Referee standards

[BensGrandad]

I think that the general standard of the officials is dropping drastically. Last night the ref was awful and the lino sorry assistant with the yellow flag hardly got a decision right. I am not using this as an excuse for losing just passing comment on what I can see appears to be happening that the refs are getting worse.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

The ref was truly truly appalling last nite.

Shockingly bad. But overall we probably deserved to lose on the basis that we didnt take the game as seriously as Orient did.

 

[Southwick_Seagull]

What's the point of having a League 1 standard manager, buying League 1 standard players, paying League 1 ticket prices and the Football league providing Non-League officials? Some of the officiating in recent years has been worringly poor.

 

[Prodigal Son]

I think that the general standard of the officials is dropping drastically. Last night the ref was awful and the lino sorry assistant with the yellow flag hardly got a decision right. I am not using this as an excuse for losing just passing comment on what I can see appears to be happening that the refs are getting worse.

Totally agree and it seems to be consistent with all the so called officials that come to officiate over our matches at the Withdean. There are some truly shocking decisions that are, at times, beyond belief.

What have we done to deserve them?

 

[The Great Cornholio]

That failure to play advantage is probably the most suspect decision I have seen. There have obviously been far worse but this looked the most corrupt as he actually waited to see where the ball went, saw Sparrow through on goal and then blew. All I can think was that the early kickoff and poor floodlights meant he didn't see Sparrow but other than that, it was inexcusable and indefensible. The bookings of their players was ludicrously jobsworth as well.

 

[Tooting Gull]

I think that the general standard of the officials is dropping drastically. Last night the ref was awful and the lino sorry assistant with the yellow flag hardly got a decision right. I am not using this as an excuse for losing just passing comment on what I can see appears to be happening that the refs are getting worse.

Are you surprised? Would you do it? Spending an afternoon/evening doing your best, getting slagged off by the crowd, by media pundits, undermined by managers at every turn...we are beginning to get the referees the sport deserves lower down the leagues, because anyone half-decent and with an ounce of self-respect will f**K off and do something else.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Referees have been getting worse for the last 30 years, just like kids have been getting more badly behaved.

In 30 years time refs will probably just sit in the middle of the park on a chair and blow their whistles at random times while kids will be driving tanks around their estates at age 5.

 

[Mendoza]

I thought he only made two REALLY bad decisions last night

Not playing advantage on that attack

Booking the Orient player for taking the free kick

He blew his whistle a lot and the game didn't flow

 

[tonymgc]

Haven't seen a good performance by a ref at an Albion game all season personally

 

[BensGrandad]

I thought he only made two REALLY bad decisions last night

Not playing advantage on that attack

Booking the Orient player for taking the free kick

He blew his whistle a lot and the game didn't flow

He appearred to book Barnes for asking about the chap holding his shirt and stopping him jumping for their 2nd goal and then took noaction against the man who gave away the penalty can that be right. He wasnt helped by the very poor showing by the lino with the yellow flag who only managed to get to throw in correct other than that he got every decision for whcih he flagged wrong.

 

[Scoffers]

If you look at the first few home games (sorry, don;t go away much any more!) then I think it is fair to say that the overall important decisions have been poor. The old saying goes that bad decisions even themselves out over 46 matches, and perhaps they do, doesn't stop it being annoying as hell though.

As a final thought from me on this, we are all human and referees and their assistants are human too (no really, they are) and they do not set out to make bad calls, they often have to make a judgement call with little or no time to really think it through, so unless you want video replays for every decision, maybe we should respect them a little more, as someone pointed out in this thread, it is a thankless job.

 

[BensGrandad]

If you look at the first few home games (sorry, don;t go away much any more!) then I think it is fair to say that the overall important decisions have been poor. The old saying goes that bad decisions even themselves out over 46 matches, and perhaps they do, doesn't stop it being annoying as hell though.
As a final thought from me on this, we are all human and referees and their assistants are human too (no really, they are) and they do not set out to make bad calls, they often have to make a judgement call with little or no time to really think it through, so unless you want video replays for every decision, maybe we should respect them a little more, as someone pointed out in this thread, it is a thankless job.

