The refereeing crisis

[StefanAVFC]

what the actual **** is going on!?

I've never known reffing standards to be this diabolical across every division and every game. There is literally one decent ref is the whole of the UK. Michael Oliver. 

Are my memories wrong? Has reffing always been this dire?

[Xela]

I think its much harder now as players are sneakier and cheating a lot more and this causes a lot more incorrect decisions. 

Its almost impossible for one man on the pitch to keep up. Video refereeing is a must. 

Edited December 18, 2016 by Xela

[Zatman]

I like MIke Dean, he took no bullshit when they brought in the holding in teh box rule at start of season. pity more refs didnt have the balls

[kurtsimonw]

I really rate Clattenburg. I think his problem is that he happens to get a lot of big games. So, being human, he will make mistakes. They just get magnified because he doesn't give Man U a penalty or disallows a City goal or so on. 

My biggest issue with refereeing is that it causes players going down easy and it is not the players fault. Look at the Kodjia penalty yesterday. The ref has a clear view and is staring at the incident. He's being pulled all over the place and the referee does nothing. Kodjia then goes to ground. The shorts pulling didn't cause him to go down, but he knew that unless he threw himself to the floor, the ref wouldn't give the penalty. Why? He's being pulled, just give it. Why wait for him to go down on his own?

As @Xela said, video refereeing for penalties and red card offenses are an absolute must. It won't take long and won't disrupt the flow of the game. Fortunately it's been used somewhere, I forget where, and it seemed to work quite well. Someone went down in the box, the ref played on but got a signal from the video referee to review the incident. Once the ball went out, he went over and watched the video and decided on a penalty. It's absolute madness that it hasn't already been in the game for years, same with taking so long to bring goal line technology in.

[villa4europe]

its always been shit, i think the game has got quicker and more professional but i wouldnt say the refs have

my solution would be to increase the professionalism amongst the refs, i think at the moment they have the assessors, they have a monthly meeting and then twice a year they have a big get together for a review, they have a meet in a hotel before the game and travel in togther, thats not enough

use st georges as a base, the controversial bit...pay them more, do daily fitness sessions with proper fitness coaches, do daily sessions watching each others games and seeing who gave what and try and understand why, make them a unit, if clattenburg knows who his linos and assistant are on saturday afternoon then on a thursday and friday have them working together, at the very least the fitness will get better and the consistency should get better

and the FA should have brought in retrospective punishment for diving years a go, a huge chunk of the issue is because of FIFAs stupid rules, the saw it gave a yellow so thats the end of that bollocks has to end too, instead they'll go to video refs which will kill it for me

fill your boots mr video ref...there is no conclusive factual answer to that, he could watch it 100 times and take 10 minutes doing it and still be "wrong" so whats the point?

[kurtsimonw]

2 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

fill your boots mr video ref...there is no conclusive factual answer to that, he could watch it 100 times and take 10 minutes doing it and still be "wrong" so whats the point?

Because the point is getting more decisions right? There are some incidents where there is clearly no contact at all. Those will now not be penalties. Of course there's going to be a small grey area of whether something is a foul or not because ultimately it is subjective.

But saying there's no point because some decisions will be wrong is like saying why bother having a ref at all, because sometimes he'll make a mistake. May as well just flip a coin or have no rules.

[villa4europe]

like i said i think there are other solutions and improvements that could and should be explored first before we go all in on technology, the first one is fitness, its glaringly obvious that they cant keep up but its also glaringly obvious to me that footballers are incredibly well paid athletes surrounded by some of the best sports facilities in the world, teams of physios and sports scientists, whilst refs are blokes with fitness first memberships and a salary which is largely dependent on match fees, second one is FIFA's stance on them being wrong which really really doesnt help them, retrospective punishment for diving and bad tackles which they only saw half of should have come in >10 years a go

fwiw ive got no issue with goaline technology, thats fact and was common sense and should have come quicker, but video refs is a big no from me

take our game yesterday for an example, yes with video refs we'd probably had got another penalty, arguably so would QPR, but would the refs overall performance be any better? no, he'd still have been utterly clueless, the first port of call should be helping him not make mistakes instead we're going with making sure his mistakes are rectified in game

[ozvillafan]

The problem with video refs is they watch in slow motion. Even the slightest touch looks worse when slowed down. You'll see more penalties given, not less which just makes the problem worse.

This is what happens down here for Rugby League now. Players will get "hit high" with minimal contact and they throw themselves on the ground halting play knowing the video ref will rule in their favour.

