I Never Criticise Referees But....

Being a bit of an anorak on these matters and a football obsessive I was watching Macclesfield play Chelmsford City last night on ESPN.

It was quite a good cup tie which Macclesfield edged by the only goal of the game. During the first half the linesman the linesman made a good decision and co-commentator David Pleat was full of praise, saying something to the effect that “I hope he takes no notice of all the criticism the officials get these days from the media and continues to enjoy the game.”

In the second half Macclesfield had a goal incorrectly disallowed for offside and the same commentators scrutinised the ruling time and time again before sending the touchline reporter to stick a microphone in Gary Simpson, the Macclesfield Town managers’ face and asking him for his reaction.

This, it seems to me, is an ever increasing trait. It’s always somebody else criticising Referees, never the person who is actually doing it.

Harry Redknapp was at it at the weekend after his side lost at Stoke. “I never complain about referees' decisions - I have not done it in 30 years of management, never,” he said.

"But today, I'm afraid, he got some badly wrong. I felt he was quite enjoying giving us nothing.”

For this comment about Chris Foy – which to be fair is pretty awful – Redknapp has been warned about his future conduct, but it his assertion that he “never complains” about Referees is the one which we at Referees Jobs want to take issue with here.

How about this last season about Howard Webb? "I've never been one for criticising referees - it's never been my game - but it was a blatant penalty. If you get the penalty, it could make a big difference."

Or this outburst about Andy D’Urso? "I just question the referee’s overall performance which I thought was inept. Every game I see this season has seven or eight bookings. I think it’s frightening."

Or finally, when he said this about Steve Tanner in 2008? "I never walk in after games and complain about a referee but this guy is scary. He’s a poor referee and I’ve seen him make a mess of so many games. He’s really not good enough."

So, we can conclude that, for a fella who claims he doesn’t criticise referees he seems to do it a lot. But not, strangely enough, after the game at Stoke last season when the same referee missed a ball going way behind the line in the last minute, where it was then handled by Peter Crouch. After that match the Spurs boss said this: “The ball may well have gone over the line, but it was a foul on the keeper before it.”

Thus invoking the other fallback position of the Manager, that of “two wrongs making a right.”

Of course referee Foy and his team didn’t have their finest hour on Sunday and he got some decisions wrong. But then so did Harry Redknapp and his defence. I am happy to say that Mr. Foy has not been taken off the Premier League matches this weekend and will be officiating at Craven Cottage.

It is worth pointing out, though that it isn’t just football that places refs under pressure. Anyone who saw the World Title fight between Amir Khan and Lamont Peterson saw referee Joe Cooper deduct two points from Khan, who lost his titles.

The Bolton fighter has appeared on just about every new bulletin there has been all week, telling everyone he was cheated and demanding a re-match at a neutral venue so it is “fair.”

Referee Cooper was entirely right in what he did. He repeatedly warned Khan for pushing, and Khan kept pushing, so what was the official supposed to do?

It can only be concluded that being a Ref in whatever sport is a tremendously tricky and largely thankless task and one which is made more difficult by constant criticism, especially from those who “never criticise."

Thoughts on the Weekend

Our old friend inconsistency was at the forefront of everyone’s mind again this week.

We have previously argued in these blogs that inconsistency can be explained away by human nature – and again we want the refs to be human, don’t we? And that remains the case but equally, even at Referee Jobs, if a ref gets it wrong then we have to say so.

And so it is that we have to say that Mike Dean got his decision wrong when decided to only give David Luiz a yellow card when he hauled back Demba Ba.

Luiz clearly denied a goal scoring opportunity when he fouled the Newcastle man and, as such, he should have been sent off.

This wasn’t the only mistake of the day either, as a little later in the afternoon Stuart Attwell – who has been no stranger to controversy in his short career – sent off Bolton’s Gary Cahill against Spurs.

It was debateable whether Cahill was the last man, and indeed his red card has subsequently been rescinded, but still the knives were out for the refs.

Unfortunately for referees everything they do is highly scrutinised, and they know this when they sign on for the job. It is easy for the media and for Managers to blame the officials – and the sight of Owen Coyle marching onto the pitch at White Hart Lane to remonstrate with Attwell was unedifying to say the least.

