Our regular refereeing feature from local official Paul Richards who picks up on the big decisions in the game and some of the other issues that effect the sport we all love.
So I was sitting on my sofa at home Saturday morning, getting ready for my game which had a 2pm kick off. Then out of nowhere something incredible happened.
Drum role please …
People, it was an intelligent argument on the television about referees. Yes, you read that correctly. Everyone, five people sitting in front of the television cameras speaking a whole lot of sense throughout all about the men (and women) in black.
Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports opened up with a montage of the week’s poorest refereeing decisions and then the conversation started.
What came out of it filled me with glee as former Southampton player Matt Le Tissier pointed out that maybe we should not be looking at the officials. Maybe we should be looking at the people above them. Referees have been poor this season I am afraid to say and I agree with them.
Why am I inclined to agreed?
Is it because 90% of the referees are poor or is it the information that they are getting? I cannot really answer that completely but what I do know is someone other than the officials have to take some responsibility.
Poor decisions are happening every week. Leicester City should of had two penalty decisions in their favour against Manchester City. The red card for West Bromwich Albion midfielder Claudio Yacob against Aston Villa in the FA Cup was an atrocious decision. I could go on and on but it is costing teams points and places in league table.
As a referee myself, I am afraid I feel shame every weekend when I watch the action. What I would say is this. I wrote an article a few weeks ago about technology which was not brilliantly received so I want to put something to you.
I would like your opinions on this. If a referee is not sure about a challenge or the severity of an incident like the one on Stephen Ireland for example, should they be given the power to make a signal like in rugby to put a player on report and let a panel deal with it?
I will return next week on TEB to share with you my opinion but I would be really interested to hear what football fans think.
A short one this week but I will review the more recent controversial decisions when I return next time so thanks for reading.
