The Game's Gone

[Zatman]

29 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Honestly? Football fans. Look at the amount of nonsense that comes about over a referee making a mistake. “He should come out and publicly own it”, “they’re obviously corrupt” - it just doesn’t happen to the same extent with other sports. Abuse is not even close to being on the same level. Death threats because you made a mistake in your job? It’s ridiculous.

So yeah, I think you should protect referees, personally. The public doesn’t need to hear a mic’d up referee. Commentary teams and independent “supervisors” hear what goes on between a ref and the VAR and that’s absolutely fine.

As an aside, though, it would be pretty entertaining for a referee to be interviewed after the game about, say, Lewis Dunk’s defending and him to respond with “well it’s a joke isn’t it? He’s meant to be a Premier League footballer and he can’t even defend that cross. He’s lost the plot”. 

surely referees would be given more sympathy if they were heard explaining the decisions, the way it is now referees come across as arrogant and petulant because they dont give there side of the discussion. I also dont think thats on the referees I think the agency running them has made things a lot worse for them and dont allow them to make public interviews

[The_Steve]

No fair-minded folk is going to condone abuse, death threats, violence etc against referees and assistants.

What fans and others want is consistency, transparency, and honesty when they get it wrong. More so when it comes to the ongoing poor quality of officiating. I do think the FA needs to do more to invest and ensure protection for referees and ensure they are of a higher calibre.

Look at the Man City debacle recently, and the lengths they went to defend it until it became impossible to ignore. All the idiots at Stockley Park who rarely give any transparency about the decision making process. How can fans trust in a system like that?

The idiots out there making threats of violence etc need banning and investigating. It shouldn't also be used as a means to shield officials from fair and obvious critique.

 

[bobzy]

12 minutes ago, The_Steve said:

No fair-minded folk is going to condone abuse, death threats, violence etc against referees and assistants.

What fans and others want is consistency, transparency, and honesty when they get it wrong. More so when it comes to the ongoing poor quality of officiating. I do think the FA needs to do more to invest and ensure protection for referees and ensure they are of a higher calibre.

Look at the Man City debacle recently, and the lengths they went to defend it until it became impossible to ignore. All the idiots at Stockley Park who rarely give any transparency about the decision making process. How can fans trust in a system like that?

The idiots out there making threats of violence etc need banning and investigating. It shouldn't also be used as a means to shield officials from fair and obvious critique.

 

Why does it matter?  I'm curious.  It makes not one bit of difference.  You don't need to hang officials out to dry - it's a shit enough job as it is without having to publicly explain every decision you're making.

[sharkyvilla]

56 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Honestly? Football fans. Look at the amount of nonsense that comes about over a referee making a mistake. “He should come out and publicly own it”, “they’re obviously corrupt” - it just doesn’t happen to the same extent with other sports. Abuse is not even close to being on the same level. Death threats because you made a mistake in your job? It’s ridiculous.

So yeah, I think you should protect referees, personally. The public doesn’t need to hear a mic’d up referee. Commentary teams and independent “supervisors” hear what goes on between a ref and the VAR and that’s absolutely fine.

As an aside, though, it would be pretty entertaining for a referee to be interviewed after the game about, say, Lewis Dunk’s defending and him to respond with “well it’s a joke isn’t it? He’s meant to be a Premier League footballer and he can’t even defend that cross. He’s lost the plot”. 

People do underestimate how difficult and thankless job it is and I think the conspiracy theories that they've got an agenda is a load of arse gravy.  I do think however that at least hearing what the VAR guy is saying would help with the transparency issue.  In cricket you only hear what the third umpire is saying for example.  The people above them changing how they want various incidents to be adjudged every other week hangs the refs out to dry too.  They are the ones I blame for VAR being so bad rather than the refs.

[bobzy]

1 minute ago, sharkyvilla said:

People do underestimate how difficult and thankless job it is and I think the conspiracy theories that they've got an agenda is a load of arse gravy.  I do think however that at least hearing what the VAR guy is saying would help with the transparency issue.  In cricket you only hear what the third umpire is saying for example.  The people above them changing how they want various incidents to be adjudged every other week hangs the refs out to dry too.  They are the ones I blame for VAR being so bad rather than the refs.

The VAR being heard may have some merit, yeah.  They aren't visible on the pitch so it would provide a link between the game and the VAR which doesn't exist otherwise.