Bolton would most probably have lost that game if it had stayed 11 v 11. The form they have shown this season indicates that they were no match for Spurs, and as we have again argued on these blogs over the last few months, it really is getting to the stage when we have to question the point of the post-match press conference.

I was thinking this again on Monday when Kenny Dalglish (who we have mentioned quite a bit on these pages) said that “decisions went against us” in the wake of the defeat against Fulham. A game they lost, just like the other games during which King Kenny has blamed the ref.

I watched the match on the TV and Referee Kevin Friend absolutely did not cost them the match. What cost them the match was their own wasteful finishing; you know of the two strikers that cost them £50 odd million, and errors from their England right back and world class goalkeeper.

As for the sending off of Jay Spearing, it might have been harsh, but if Mr. Friend deems the tackle to unnecessarily aggressive then he has to produce the red card.

It’s in the rules.

And those rules are something that the Dalglish’s and the Coyle’s of this world might do well to have a brief acquaintance with

Football As A Force For Good - The RefereeJobs Christmas Campaign

The tragic death of Gary Speed threw into sharp focus the problem of depression in sport.

It’s not something that people often think about. Why would these people get depressed? They have everything. Lots of money, big houses, fame.

At least that’s how it seems. The answer obviously is a lot more complex than that.

The answer of course is that everyone, in any walk of life, whatever their situation can be struck down with the disease of depression.

The refereeing community was left shocked last week by the plight of Babak Rafati. The German official tried to take his own life before the Bundesliga Match between Cologne and Mainz 05.

Mr. Rafati slit his wrists but thankfully survived his ordeal. He was found by his two linesman and German Paramedic’s have praised the pair, saying their prompt actions saved his life.

Happily Mr. Rafati is making a full recovery, with his father saying: “He said he was sorry. He said he loved me, I am very happy he’s ok.”

Babak is a veteran of 84 Bundesliga games and has been refereeing in the Professional game since 1997, and he plans, once he is better, to make a return to the game.

The PFA have produced a booklet in the wake of Mr Speed’s terrible passing aimed at helping players cope with depression and the Director of the Sporting Chance Clinic, an organisation aimed at helping footballers who are suffering from addictions and other types of mental illness has reported that 10 Premier League Footballers have contacted them seeking help.

Football is a tremendous force for good. At Referees Jobs we have seen first hand just how it can bring families closer together, how lifelong friendships can be formed through a mutual love of the game and just what a positive influence football – whether playing or officiating – can be.

The PFA’S message was that “no one in football needs to feel alone.” And that is something that Referee Jobs passionately believes in.

That is why we have decided to try and do our bit to help and we are urging you to do the same.

We are backing the Samaritans Christmas Wishes Programme. A tremendous initiative it encourages people to leave messages throughout the Festive Period which can then be read by those who are less fortunate.

It is sometimes easy to think that football is far more important than it actually is. Football can feel like – as Bill Shankley is reputed to have said (although the actual words are often misquoted) – “a matter of life and death.”

As this weeks tragic and awful events have shown it is anything but.

Crossing A Line

This morning’s news that goal line technology could be used in the Premier League within the next 12 months is an interesting development.

Alex Horne, the General Secretary of the FA, made the announcement this morning, saying: It's possible we could see [goal-line technology] in the Premier League as early as 2012-13.”

Previously he had said that that such a move was “unlikely” before 2013 given that the technology wouldn’t be in place in time.

Along with Horne’s announcement, at which he also trotted out the usual phrases, such as “I think goal-line technology would be a huge boost for the game” and “For years we've thought this was a good addition to referees' armoury,” before adding: “It's easy to make mistakes and we've all seen examples where the referee and assistant referee can't see if a ball has crossed the line or not. We need to support them in decision-making.”

The problem is, I can’t help feeling, that the whole thing is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. How many instances of this would have been avoided over the years? There was the famous one at Old Trafford a few seasons ago when Roy Carroll dropped Pedro Mendes’ shot over the line, there was an incident last season with a last minute header at Stoke, and of course there was that “goal” that Frank Lampard scored in the World Cup against Germany.

The point I am making here is that there aren’t a lot of these incidents. It’s not exactly going to do a great deal to the game – and is it actually solving a problem that doesn’t actually exist?