Whilst I agree with a lot of what you say. Yes they are human but surely the people who promote them to the league must stand up and be questioned as to whether or not their overall ability is good enough for them to be allowed on the league list.

 

[Taybha]

I thought he only made two REALLY bad decisions last night

Not playing advantage on that attack

Booking the Orient player for taking the free kick

He blew his whistle a lot and the game didn't flow

thats 3 ,

 

[Acker79]

I'm tired I may ramble, sorry.

I don't think the standard of refereeing has dropped as much as many people think.

I won't comment on last night's ref specifically, I wasn't at the game and haven't seen any of his decisions.

However,

1) I'm not alone in being infuriated by pundits, experts, commentators, and fan's repeat comments about when something is an infringement of the laws. I and others have all covered our bug bears on here (whether the player got the ball, whether there was contact, if the ball is in the quadrant for a corner, when it's offside, etc.), and I think this is often ignored when considering referee levels.

I mean, Andy Grey for instance, is on TV, says it can't be a foul because the player got the ball, and as such the ref got it wrong. According to the laws of the game it's not about how successful a challenge is, but how safe, getting the ball or not is irrelevant and when judging if the ref is right to give said foul the question isn't "did the player get the ball", it should be "is it unreasonable for him to have judged the challenge unfair, according to the interpretation that FIFA expect referees to take?".

But we don't do we? We see our man got the ball, so say the ref got it wrong.

So it turns out 8 of the ten decisions fans/commentators/pundits say the ref got wrong, he actually got right.

But we don't care. We ignore what the rules are and judge how good the ref is based on his applications of the laws as we think they should be, not what they are. So are judging him wrongly from the start.

2) This is compounded by the tribal nature of football. We expect leniency for our player, the challenge wasn't malicious, he got the ball, their player is making a meal of it, only deserves a talking to, really, and so on. But a identical incident of this against our team is the worst crime ever, and the offending player should be suspended for 6 years.

Any decision against us/for our opponents, bar obvious ones, are wrong, and the ref is against us/influenced by the crowd/incompetent.

3) Society in general just doesn't have the respect for authority it used to. I don't want to sound like a curmudgeonly old man, but "kids today... " - they know they can get away with things because all thy get are asbos, the parents suffer more, not allowed to or afraid or unwilling to discipline their kids appropriately, the hero worshipping of Moat, the anti-speed camera sentiment, and in football this occurs in the form of treating the officials as the enemy. They are there to ruin the game, make themselves centre stage, and so on.

4) We move the goal posts. We want consistency. But to achieve that you have to take away leeway for refs to judge each situation on its merits. We want common sense, but that means some things get treated differently and we complain about the lack of consistency. A foul will occur and 20,000 people will call foul, 7 players will stop and turn to the ref with their arms raised, when the ref gives it, they then all notice two more players had carried on and after the free kick has been award find themselves in a great performance. We don't want refs to make themselves the centre of attention, but we want them to come out and do post match interviews to explain their decisions. (Personally, I think a lot of the time it is us making the ref the centre of attention, not the ref himself). Commentators will one week say the ref needs to start dishing cards out for a particular infringement and if he does the players will learn to stop doing it, then the following week criticise the ref for giving a yellow card for an incident because if we're gonna give cards for that we'll end up with 5-a-side. We yell at the ref when opponents time waste, then criticise him for wasting more time when he books them.

5) PR. We have thread pop up here all the time "stop moaning, support your team", "if you're not gonna get behind your own team piss off and support palace" etc. We can't dare to criticise our player, or even admit they broke a law, no, we should, any time the ref makes a decision, have a gut reaction that is "question the ref". Pundits etc. often former players may not have the same connection to particular teams we fans have, but they stick up for their brotherhood of players and share this gut reaction. Most decision are met by comments of "I'd like a second look at that" "I'm not so sure" and then we see replays and they see the ref got it right.

