be equal 1st on points in the league. Would it be so hard for these officials to come out after the game to explain why they make decisions, or apologise when they know they've made a mistake?
I remember hearing on BBC Radio 5 Live that this approach was adopted in Spain for a few months and they abandoned it because the referees came on air to say "I gave this decision for X, Y and Z reasons. That is what I saw. If it was wrong, then I am sorry". How would it benefit the fans or the players in any way for referees to come on air to justify their actions? They see what they see and they make a decision based on that. Would you feel better knowing why (for example) the ref gave Kaboul a 2nd booking at the Stoke game or the ref saying "Oh, I didn't see Shawcross handball off the line"? Don't get me wrong, referees should be punished for their mistakes and if that means saying live on air "sorry for the error" and receiving any further punishment from the FA (or whatever governing body decides it), then I'm all for that. However it may not be beneficial at all for referees to say WHY they made certain decisions.
Don't fall into the trap of blaming referees. There were errors yesterday, yes. But our poor finishing and poor tactics lost the game for us. Get them right and we could have had McCarthy as referee and still got a result. Honestly, we are beginning to sound like gooners...
Just for the hell of it.. http://sport.uk.msn.com/football/which-referee-should-your-premier-league-team-fear#image=1
Bankers, Politicians......... Seriously, although there are times (eg Stoke) when the ineptitude reaches a point when one wonders about corruption, the bad decisions yesterday were evened out - and I think our decision making a lot of the time was questionable: over-passing, poor shooting, poor defending ( for the goal). We should have won yesterday but we didn't - nobodies fault but ours. Let's move on to the next game before we start sounding like The Whinger!
As a Spurs fan it would be nice to hear a referees comments after a game as we seem to suffer with bad decisions going against us on a regular basis. Maybe we are just unlucky but I dont believe Spurs get the majority of benefit of doubt decisions like what Man Utd and Liverpool receive. How many times have we seen Man Utd or Liverpool on the receiving end of a bad decision...... answer is hardly ever, and we all know historically referees generally tend to be scared of Fergie and favour LFC because of their past. Of course, Spurs have had the odd decision go in our favour (ie Fulham game hand ball), but overall the bad decisions outway the favourable ones considerably and its cost us vital points.
"Tottenham Hotspur In five Premier League games refereed by Lee Mason, Spurs have conceded five penalties and have had two players sent off." WTF? Debatable Decisions? Well they've given the van der Vaart 'handball' against Arsenal, when there was absolutely no way that anyone could call that 100%, so they're wrong. They've also somehow come to the conclusion that Djourou shouldn't have gone against Fulham, which is laughable. He should've been dismissed earlier. No red card of penalty against Fulham's Sidwell when we played them, yet they've included Walker's handball in the same game. Claim that Modric's penalty against Stoke shouldn't have been given is ludicrous, too. They only appear to have watched us on highlights and against Stoke. Poor. Crouch handball against Stoke. Kaboul penalty shout against Stoke. Adebayor offside goal against Stoke. Shawcross handball in area against Stoke. Kaboul second yellow against Stoke. Well done Mr Foy. Slagged off today on Talksport for being a twat to their producer at the Newcastle v QPR game. Not having the best of times, is he?
Well spotted PNP That does rather totally discredit the table, doesn't it? Just wondering exactly who makes up the 'independent panel'........
Politicians and those responsible for Paris Hilton's career don't either... I know that the Italian sports papers judge the referee's performance along with thos of the players, and have to wonder if there have been many referees who justify a 6/10 based on some of the utter moronity they're shown this season.
Adebayor has the oddest of hat-tricks...3 perfectly good goals disallowed, I'm struggling to recall this happening to any other player in such a short period.
Over here we have the NRL(National Rugby League), like the PL all games are shown and of course refereeing errors are highlighted. The refs have a coordinator who checks all the games after each round and if a ref or linesman has made a glaring game changing error they are punted for the next round or until he believes that the lesson as been learned. Can the FA not do something like that? It would would certainly make the refs a bit more accountable for their actions. Edit: The NRL has full use of technology but errors are still made- it's not foolproof but at least it's something.
What???....we're talking about a disallowed goal...not the opportunity of playing 10 men and hoping to score from that handicap.
Agreed. Nothing of much substance in there, to be honest and the debatable decisions one is just daft. Nonsense. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy theory to see that there are biased refs.
Everyone's biased. Referees are no exception. The problem with certain clubs though, is that they eliminate the ones that aren't biased in their favour. Reprehensible, but nothing's done about it.
Are you going to persist on being obtuse or can I expect this not to be a waste of time? Are referee's biased? Yes. All of them to a degree. I'm not talking about just 50/50 decisions going against a team, or even just a case of getting it wrong, there are tonnes of examples where referees do not act on what they saw. Kompany was sent off after Rooney complained, up until that point the ref didn't even flinch. When Joey Barton was sent off against Norwich, neither official reacted straight away so clearly didn't see it yet they managed to work out what happened with their spidey senses. Luiz only getting booked against Newcastle when the ref saw the foul but conveniently forgot that he had to send him off. Carling Cup final when Rio as the last man brought down Agbonlahor in the middle of the penalty area. You can debate bad decisions all you want but these are decisions that cannot be anything other than biased, as you said earlier, they know the rules.
Some refs clearly are biased though, Lidls. Clattenburg, for example. Making a mistake is one thing, but he's quite blatantly biased.
He failed to send off Rooney for his elbow on McCarthy. That's an understandable mistake. He claimed that he'd made the right decision in his post-match report, preventing any further action by the FA. That's bias.
As was pointed out on MOTD lat night, Luke, there is no specific Fifa ruling re two footed tackles. The law merely stipulates that a player who makes a reckless challenge, or uses unnecessary force in the tackle is guilty of serious foul play. Therefore the whole issue is, by definition, at the discretion of the referee. Unless, and until, a more definitive ruling is made, it seems this will remain the case. In my view, Kompany's tackle was neither reckless, nor dangerous. We saw several far worse tackles over the weekend that went entirely unpunished.