Clearly the people behind the trials that are taking place don’t think so. Harry Barnes and David Parden have developed a system that involves a signal being sent to the referee’s wrist when the ball crosses the line. The system has been 14 years in the development, apparently after Bolton Wanderers went down as a result of a Gerry Taggart goal that should have counted not being given.

This neglects a very important point though and one which I believe still holds true. Bolton Wanderers did not go down in 1997 because one goal wasn’t given. Bolton Wanderers went down because their performances in the season as a whole weren’t good enough.

And the system isn’t cheap either. Costing £100,000 for a set of two goals. Self evidently therefore it is only going to happen in the Premier League. This creates a system where the game is refereed differently depending on how much money your team has. One of the things I love about football is that from the park to the pro’s the rules are the same. This changes that.

We already have something similar in cricket. In fact it is even worse. If I go and watch a cricket match in the T20 or Pro40 competitions and its on Sky they have a TV umpire who reviews decisions. If I go the next week and it’s not a televised game then there is no fourth official.

Surely it is even more wrong to have games in the same competition officiated differently then it is to have something uniform across the division, which is at least what will happen in the Premier League.

My other concern on this is that it might be the start of something bigger – how long before football follows rugby, cricket and tennis and brings in referrals for this, than and the other. I believe this to be entirely the wrong course of action for football to take and implore the authorities to think very, very carefully before making these nets compulsory

History Is Made

Referee Masaaki Toma made history at the weekend.

He took charge of the Brentford v Basingstoke Town game in the FA Cup and in doing so became the first non-British and Irish official ref an FA Cup match.

The Japanese man in black is over in England on an exchange programme for Referees and had taken charge of a Premier League Reserve game between Bolton and Sunderland and a Conference North game before turning up at Griffin Park.

Before the game David Elleray, who is now the Chairman of the FA’s Referees Committee said the usual PR guff: “Masaaki Toma is a world-class referee and his appointment shows that the FA Cup really does hold global appeal."

All very laudable. But is it fair enough?

At refereesjobs.com we think that yes it is – this exchange programme has got to be to the benefit of everyone. Stuart Attwell, the Warwickshire based Premier League ref, went the other way last year and would have benefitted from the experience too.
Unfortunately he hit the headlines while he was there on his three week stay – along with fellow young ref Anthony Taylor – and booked 18 players in his two games. But such exchanges have to be a good thing.

The Japanese Football Association are at the forefront of such things and have had Polish officials in their country in the last couple of years and perhaps it is something that we can also think about doing.

Surely rather like the old adage of a “change being as good as a rest” it can only benefit the Referee.

Anything that helps maintain the standards or of course even improve them has got to help before the dreaded talk about “Video Technology” kicks off yet again.

Of course Toma isnt some up and coming youngster looking for break. He refereed England v Mexico last year. By all accounts he did a fine job in the Brentford game – booking three players along the way.

He seemed to enjoy the FA Cup experience saying: “The majority of players and both
managers accepted my decision.

'Both managers said, "It was a great performance". However, some people also told me my English was poor.

In which case, in the Premier League he would fit right in!

Total Agreement - Surely some mistake?!

The thing about football is there is always a controversial incident every weekend – this week there was Howard Webb’s decision to give an indirect free-kick for a back pass, then to let Bolton take the free kick quickly and score. Howard isn’t afraid to take the big decisions so good luck to him, he is the best referee in the country for a reason.

Not everyone was pleased but that’s the nature of sport.

However, another issue occurred on Sunday and it resulted in the rarest of football phenomenon – almost total agreement.

As you will no doubt have seen Wigan’s Paraguay International defender Antolin Alcaraz has been banned for three games for spitting at Wolves player Richard Stearman.

And if we may be so bold that punishment isn’t enough.

In World Cup 1990 there was a vile incident which saw Frank Rijkaard spit at Rudi Voeller in a particularly nasty game. Jack Charlton was the Manager of The Republic of Ireland at the time and he was asked what he would have done if he had been spat at, he thought for barely a second and said: “I’d have chinned him, and I’d tell my players to do the same.”

I was reminded of those comments when I read what Wolves boss Mick McCarthy had to say about Alcaraz: "I only had it [being spat at] happen to me once and the player didn't come too close to me for a long time."

All of which goes to show the level of disgust that football people have for spitting. Bad tackles are unacceptable, of course, but at least it seems to be a legitimate football incident.