[Phil Silvers]

15 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Sounds a little bit conspiracy theory

 

The Palace one, he blew his whistle late from memory?  It was pretty much just as Lansbury was about to shoot.  That was why there was such outrage, because it wasn't a dive - he just fell over as he was already off balance and was looking for a pass.

Kinda shows my point though.  You're remembering that incident completely incorrectly and then attributing it as "not a mistake" and that there was intent before the incident happened - that there's a bias there.

Oh definitely, don't get me wrong, I have nothing to go on other then how it makes me feel and I most likely sound silly but I have an opinion as do you and everyone else. I understand there are a lot more extreme and abusive opinions out there, I would imagine facebook is toxic for example. 

I can't honestly remember exactly what happened with Kevin Friend to be honest but I sort of remembered it as describe above. He was wrong in that instance and has been against us before, I obviously cannot prove it but that was not a mistake, so was intentional, it was just too bad to be a mistake. Mike Dean vs Soucek, got it wrong, var checked it, got it wrong, Dean had another look and got it wrong, these are not mistakes.

Lee Mason vs Brighton made a mistake and panicked, that's fair enough, he doesn't deserve abuse, but is he competent?

Anyway, I respect what you are saying and I think that the majority of what's happening is genuine but something just smells fishy to me and to chirp on about it without being able to do anything about is fruitless and I'm wasting time even thinking about it.

I'm going to give myself a good talking to later, after tea 

[villa4europe]

6 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said:

I can't honestly remember exactly what happened with Kevin Friend to be honest but I sort of remembered it as describe above. He was wrong in that instance and has been against us before, I obviously cannot prove it but that was not a mistake, so was intentional, it was just too bad to be a mistake. 

Kevin Friend stopped running and half squatted with the whistle in his mouth as soon as grealish was hit by zaha, it wasnt a foul it wasnt a dive, it doesnt have to be one or the other,  it was contact that made jack lose his balance but he had made his mind up that it was a dive before jack got to cahill, it was pre-determined

completely ignored that cahill clattered him (or cahill produced a dive that was oscar worthy)

and that jack got the pass off before going down and bounced back up, never once looked for a foul

agree it was intentional, it was the result of his personal opinion of jack grealish rather than the incident itself

him not reffing one of our games since tells you everything you need to know

[Phil Silvers]

3 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Kevin Friend stopped running and half squatted with the whistle in his mouth as soon as grealish was hit by zaha, it wasnt a foul it wasnt a dive, it doesnt have to be one or the other,  it was contact that made jack lose his balance but he had made his mind up that it was a dive before jack got to cahill, it was pre-determined

completely ignored that cahill clattered him (or cahill produced a dive that was oscar worthy)

and that jack got the pass off before going down and bounced back up, never once looked for a foul

agree it was intentional, it was the result of his personal opinion of jack grealish rather than the incident itself

him not reffing one of our games since tells you everything you need to know

At the end of the day what he and the others for the most are doing is not good enough because of the system and rules and things like the above is what makes some of us question whether there is something up.

Complete transparency has to be the next best alternative to going back to what they were doing before. Which would be great actually because we are considerably richer then most now so they will want to be in our pockets 

[May-Z]

Having a mic on the ref and VAR would help to increase understanding. 

I think that would have to look like the NFL a little where the ref controls when the mic works and can summarise what the decision has been. 

If the mic picked everything up from conversations with players, to the VAR, and then an explanation I think it would get messy...but a worded summary from the ref with time to formulate what they say could work. I'd certainly be happier. 

[ender4]

2 hours ago, bobzy said:

Why does it matter?  I'm curious.  It makes not one bit of difference.  You don't need to hang officials out to dry - it's a shit enough job as it is without having to publicly explain every decision you're making.

It matters because as its stands a lot of people think the Premier League is at best biased and at worst completely fixed by betting syndicates.

A bit of openness would either show that it is corrupt or would show that its just incompetence.   I would prefer simple incompetence to corruption.

[ender4]

2 hours ago, sharkyvilla said:

People do underestimate how difficult and thankless job it is 

I don't think people do underestimate how difficult it is.  

If the ref came out in an interview after the game and said "damn, i completely ballsed that up, sorry"... a lot of people would be sympathetic and ok with that.   

As long as the cock-ups didn't somehow always magically happen in favour of Man Utd and Liverpool which it seems to currently do.

[colhint]

I think if a ref was wearing a mic, I think pretty soon players would stop the abuse. If it's heard all over the country some player screaming obscenities after every decision some sponsors would want a word. 

