Earlier in the season I wrote about the unremitting focus on refereeing errors, and the fact that it so often used by managers as a distraction technique so that journalists would not ask tricky questions.
I proposed a solution where clubs could appeal up to two decisions per game which could then be reviewed by a panel of experts before the conclusion was announced live on television.
Well of course no-one listened and things seem to be getting worse.
The ‘use of refereeing decisions as a distraction technique’ reached a peak after Chelsea drew with Burnley and Jose Mourinho, who is an absolute genius make no mistake, just listed the minutes when the four decisions he disagreed with took place.
Instead of having to answer questions along the lines of ‘even if the referee and his guide dog had worn claret and blue shirts, how did your team costing over £150 million in transfer fees not beat Burnley?‘, everyone rushed back to discover what he had been talking about.
And mostly he was talking about Ashley Barnes, Selhurst Park favourite and the dirtiest player in the Premier League, according to the statistics I have chosen to follow.
That is Ashley Barnes, who at his previous club pushed the referee over and served a seven game ban as a result.
So, let us return to my original idea of the post-match appeals and brand it ‘The Ashley Barnes Rule.‘ Mourinho might support it then and if he likes it, it might have legs.
The Ashley Barnes Rule has to be better than this infuriating situation where a particular situation can be treated differently depending on whether the referee saw the incident or not.
We have to accept, as the player and club did, that Mile Jedinak deserved his current ban as a result of his elbow on Sakho of West Ham United. But, Jedinak’s elbow-led challenge was no different to that of Craig Dawson of West Bromwich Albion when he flattened Julian Speroni, leading to a crucial goal at the Hawthorns.
The referee is human and will make mistakes, generally these are not malicious. What is malicious is the pressure that the likes of Mourinho and Sam Allardyce put on referees to get decisions right. That pressure may well be putting people off refereeing and lowering the standards.
Which is why I think the Ashley Barnes Rule would help referees and would advance post-match debate beyond the level of managers moaning about decisions.
As we look forward to our match against Queens Park Rangers this weekend, another weird footballing rule comes into focus, Financial Fair Play (FFP), which in theory is designed to prevent uneconomic and crazed financial spending by clubs by setting limits on the losses clubs can make, and fining clubs who breach those limits.
As you may know QPR have a seriously large fine hanging over them if they get relegated, a fine that may see them going out of business.
In the context of that fine, it was interesting to see that their losses for the 2013/14 season were only £10 million unlike the losses of the previous season which were a staggering £67 million.
Except, (as Ed Thompson has pointed out here – http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/latest-news/qpr-figures-not-all-they-seem) the sums do not appear to add up.
Based on publically available information it seems that the only way QPR can have achieved the results they announced is by writing off loans from the owners, and then treating that write-off as income, which is a complete no no in the accounting world. People get very upset about this stuff you know.
And we need to keep an eye on this. If, and it is an important if, QPR have used dodgy accounting to try to make their losses much lower than they really were, the administrators of FFP must come down hard on them. Otherwise owners with bottomless pockets will be able to spend their way to the top, just like Chelsea and Manchester City did before the stable door was bolted, and clubs like Palace who manage their finances more carefully will be at a huge disadvantage.
It looks like we may need a Tony Fernandes rule as well as an Ashley Barnes one.