Joe Royle, the former Everton and Manchester City manager, was on TV a couple of years ago and he summed it up: “You see players getting sent off for kicking the ball away or taking their shirts off and you think to yourself ‘just chin someone, the punishment is the same.’

Now, it would be totally unprofessional of Referee-jobs.com to condone anyone hitting anyone, you sort of know what he means.

From our perspective the officials have a job to do and rules to enforce and they do that to the best of their ability, and it is not their fault – as we have discussed before on these blogs – if “common sense” cannot be applied.

But Referee Lee Probert didn’t see the spitting incident, and who can blame him? But maybe there is a case for saying that the FA could, perhaps, have come down harder on Alcaraz. In 1999 Patrick Vieira was banned for six games and fined £30,000 for spitting at Neil Ruddock for example, but the defender “accepted” his three game ban – and so he should too.

And one final thought. Latics boss Roberto Martinez has apparently apologised to Wolves on behalf of the club. Why hasn’t Alcaraz himself released a statement (if he has I haven’t seen it) wouldn’t just a little humility have gone a long way?

Sour Grapes and Gary Lineker

As you will know if you have read these blogs before, one of our pet hates at Refereesjobs.com is Manager’s who moan at referees.

The usual suspects were annoying me again last week: Tony Pulis launched an attack on Lee Probert after Stoke’s cup game with Liverpool. Villas Boas was still at it about Chris Foy in the QPR game a week before, Owen Coyle, after Bolton’s latest defeat at Swansea, tried his level best to deflect attention from his side’s awful start to the campaign by a rebuke of Mark Clattenburg and that before we even get to Steve Bruce, who probably wittered about “consistency.”

But the common denominator in the first three is that all their teams lost the game. And whether it was sour grapes or not, it doesn’t half look like it.

And quite apart from anything else, isn’t it extremely boring to listen to the same old nonsense?

I am sick to the back teeth, frankly of listening to these people drone on and on forever and a day, so in the spirit of “if you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem” allow Refereejobs.com to come up with what we think might be a reasonable solution.

Either we stop the post-match interviews or we stop Manager’s talking about referees totally.

If we go down the first route I honestly don’t think it would be a massive loss. What have we ever learnt from the after-match chat? Top Manager’s have pretty much never told us anything they didn’t want to (they call it mind games) and aside from the moaning at the officials who gave the other team everything or them nothing (delete as appropriate) all we ever get are the usual platitudes about how the fans-were-great-the-lads-worked-hard-it’ll-be-a-tough-game-next-week.

And if we go down the second route then perhaps in addition to the aural sleeping pill I mentioned above, maybe, just maybe we could elevate the debate to something about tactics, substitutions, team selection, players performance. I don’t know, but something interesting at least.

But no, what we’ll get is some nonsense on Match of the Day or 5Live, the same old boring rubbish. It’s got to the point where I watch MOTD half an hour behind so I can wind through it, and that way you can miss out what Gary Lineker has to say too.

See - it’s a plan that keeps on giving.

Yet More Stuff From The Madhouse

Blimey, what a week that was for refereeing issues. The Premier League quite rightly grabbed the headlines but the nonsense all started as Stoke City beat Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Referees-Jobs was at the game and was staggered by how poor Tel Aviv were. Even the sending off of striker Cameron Jerome didn’t alter the game. Indeed Stoke were so much superior to their opposition that, really they could have won with a 5 a side team.

It was disappointing then, that Tony Pulis, the Stoke manager, decided to waste his post match interview having a go at the referee Anastassios Kakos.

Kakos was a trifle officious and sent two players – the aforementioned Jerome and Tel Aviv’s Yoan Ziv, and Pulis said after the game: “"I didn't see a bad challenge all night - 24,000 fans have come to

watch tonight and you have to show some respect to them," added Pulis.

"I think we have to be very careful that we don't spoil what we have got in this country, which is honest competitive people, who want to make challenges.

"That is the big thing about professional football - it is a game of challenges.

"It is not netball, where you can stand off and try to stop them without touching them.

"If we take challenging out of the game, I don't think it will be anywhere near as good as it can be."

These comments were widely reported in the press, but neglected a couple of perhaps really important facts about the evening. Ziv was sent off for petulantly kicking his boot at the Assistant

Referee and Jerome was sent off for a second bookable offence.

