We love a good feature here at TEB HQ but this is one that we have wanted to run with for some time. Controversial refereeing decisions happen week in week out and we wanted an expert view as to why they happen.
Local referee and Palace fan Paul Richards will pick up on some of the debatable decisions and share with you his opinion on them every Wednesday. I am sure that you will join us in welcoming Paul to the team. Here he is with an introduction to the feature.
Hey Beakers
I have been asked to give an insight into the world of refereeing from the eyes of an actual referee.
Do not fear, I will not be quoting from the rule book every five minutes or giving you biased views on the side of the ten referees that we see in the Premier League on a weekend. I will be giving you sound reasons and examples of why decisions are made, why the referee may be wrong and why most pundits do not have a clue about decisions a referee makes.
So to begin with, I am Paul. Some of you may know me as the Crystal Palace mental health team captain and the voluntary mental health ambassador for the club. But what only a few know is that I am an active referee in four different leagues and plan to apply for promotion in March. Since August I have refereed over thirty games and I get asked all the time why would I want to do it as a job.
The answer to that is simple. I love it. Even when I have got a decision wrong, I enjoy it because it makes you a better official in the long run.
I would like to talk about how I feel as a referee in the way of the criticism that we often get. When I say ‘we‘ I do mean as referees but I do not feel anywhere near as equal as say Micheal Oliver.
We get a lot of stick for making the wrong decisions but just like when Jason Puncheon blasted that penalty over the bar at White Hart Lane, we are all human. You have a split second to make a decision and you can get it wrong. It is when it is constant that flack should be given. Just like when a player fouls multiple times he goes in the book for persistent infringements of play.
Refereeing is about opinion, not just the rule book. You can see a challenge as a foul in the reasoning of excessive force but from another angle it looks like a great tackle where no malice was intended. You can see a ball to hand moment as a handball but I guarantee, if you had one a week in the exact same area of the pitch at the exact same angle of view, the decision would not be given the same.
Fans and pundits alike have to understand that there is a rule book but there is no rule book about how a mind works.
Next, let me talk about the inconsistent levels of decisions and refereeing across English football. Let us just say, in my opionion, there might as well be a rule book for the Football League and another for the Premier League.
Let me give you an example. I would like you to think about watching Soccer Saturday. The vidiprinter mostly. Now think how many times you have seen the words ‘foul and abusive language‘ when a player in the lower leagues has been sent off.
Think how many times you see that on the same screen when a Premier League player has been sent off. Does this mean the lower three leagues are worse behaved than Premier League players? No chance. So there you have it, straight away we have an example of inconsistency in refereeing.
On the same subject you have to wonder how many times Wayne Rooney should be sent off in a game. From the images for telling the referee to go forth and multiply (putting it mildly) I can reveal that against Arsenal at least four times, against Yeovil Town twice and against Southampton at least once. You get that in the lower leagues and a lot of the time he would be off.
I honestly feel that in the next few weeks, writing for TEB will allow me to clear up a lot in the game and show why referees make decisions that they do.
Thanks for reading. If you have any questions that you would specifically like me to answer in future articles, leave a comment under this article, on the Facebook page or Tweet us.
