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.