The first booking that Jerome received was for dissent. In an ordinary Premier League game it probably would have been allowed to go, but once the referee has shown the yellow card you know that he won’t tolerate anything more. So less then 10 minutes later when the Striker elbows Ziv (there wasn’t a lot of contact but there was an elbow) he can’t have any complaints. And by the way, Robert Huth was booked for dissent in the second half, proving that sometimes, lessons just can’t be learnt. It just seems to be the default position of all Managers’ – blame the refs first, think later.

Two more were at it at the weekend. Andre Villas Boas is being investigated by the FA for his comments about Chris Foy after Chelsea v QPR. Villas Boas claimed that Foy hadn’t been fair (you will recall he had sent Jose Bosingwa off for a foul when he was last man and Didier Drogba received a red for a two footed lunge.) And Villa boss Alex McLeish - and Garth Crooks on Final Score - were incensed at Phil Dowd for giving a Penalty against Chris Herd, who was duly sent off.

This view of events also neglected the two really important facts. First it was Linesman Darren Cann, who essentially gave the red as he “saw” the foul and not Dowd. And second, you didn’t see Alex McLeish moaning the other week at

Loftus Road

when Villa were given a penalty that nobody apart from Ref Michael Oliver saw.

The first rule of these things is decisions often even themselves out over the season and the second is sometimes, just sometimes, players are in the wrong. And Manager’s would do well to remember that.

The Referee Is ALWAYS Wrong

At least this weekend the refereeing headlines were made by a different sport than football.

Sam Warburton it was, who was the victim of this years “injustice at a big sporting event” and was sent off in the early stages of Wales’ Rugby World Cup Semi final for what the referee, Alain Rolland, deemed to be a dangerous “spear” tackle. By common consent of the experts – and although at Referee-jobs.com we enjoy watching the sport we are far from knowledgeable about it, so we have to bow to their opinion – he didn’t mean to do it but it was a foul and the referee was in his rights to send the player off.

Cue the headlines elsewhere. A quick Google search on Warburton’s name brings up a poll on the Telegraph website. Where you can “Have YOUR say” on the matter. 69% of respondents think it was harsh, in case you are interested.

The professionals though, agreed that if the referee thinks he saw a “spear” tackle then the player has to walk. Mark Pougatch and Radio 5 tried to start some controversy and said something along the lines of, that’s the inconsistency, though, players did that elsewhere in the tournament and didn’t get sent off, with pundit Matt Dawson replying, “but those refs were wrong.”

It’s a good job the Rugby provided a talking point actually, because the football provided nothing really. The closest we got was a “did-he-didn’t-he” diving incident with Charlie Adam and a “should-he-shouldn’t-he” sending off with Rio Ferdinand for the same thing.

Referee Andre Marriner kept his card in his pocket, contenting himself to giving a free kick (from which Liverpool scored) and not giving Ferdinand a second yellow card and thus sending him off.

For what its worth, Referees Jobs does not think it was a foul. But that if the Ref sees one he probably should have produced a second yellow card. However, if Marriner had sent the England man off he would have faced a storm of criticism and been accused of spoiling the match. So he used the “common sense” that pundits are forever asking for – you know the same ones that moan about “inconsistency” as we have previously discussed.

Referee’s though – as we all know can never win. I will leave you with this from Saturday at the game I was at. A current England international had raised the crowd’s ire in the first half with about five fouls. In the second half the player was booked and the archetypal “bloke behind me” (except in this case he was next to me and my brother) screams “’bout time ref, you shoulda done that in the first half.”

Proving, in the process, two old adages: one, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it and two, the referee is always wrong, even when he is right – in fact, especially when he’s right.

Refs Are Being “Killed” Says Collina – And The TV Highlight’s Don’t Help!

Last week at the “Leaders In Football” conference Pierluigi Collina stuck up for his counterparts in the middle.

Referees, said Collina - still perhaps the most recognisable ref on the planet despite retiring six years ago –were being “killed every week” by excessive criticism.

"If you kill referees every week we can finish referees,” Collina said. "We need years to build up referees and one second to destroy them. To keep them we need to protect them.

"One of the things we have to consider is that we cannot buy referees at the supermarket.

"You cannot find referees in the corner of the street."