I'm sure there's also probably an element for some tv companies to protect their investment, sky can't let the premier league be seen as cheats, it's supposed to be beautiful football, lets blame the ref (with the exception of colourful foreign stars with their flamboyant diving, that can be quite a laugh for viewers)

6) I'm sure, also, the TV companies are afraid of upsetting punters. Criticise Gerrard for diving and you'll get a lot of hate mail from the scousers, call rooney overrated, and the mancunians will bombard with complaints. The only one you can criticise and not upset a significant number of fans, or managers who then refuse to appear on your channel, is the ref.

7) We blame the ref, when the problem is the rule, or attitude behind the rule. The referee is employed to enforce the law as it is, as fifa has set it out to be. If he starts enforcing the law as he or Andy Grey thinks it should be, he will be dropped and replaced by a ref who will apply the laws as thy are. Sometimes we need to cut the ref some slack when he has to give someone a yellow card for exuberant celebration etc.

For those reason, and probably others I'm too tired to think of, I think the decline in refereeing standards is greatly exaggerated. (Again, not commenting on last night's ref, and I'm not saying refs don't make mistakes, they do, they are human, I'm just addressing the general question of refereeing standards)

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Sorry, but I refuse to believe that referees have somehow got worse over the past few years. What a completely irrational suggestion is that? How would that happen?

What HAS happened is that the game is far, far more high profile than it ever used to be, ergo every decision is analysed to the nth degree, whereas twenty years ago, the only people who'd have had a view were those at the game and TV viewers if it was one of the rare televised games. Now you have wall to wall Premier League coverage, with 30 cameras covering every possible angle (or not), dozens of pundits with an agenda (ie to justify their wages with an opinion) and the internet, resulting in fans being able to dissect key moments within seconds of them occurring with people thousands of miles away.

The magnification of such controversy has also led to players behaving worse, because they know they will be able to justify acting like utter dicks by pointing out that somehow the referee's incorrect decision is a mitigating factor.

Referees have ALWAYS made mistakes, just like players and managers have always made mistakes. They are no worse now than they've ever been, it's just that more money depends on it so everything they do is in focus.

 

[clippedgull]

Yes,refs and linos make mistakes. They always have and they always will. One thing is consistent, fans will always criticise the officials when their team has played poorly, you very rarely hear criticism when the team has won.

 

[SittingbourneSeagull]

Are you surprised? Would you do it? Spending an afternoon/evening doing your best, getting slagged off by the crowd, by media pundits, undermined by managers at every turn...we are beginning to get the referees the sport deserves lower down the leagues, because anyone half-decent and with an ounce of self-respect will f**K off and do something else.

Not a ref by any chance are you?

 

[glasfryn]

trouble with todays Refs is that they are frightened of what people might say about them
fans
managers
FA
league
players
there are far to many silly complicated rules
and I'm sorry and if this causes offence but most refs are pedants by nature and there are also those who want to be the star of the game.
having been pressed into refereeing some youth games in the past I do not envy any refs job,but I'm afraid a lot of the criticism is brought about by themselves.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

All fair points.

The ref is a TOOL for not allowing play on. However he did make up for it by awarding that penalty. My first thought was it was a dive by Muzza.

 

[Spiros]

If anyone truly believes that refs have got worse over the last few years I have two words for them - Ron Challis.

Also, the lawmakers of the game have progressively made things more difficult for refs and linos by complicating what used to be simple laws, the most prime example being offside. The original rules were mainly about facts - ie is there less then 2 defenders between the player and the goal when the ball is played forward. Now the officials have to add in a whole lot of interpretation - is the player 'active', or was he when the ball was played?