Referees

Are refs ever held accountable for anything ?

If they are if should be made public..

 

Do you want to take this one @Bumblebee_Tuna ?

 

LOL.

 

Dont you start.

Actually I've noticed a significant drop off in the whinging about referees in here this season. I'd like to think that maybe some might be prepared to accept that the standard isn't that bad.

On yesterday's game, I really can't see the fuss with the ref. Their keeper probably pushed 'taking his time' to the limit but let's he honest if that'd been Walker carrying on like that and he'd have got booked we'd be crying blue murder on here about how other keepers do it and get away with it.

I think some people will only be happy when we get referees who officiate the game like a city fan would.

The main critics of the referees won't admit it but the incidents they complain about would be supported if the same thing happened but the colours of the shirts reversed.

As for accountability, the officials get moved up and down the leagues based on the assessor's judgement. Granted, their assessment being made public would be a helpful move but they do suffer consequence for bad performances.

 

It's nowhere near as bad as people make out and a lot of it is confirmation bias and any wrong decision or even just a decision against a team is met with outrage and overreactions. There's no doubt the lower leagues have got more technical over the last 10 years and faster which will make games harder to referee especially when the referees are only part time doing the job alongside their full time job. Also there are far more cameras with live streaming and replays, if you have more cameras and replays you will see more mistakes but that doesn't mean there are.
A big problem I do think is fans complain but most don't really know the laws as they are today rather than 20 years ago or want referees to referee games based on they think the laws should be not what they are, the Baldwin red card would be an example as it was a red card which was had the appeal rejected 3-0 by the panel yet there are some who said it was never a red card.
We're not going to magically find 20 odd new referees from thin air that are so much better and you can't just go out and buy a new referee like you can with players so the FA, EFL & PGMOL have to look at ways of improving the referees we have now. I can't believe with all of the money in the game that between the 72 clubs they can't find the money to make the officials full time. If you do that it means they can full concentrate on the job, they will be far less tired, their fitness will improve, they have much more time to train with other officials to learn and more time to review games. It would also encourage more to take up refereeing as a viable career. There are referees who would do well but don't have the financial security or type of job where they can regularly take time off work to commit to refereeing nationally, it is better for them to stay in step 2 or 3 where all Saturday games can be done in a day or leave work at 5 then do a match.

 

Whist accepting much of what you say, I do think yesterday’s ref was weak. Stevenage are notorious for using every trick in the book to slow the game down as much as possible and were doing it right from the start, but the ref just let them get away with it for virtually the whole game. Also, one of their midfielders committed a string of niggly fouls before half time but wasn’t even spoken to, let alone booked.
There was only one team trying to get on with the game and we were prevented from doing so throughout by relentless premeditated shithousery which the ref made almost no effort to discourage or penalise.

 

That's fair but I think when things aren't going your way you start getting wildly agitated and emotional about decisions that actually are entirely justified albeit they could go either way. I think refs are reluctant to book for time wasting as they know they'll get accused of being inconsistent so they tend to just leave it alone.

 

I'll call refs out for very poor performances but the whinging at every bloody decision at games gets on my tits. As i've mentioned the ref wasn't that bad on Saturday but half the fan based their opinion on a disallowed goal that gets flagged up by pretty much every ref, thats not the refs fault more a problem with the people writing the rules. I do agree with @Offcomedun that he could have done better with the slowing down play. Play acting from both sides though which seems to get overlooked.

 

Fans not knowing the rules …like “ Leave it” or “My ball” you mean?

 

The main issue is refereeing….

Consistency
Rule application


When its opinion based , ie the referees opinion , than it’s impossible to eliminate inconsistency.

Frustrating !

 

Hardest job in sport refereeing these days. Players pulling every snide trick they can to get a decision, fans complaining about every tackle. Games like the one on Saturday arguably the toughest type, physical wars of attrition where the game has no flow to it. As you rightly allude to a game where rules are open to interpretation from refs, fans and players is going to see frustration, there was one early in the Man City Chelsea game where Palmer had his shirt held as he went forward, a blatant yellow but not given to Rhodri, then a Chelsea player gets a yellow for kick the ball away minutes later and that's where refs need to be marked down.

 

The 'consistency' issue is completely flawed in itself. There are never two identical incidents and for every pair of incidence that one could flag up as the same somebody else can argue a way to distinguish them from each other. Fans of clubs are always on social media citing two incidents that they use to cite inconsistency and they are usually completely different.

 

I knew he wasn't going to book the city player for that. Palmer was losing the ball anyway and they only book for shirt pulling when it holds up a promising attack.

 

And we wonder why it's nigh on impossible to ref football games lol, cos I'm shouting for a yellow all day for that.

 

The rules are pretty clear though from IFAB that pulling shirts or holding players is only a yellow if it halts a promising attack. Agree though again that 'promising attack' like with most rules is completely subjective.

 

In the second half, their number 15 who was at the time on a yellow card, took just over 20 seconds to get a throw into play, which went short to the man who was stood by him the entire time and i think it was Neufville just toed it out for another throw and the 20+ second process went on again. As others have said and it's been totted up since, Stevenages 8 Phillips had committed 6 fouls that lead to free kicks by the 50th minute and wasn't even warned about totting up fouls. Players know if you give them the freedom they will take the piss with it.

I dont think the refs have been that bad this season, i think it's the consistency that's a nightmare. Sometimes we see a ref see a tackle early on that's proper a tester for refs and they give a warning or an early yellow to tell the teams that he is in control and not to push their luck, but the bloke on saturday let the teams get away with far too much. The throws were a joke, sometimes we've seen refs warn throw takers in the first 5 minutes if it looks like they are taking the mick.

The 8 second thing is a joke too, the lad on saturday had it in his hands for 8 seconds few times in the second half (there were 2 blokes loudly counting the seconds infront of me in the kop), ref got to 7 or 8 seconds before throwing his hand up to say he has 5 more to get rid. Keepers know it's not an 8 second timer, it's wait until the ref throws up his 5 second hand gesture and then get moving. But refs dont time that at all, they wait until they've ran back toward the centre circle and then launch up their 5 gesture. It's a joke rule that is rarely taken seriously, i was glad the ref blew the Chelsea keeper up for one yesterday.

 

Players don't grab shirts outside the box unless it's to stop an attack, usually after a player has gone past them and they have no other physical way of stopping them. It wasn't like Palmer wasn't going anywhere, he's going straight down the middle breaking, I'm not a fan of players waving imaginary cards but I thought he had a point. As you say it's subjective.

 

Pulling a shirt is , pulling a shirt no matter where or how it’s taking place ? It’s acceptable at set pieces but not in attacking play . It’s either football or all in wrestling do it seems ?