And it is a valid point.

Recent figures have shown that 98% of offside decisions made by the officials last year were right, but as former top ref David Elleray pointed out: “Two per cent of so-called mistakes attracted huge publicity.”

The point of view of Collina and Elleray was something that I was reflecting on when I watched the Football League Show on TV at the weekend.

There was footage on the show of the Colchester v Yeovil match. The game was poised at 2-2 going into the closing stages when Colchester sub Stephen Gillespie put the ball in the net.

The voiceover on the goals highlights said something like “and the goal was inexplicably denied for a foul on the keeper.”

Now, I couldn’t see a foul on the keeper either, but I did see a couple of Colchester players with their hands on their heads and no one protest as Gillespie was booked so I wound the incident back. And whilst a foul on the keeper might have been “inexplicable” (some would say non-existent) the handball by Gillespie was more than clear on second viewing.

Of course the referee didn’t get a second view. He got it right first time.

Which is really proof of Collina’s point. In the great scheme of things the piece was mere seconds of a late night TV show with a small audience. But unless you were eagle eyed (like the ref) or sad (like me) you wouldn’t have seen the handball and would have been left with the impression that the referee made a terrible – and costly – error.

And the TV must take some responsibility for this. No one is saying that the commentators or voiceover people can get it right first time every time – they – like referees – are only human.

But we do, as Collina said, expect far higher standards from Referees.

And it’s a good job we normally get them.

.

The Inconsistency of Inconsistency

As I write this the news has come through that Jack Rodwell has had his red card overturned.

And quite right too. Everyone can probably agree that Rodwell didn’t deserve to be sent off in the incident with Luis Saurez and that today, in a rare occurrence for the FA, common sense prevailed.

Referee Martin Atkinson, is I am sure, a decent honourable man, who gives decisions as he sees them and is recognised as one of the elite officials in the country, but it is fair to say that he didn’t have the best afternoon of his life at Goodison Park.

He sent off Rodwell for a tackle which probably wasn’t even a foul, he allowed Tony Hibbert to get away with a disgraceful lunge and caused all the pundits to talk about “inconsistency.”

It is interesting, though to note that certainly for the Rodwell challenge he was mere feet away, so yes he got it wrong, but he gave what he thought he had seen.

There were plenty of talking points too, in the Swansea v Stoke game the day after. Referee Mike Jones booked eight players in the match and one, Potters full back Andy Wilkinson, can consider himself very, very lucky to stay on the field.

Cue lots of discussion about the perceived “inconsistencies” and much conjecture about how fortunate Wilkinson was “when you consider what happened to Rodwell.”

All of which, on the face of it are reasonable statements except for this:

Inconsistencies – human error – can happen and always have happened and always will happen.

There is no reason to suppose that just because one referee sees something one way in one game that he will see the same thing in the same way the next week. So why on earth should two refs see the different incidents in different games on different days in a similar light?

Put another way, if every striker scored every chance he had then wouldn’t football be dull? And if every striker scored every chance he had, how could every goalkeeper make every save he is presented with? And how could every defender win every tackle and…..well you get the picture.

After the Merseyside derby on Saturday, David Moyes made some pretty disparaging remarks about referee Atkinson, calling it a “strange appointment” and alluding to the fact the official had some sort of vendetta against him and his club. All nonsense of course and all remarks for which he may, on an ordinary basis, have got in trouble for. This time, however, he may well escape punishment on the grounds that the FA might want to draw a line under the whole thing.

However, next time Mr Moyes or any pundit who is “driven mad by inconsistency” wants to criticise they might do well to think of this: Do they always do the same thing. In the same situation. Every time.

Thought not, its just not human nature.

Common Sense - And Robbie Savage

On the Referee Jobs blog we often discuss the attitude of both the Media and Managers to referees, and the events of the weekend shows again the levels of difficulty that the officials face.

Watching the QPR v Aston Villa match it was instructive in the first half to listen to commentator Martin Tyler talking about how calm and assured that young referee Michael Oliver was and how he was the best of the “new breed” of officials.

In the second period, of course, there was a barrage of criticism for the North East whistle blower when he gave a penalty that was soft in the extreme (and in the interests of fairness it is the opinion of Referee-jobs.com that it wasn’t a penalty) then turned down two clearer cut appeals from QPR for handballs.

