http://www.teamworkersusa.com/referee-whistle/
Football Referees Get a Bad Press, But For Good Reason
Who’d be a referee in the English Premier League? Not me, that’s for sure. On the face of it the job looks like a cushy deal: essentially they get paid to run around a field occasionally blowing a whistle. It’s also great for keeping fit, they get to hang out with talented and famous sports stars, and they even get to tell the feigning, fawning prima donnas what to do. But what football (or soccer, if you must) refs in England do not have, is the right to reply.
For some reason, despite the fact everyone knows they – like us all, whatever we like to pretend to our bosses – are fallible, they never come out after the game to explain what they were thinking when they sent off a star striker after a second yellow card given for what they perceived as a dive in the box, only for replays to show not only contact between the defender’s boot and the attacker’s ankle, but that said attacker’s ankle started instantly oozing blood. Or when they unwittingly play alibi to a criminally obvious offside by waving play-on when everyone else in the stadium has stopped to smirk at the audacity of the player who just couldn’t be bothered to watch his line, expecting the raised flag of the linesman that’s never to appear. (Don’t get me started on the linesmen! We’ll save that for another day.)
And while many a Premier League manager has faced hefty fines for their post-match assessments of the performance of the Man-in-black (or green or some other colour these days), which is the inevitable outcome of being asked leading questions while still in the midst of the red mist of being wrongfully penalised, refs are not fined for costing a team victory by cancelling out a goal even though it was a yard over the line, or giving a contentious penalty that my one-year-old niece could tell was a dive.
‘What did you think of the penalty decision?’ asks the TV interviewer to the manager of the wronged team.
‘The referee is a cabbage,’ the manager replies. Bingo, a ten grand fine drops on his doorstep before he arrives home.
So why are referees not called to account in the same way in a post-match interview with the TV companies to explain their thought processes and give their general opinions on the game over which they have just officiated? One reason is an over-protective Football Association who probably feels that by not forcing referees into the limelight of the TV camera and interviewer combo, they are actually doing the much-slated refs a favour. But it is a flawed argument.
I suspect many referees would relish the opportunity to face the public in that manner and either give their honest assessment of why they thought such-and-such a decision was correct, or simply to apologise to fans for a mistake. I also suspect that such a move would actually reduce the criticism referees receive from both fans and the press – not to mention the TV pundits. If referees were interviewed and basically said, ‘okay, it’s a fair cop, I got it wrong,’ the respect fans would have for the ref would certainly increase.
Given that referees are man enough to order the players around in front of 60,000 fans in the first place must mean they have pretty thick skins, so giving them the opportunity to put their point of view into the post-match mixer would certainly be welcome.
So will the Football Association take note and allow the refs the right to reply? It is unlikely, simply because if they went down the ‘open and accountable’ route there might be pressure for senior members of the FA itself to be more accountable to fans, and that, they would assert, just isn’t football.
About the Author
I am the Sports Editor of online sports and betting information website http://www.freebetsfreetips.com.
I have a passion for most sports and a thorough knowledge of bookmakers and gambling, specifically the mathematics behind the odds.
I fear I am now too old to become a professional footballer. So I resign myself to writing about it, and many other sports.
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