Secondly get Collini in pay him a million a year to be VAR and few will argue with his decision.

[a-k]

46 minutes ago, May-Z said:

Having a mic on the ref and VAR would help to increase understanding. 

I think that would have to look like the NFL a little where the ref controls when the mic works and can summarise what the decision has been. 

If the mic picked everything up from conversations with players, to the VAR, and then an explanation I think it would get messy...but a worded summary from the ref with time to formulate what they say could work. I'd certainly be happier. 

 It's the same in NHL...it's used so the fans understand why certain decisions were made. I'd love to hear a ref say "the pen decision was overturned because although the defender did get a slight nick of the attacker, it wasn't enough to be deemed a foul in this contact sport and definitely not enough for the attacker to go to ground in such a manner that both arms and legs were flailing"

14 minutes ago, colhint said:

I think if a ref was wearing a mic, I think pretty soon players would stop the abuse. If it's heard all over the country some player screaming obscenities after every decision some sponsors would want a word. 

Secondly get Collini in pay him a million a year to be VAR and few will argue with his decision.

Agree 100%. The way players treat refs is despicable.

Edited March 2, 2021 by a-k

[kurtsimonw]

16 hours ago, colhint said:

I think if a ref was wearing a mic, I think pretty soon players would stop the abuse.

I think so too. They get too much abuse, but I also think they act like Representatives for Wellingborough on the pitch. The complete refusal to talk to any players or explain a decision half the time is shocking, and it's no wonder players feel like they're being completely cheated.

Plenty of people in the World do difficult jobs, and you know what? They're held accountable for their mistakes. Premier League referees cost clubs millions and millions, but aren't held accountable by anyone. Nobody can talk about it or they get a fine. They're way over protected.

[ThunderPower_14]

The biggest problem I have with football is how players treat referees. I'd be handing out yellows left right and centre for even the smallest levels of dissent. The group of wildly gesticulating professional footballers surrounding the ref demanding a decision 8 times a match is a shocking look and absolutely contributes to how the average fan sees referees.

Mic refs up and hand out yellows for even the most gentle dissent from anyone other than the captain. The entire culture of how players treat referees has to change at every level of the game. No other sport allows that absolute garbage.

[bobzy]

4 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

I think so too. They get too much abuse, but I also think they act like Representatives for Wellingborough on the pitch. The complete refusal to talk to any players or explain a decision half the time is shocking, and it's no wonder players feel like they're being completely cheated.

Plenty of people in the World do difficult jobs, and you know what? They're held accountable for their mistakes. Premier League referees cost clubs millions and millions, but aren't held accountable by anyone. Nobody can talk about it or they get a fine. They're way over protected.

Completely disagree r.e: the protection.  They SHOULD be over protected if anything.

Referees do not cost clubs millions and millions - that's a ludicrous statement (although, for Bournemouth... perhaps).

[kurtsimonw]

5 hours ago, bobzy said:

Completely disagree r.e: the protection.  They SHOULD be over protected if anything.

Referees do not cost clubs millions and millions - that's a ludicrous statement (although, for Bournemouth... perhaps).

Protecting to the point where nobody can talk to them, nobody can talk about them, nobody can question them... that's overprotected and part of the reason why the standard of officiating is so awful.

Referees make mistakes which cost teams points. Costing team points costs league position. Costing league position costs millions (per position).

[villalad21]

Truly shocking today.

Why the hell do VAR intervene when it's not clear and obvious mistake from the ref?

I thought it was supposed to correct the big mistakes.

[bobzy]

27 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

Protecting to the point where nobody can talk to them, nobody can talk about them, nobody can question them... that's overprotected and part of the reason why the standard of officiating is so awful.

Referees make mistakes which cost teams points. Costing team points costs league position. Costing league position costs millions (per position).

Players make many, many more mistakes that cost teams points - it’s utterly ridiculous to attribute that to refereeing decisions.

People question referees all the time. They shouldn’t come out and talk about things the same way players don’t need to come out and talk about every mistimed tackle or poor offside run. 

[kurtsimonw]

6 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Players make many, many more mistakes that cost teams points - it’s utterly ridiculous to attribute that to refereeing decisions.

People question referees all the time. They shouldn’t come out and talk about things the same way players don’t need to come out and talk about every mistimed tackle or poor offside run. 

Players and referees definitely don't do the same job. But I couldn't really disagree with you any more so a pretty pointless debate between us when we see it so different.

Edited March 3, 2021 by kurtsimonw