Of course it is the job of the Media to report these things – and commentators to comment on these things – football is, after all, an extremely important vehicle for the Media, and we all love the talking points.

However, they could try and do it fairly. Most of the newspapers today are reporting QPR manager Neil Warnock’s comments after the match: “They've [Villa players] stayed on the pitch, [James] Collins and the number 10 whoever he was [Charles N'Zogbia], should have been booked twice.

"It's disappointing to be talking about referees...there's nothing to referee in that game. Not one Aston Villa supporter appeals for a penalty. I bet there are 25,000 more tugs on that pitch.
"Referees should be seen and not heard but it takes away from our performance - I thought we were superb."

Leaving aside the “seen and not heard” thing might also apply to football managers (eh Neil?) fewer
Media outlets (although the BBC have gone with it in a big way) are using the same column inches to talk about the second part of Warnock’s interview. In this he said his own player – new signing Armand Traore - was “thick and naïve” and “let the club down” for his second booking.

Possibly because “Warnock praises refs decision isn’t such a good story.

Similarly ESPN’s pundit Craig Burley did his best to create controversy where there was none in the coverage of the Stoke V Man Utd match on Saturday night.

Watching the re-run of the game that I had actually been at (that’s how sad we are at Referee-jobs.com!!) Burley seemed absolutely determined to claim there was a penalty in the second period, when he spotted a handball in the box. The Referee’s Assistant duly put his flag up, but for offside against Michael Owen.

“I’m sorry,” said incandescent Burley, “that is an awful decision. How can that be offside? In today’s game, Owen isn’t offside, he’s not active or whatever the phrase is.”
Cue a replay that CLEARLY shows the ball hitting the offside Owen, after which Assistant Referee Mike Mularkey flags. Faced with the incontrovertible proof that he was wrong, Burley carried on. “Offside or not,” he blustered, “the handball was before the offside.”

Then it happened:  On the third replay, which showed Shawcross turning his back on the ball before the ball it him possibly on the shoulder, possibly on the back, Burley, who by now had clearly realised he was wrong, said “you will see here Jon, that the handball was clear …” [pause, as it proved anything but] before the coup-de-grâce was delivered…

“Well for me it’s still a penalty.”

After the game, Robbie Savage, who was in the ESPN studio dismissed it, saying it had, “never been” a penalty.

Now personally, I love Robbie Savage, I admit. I think he is an insightful pundit and likeable bloke but when he is the voice of reason when it comes to refereeing decisions, it might be time for Craig Burley to have a look at himself….

We all have bad day’s Craig, even co-commentators.

Common Sense Previals

There were a couple of big talking points in last weekends football matches.

One you may well of seen. Ashley Cole’s tackle on Javier Hernandez, which caused tremendous consternation, with Alex Ferguson particularly scathing and the tackle to be fair, was pretty awful. There was much debate elsewhere about why, once Phil Dowd had given the foul and booked the player, a penalty wasn’t given.

This one is easily sorted. In the referee’s view the ball had gone out of play so a penalty couldn’t be given in those circumstances.

But the media doesn’t want easy explanations so the conjecture has continued over the last couple of days.

The second incident has occupied far less column inches, but did cause consternation on the football phone ins. One caller to Radio5live’s 606 show was particularly exercised by it.

Basically, what happened was that in the Yeovil Town versus Sheffield Wednesday match, referee Brendan Malone gave a drop ball. The ball was punted up field by a Yeovil player towards the goal. The Wednesday goalie and centre back got in a bit of a tangle and The Glovers striker Kieran Agard ran onto the ball and tapped it in the net.

All hell broke lose apparently, with Ref Malone taking five minutes to re-start the game. The whole incident was a little un-edifying.

Apparently Town boss Terry Skiverton did contemplate allowing Wednesday to score from the kick off (precedent had been set for this, ironically enough, at Yeovil when a player in the same situation mistakenly found the net in a game against Plymouth in 2004) but said he didn’t after the antics of Sheffield’s Jose Semedo annoyed him: “I was [thinking about] letting them run through but their No 6 is a silly boy and came over and effed and blinded at me,” said Skiverton. “For him to come over like that, I am not going to do him any favours, I thought that it was really rude, to be honest.

“From my point of view, there was a mistake before that.