[kurtsimonw]

43 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

like i said i think there are other solutions and improvements that could and should be explored first before we go all in on technology, the first one is fitness, its glaringly obvious that they cant keep up but its also glaringly obvious to me that footballers are incredibly well paid athletes surrounded by some of the best sports facilities in the world, teams of physios and sports scientists, whilst refs are blokes with fitness first memberships and a salary which is largely dependent on match fees, second one is FIFA's stance on them being wrong which really really doesnt help them, retrospective punishment for diving and bad tackles which they only saw half of should have come in >10 years a go

fwiw ive got no issue with goaline technology, thats fact and was common sense and should have come quicker, but video refs is a big no from me

take our game yesterday for an example, yes with video refs we'd probably had got another penalty, arguably so would QPR, but would the refs overall performance be any better? no, he'd still have been utterly clueless, the first port of call should be helping him not make mistakes instead we're going with making sure his mistakes are rectified in game

I don't think yesterdays referee is a particularly good example for what you're suggesting though.

My analysis of him yesterday would be that he got a lot of things wrong. How can you improve that? By helping him get extra views of an incident. There's simply no other way IMO of helping him regarding a decision than seeing it multiple times or from a different angle. You suggest fitness, but that wouldn't have made any difference yesterday. You look at the penalty incidents - Amavi's tackle, the shirt pull on Jedinak, the clip on the corner of the box on Kodjia and the penalty itself - you know what one common theme was? He was in excellent position for all of them, he gave himself a great view. No amount of fitness or running around would've improved his decision making there. Having an extra look at it might have.

[Czechlad]

Have a 5th official who is just watching replays of controversial events. First the main ref gives his immediate opinion if he thinks it's a pen or not, then the linesman on that side, then the video replay ref watches it to see if contact really did happen. All three of them must agree it's a pen or at least 2/3 for it to be given. 

[rodders0223]

If we brought in all this video refereeing then what we would have to complain about?

Love a good moan, me.

 

[limpid]

2 hours ago, Czechlad said:

Have a 5th official who is just watching replays of controversial events. First the main ref gives his immediate opinion if he thinks it's a pen or not, then the linesman on that side, then the video replay ref watches it to see if contact really did happen. All three of them must agree it's a pen or at least 2/3 for it to be given. 

What about all the matches which don't have multiple cameras? Or don't have cameras at all?

[One For The Road]

1 hour ago, rodders0223 said:

If we brought in all this video refereeing then what we would have to complain about?

Love a good moan, me.

 

You could always moan about the standard of the video refereeing.

[Zatman]

I think managers would secretly hate video referees. Who would Wenger and Mourinho blame on their failure if the ref is right

[Xela]

36 minutes ago, Zatman said:

I think managers would secretly hate video referees. Who would Wenger and Mourinho blame on their failure if the ref is right

If it wasn't for referees then Arsenal would have won every game this year

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, limpid said:

What about all the matches which don't have multiple cameras? Or don't have cameras at all?

What about the matches that don't have goalline technology? I've seen local games played without nets in the goals!

We shouldn't hold back the top tier of professional football because of what happens in divisions with less funding.

[Czechlad]

1 hour ago, limpid said:

What about all the matches which don't have multiple cameras? Or don't have cameras at all?

They suffer

[limpid]

59 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

What about the matches that don't have goalline technology? I've seen local games played without nets in the goals!

We shouldn't hold back the top tier of professional football because of what happens in divisions with less funding.

Wouldn't it be better to fix the referees?

Get rid of the ridiculous peer rating system. Get them trained (and given the tools) to deal with dissent. Train them to deal with their biases about teams, players and matches. Find out why referees can see the same incident twice from similar angles and fail to call it the same way. Allow referees less "interpretation" of the rules - it's not for them to judge when to apply the rules. A foul in the first minute is the same as the same foul in the last, regardless of the occasion.

As they move up the ladder to televised games, get them watching recordings of their performances while they are fresh in their minds. Get them to commentate on how they saw it so that they can recognise their weaknesses. Assess referees on their consistency above anything else.

Use technology as a tool rather than a solution.

I think that'll fix a lot of the frustration with referees.

[Nicho]

Imagine how many penalties would be given if there is a video ref reviewing everything that is happening. Just from corners there would be 3 penalties a game at the start.

The problem  is that players have been able to get away with diving, two footed challenges, elbows, multiple fouls and generally acting like a dick to the ref for too long. Retrospective action would have solved it all, the game moves too fast for one man to see everything and video refs would just slow the game down. 

For me the biggest thing is the respect the refs receive, I think they should record everything said to referees during a game and fine/ban anyone swearing directly towards the referees. With a view to be able to hear whats said like in Rugby. 

[kurtsimonw]

I'd rather be at a game for an extra 5 minutes and win than leave that bit early and drop points because of an incorrect decision. I can't see it slowing a game down that much. No more than time wasting or fake injuries do anyway.