“Had Kieran gambled on it, gone clean in and scored, we would have let them score. But as there was a mistake, I was contemplating, but when their lad comes over and calls me those names, I am not going to do him any favours.”

Crucially, Skiverton added: “The referee has played it how he has seen it, he has let the goal stand. Some of the players are going to be frustrated, but one thing we are not going to do is allow other players to come over and bully us into doing something.”

The key in that sentence is “the referee has played it how he saw it.” And exactly what the referee was supposed to do I am not sure. A goal was scored from open play.

There were, perhaps, some parallels between that incident and the recent test match between

England and India. That day, if you recall, Ian Ball was run out while wandering off for tea. India appealed and the Bell was given out before being re-instated after the Indian team had a meeting over the interval.

No laws had been broken, India were perfectly within their rights to appeal and the umpires, in those circumstances had no choice but to give him out – just as Agard was perfectly in his rights to score and the ref had to give it on Saturday.

The only difference was in the cricket case common sense prevailed and football has never had too much of that!

The common denominator, though? The officials were spot on.

And at http://www.referee-jobs.com/ we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Bleating Bleating and More Bleating

Another week, another manager blames a referee for his team losing.

This week’s culprit was Kenny Dalglish.

The Liverpool boss was in a tizzy last Saturday night after his team lost at Stoke. It was all Mark Clattenburg’s fault apparently – nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that his team gave a whole new meaning to the word “profligacy” as they wasted chance of after chance.

No matter, faced with this Dalglish said after the game: "We would like to be respectful to referees - and I'd like to think I have been - but more importantly than being respectful to the referees is having respect for my football club," he said.

"If I feel they are suffering in any shape or form I will need to go the same route other people go and see if we can gain some benefit from that.

"The first four league games have had contentious decisions in them and every one has gone against us.”

Now, that’s his choice, of course. And I assume we can take from his pronouncements that he plans to be vocal in his criticism of the officials. It won’t be long, I am sure, before his wittering on about “respect being a two way street etc etc.”
I
t is surely one of the most unedifying things in football. Manager-loses-game-must-be-referees-fault.  And they are all at it too. Lets not forget that “King Kenny’s” opposite number in the dugout last week, Mr. Pulis is hardly a shrinking violet when it comes to the “the referee cost us” type Press Conferences.

But there is one point that, in all the bluster, seems to have been forgotten. The referee actually, probably, got them all right. Stoke’s penalty, although soft, could have been a foul, the second handball, the one that saw Luis Suarez booked for dissent, was never a penalty – and the Rory Delap one (although definitely the most obvious penalty), could be seen as accidental and tellingly the Liverpool players closest to the incident don’t seem overly fussed at the time.

No one is saying that Refs don’t get anything wrong. I am not even saying that managers shouldn’t question officials if they so choose (albeit there must be boundaries, surely?) but really this constant bleating is boring everyone, and doing no one any good.

One of The Boys? Or Bad Behaviour

The Staffordshire Sentinel may not be the place you would think to look for comment of referees and the way they are treated but this week it might just tell you something important about modern football.

A report on a reserve cup match started with these three paragraphs:

“Andrew Davies paid female referee Sarah Garratt the biggest compliment he could by being booked for back chatting yesterday.
Davies, a player with plenty to say during games, made no attempt to bite his tongue just because of the referee's gender.
It cost him a yellow card in the closing stages of yesterday's stalemate at Clayton Wood, but struck a kind of blow for the acceptance of female officials.”

And in that few sentences, you can perhaps learn a lot of the current attitudes towards referees.

So a Premier League player swears at a referee and that’s somehow a good thing? The report was, I accept trying to be light-hearted, but wouldn’t it be better for all concerned if no one swore at refs despite their gender? Isn’t that the point?

The inference being that Davies treated Sarah Garratt (above) as “like any other ref” because he swore at her, “so she must be as good as a man.” But that’s totally and utterly skewed.

At Referees Jobs we will happily supply referees to any league and any organisation on one proviso and one proviso only: That everyone regardless of colour, gender or sexuality, is treated fairly and with respect.

And that’s how it should be. No one wants another Sian Massey situation, but equally no one deserves to be sworn at as part of some bizarre initiation ceremony.

And, that whatever The Sentinel thinks, is no joke.