Who’s the person in the black, purple, red, green….

 They are the referee who is a human just like the rest of us, but has the fortune of 22 players, at least 6 management team and at Wimbledon, 8k fans in there hands by making the correct decisions during 90 to 110 minutes of football. Of course what determines a correct decision depends on what colours you have on show at the time.

I have long been annoyed at the scrutiny the referees are under and what now seems to be an impossible job. With the introduction of VAR it has become even more impossible with every decision checked beyond a clear and obvious error. We now have many people at Stockley Park checking every decision with multiple angles, multiple speeds and multiple opinions. Every weekend I long for a referee to be asked to go to the VAR screen and then tell the people in his ear to do one and they will stick with the decision they made in the heat of battle.

The irony is that the English Premier League (EPL) voted VAR in by a massive majority, yet they do everything they can to moan about it if a decision doesn’t go in there favour. I said years ago on the 9yrspodcast when it was brought in, that you would find players not celebrating heavily in the fear of looking stupid celebrating a goal that is disallowed for any number of reasons the VAR officials can find to disallow it. I honestly feel that the VAR officials start from a position of how can they disallow a goal.

This weekend has been a typical weekend of VAR impacting the EPL action with Nottingham Forest being disallowed two key decisions, one being a tight offside for a penalty and the other another close offside decision for a goal scored. The latter was disallowed because the forest players foot was slightly offside. It was literally have the width of his calf that was deemed to having an advantage. Add this to the recent offside goal because someone’s nose was offside and you can see why the fun is being taken out of the game.

We now see a animated picture of the offside decision and it marks clearly what part of the body is onside or offside, however some fans are now claiming that the picture can be doctored and can show it in favour of the so called bigger side!!!

VAR decisions take so long, it takes any momentum out of the game. The paying fan in the stadium is no longer the key audience and you tend to know more of what’s going on watching on tv as the companies seem to have a ear to some of the VAR decisions and communicate this to the watching fan.

Before VAR was introduced, momentum used to change by a on-field action like a penalty miss or a goal line challenge to stop a goal, or even a bone crunching challenge before physical contact was outlawed in the early 21st century. Now the whole momentum shift is based on someone in an office and the fans have all calmed down and gone for a pint because they know they have a good 5 minutes for a decision to be made. I have no doubt that during the World Cup in USA, VAR decision will be sponsored by one of the corporate sponsors and adverts shown in the ground and on tv.

Another action this weekend that has had loads of press is the Chelsea players deciding that they must respect the ball (according to Leroy Rosenior who I used t like before he got the Chelsea job and starting sounding like a knob!) and surround it before kick off, regardless if the match referee is standing in the middle of it. For me it shows the complete lack of respect for match officials and captured in one incident that has been shown around the world. The former players etc will say it’s the referees fault as he should have moved and didn’t need to be there, yet I am of the view that Chelsea players could have asked him to move, do it somewhere else or just use some common sense. Most of them actually look through the referee as if he referee as if he isn’t there which most weekends continues throughout the game. Nottingham Forest players also did the huddle before their game against Fulham, but did it inside there own half with no trouble.

Last weekend match officials at an Ipswich home game had to be escorted off in a effective steward bubble due to the reaction of players, management team and fans at the end of the game. Apparently the referee had a history of giving bad decisions to Ipswich and they had had enough. Can you imagine an up and coming referee in the Saturday/Sunday leagues watching this and thinking ‘I would love some of that!” It’s now common place at Wimbledon home games for the referee to gather at the halfway line at the end of each half and wait for the stewards to greet him and escort him off the pitch down the tunnel. As they reach the tunnel, depending on the severity of the bad decisions made, determines how many swear words or boos are directed at them. They then go into their changing room and just for safe measure a lock on the inside is there if they need it.

As part of my stadium tour duties I show fans around the tunnel area and we visit the referee room. On the matchday stadium tours we sometimes get referees coming in early and meeting our tour group. They are often very nice to people, say hello and on a few occasions they have invited some younger fans in to the referee room to tell them there role and what they do pre-match.

Now I am sure this is common place at all league grounds now and not just Wimbledon, but what does it say that they need a lock on the door just in case. After the game there is a half an hour cool down period and nobody from either team can approach the referee which is a good thing, but still what state of the game do we have when that is needed. By then both team players and management team can if they choose, hold interviews and put there case forward for why they lost the game and it normally has something to do with a decision made by the referee. Vary rarely will they criticise there own players for a mistake as that needs to be kept in house to protect the dressing room, but its open season for match officials.

Its crazy right!!!

And the referee doesn’t do post match interviews to put forward there reason for decisions and probably rightly so, but I am sure there are many times they would like to just to remind them of the rules.

This morning I have just watched the RefWatch where every decision is analysed and critiqued by a former player and referee. There is simply no hiding place!  

Rules of course are different to knowing the game or playing it in the past. How many times do we hear pundits telling viewers that referees have never played and don’t understand the game. I remember years ago Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher joining a referee training meeting and they tried out running the line to judge offsides and lets just say they realised how difficult it was. They also did another feature with Roy Keane where they took turns to referee a game on Hackney Marshes. They weren’t very good and they started to understand how difficult it is to manage 22 players on the pitch and just as many off it.

One thing that messers Keane, Neville and Carragher didn’t have to deal with on the marshes was players trying to kid them to making a decision there way.

It’s a regular occurrence of players trying to influence the referee by:-

- Simulating contact to win a free kick or penalty

-  Making contact look worse by rolling around/screaming to get a player booked or sent off.

-  Surrounding the referee after a foul to put them under pressure to make a worst decision.

-   Holding there head when no contact made by the opposition to stop play

I am sure I have missed loads but my main point is the referee not only has to referee a game played at fast speed, but also deciding if the player is having them on and making a bigger deal out of any situation.

How many times have we all looked at a decision in real time and made a decision of a foul to only see it on a replay from many angles and see the player has ‘left his foot in’ to make contact for a foul?

VAR is supposed to help this in the EPL, but it can’t look at yellow cards which of course can total up to a second yellow and a red card. VAR isn’t yet used in the English Football League (EFL) and it has been widely discussed that referring in the EPL vs EFL is so different for referees now.

In the EPL I have noticed that the referee is often happy to NOT make a big call on a penalty or red card decision as once the ball is out of play VAR will over analysis it and decide for them. Even though VAR makes a decision, its still amuses me how players and managers still moan about the decision when some are very clear on the VAR screen.

Referees in the EFL don’t have VAR to fall back on and have to make a decision and its has been commented by pundits that referees struggle if they are a regular EPL referee and drop into the Championship for a game or a cup game. This does nothing for the respect levels from players and managers to the referee and its something the referee has no control over.

Gamesmanship has also got worse recently and referees powerless to do anything about it, yet the same people moan heavily to them and abuse them.

Examples of gamesmanship are:-

·      GK going down for treatment

·      Holding at corner kicks

·      Throw ins taking ages

·      New 8 second rule abused – GK now makes sure he runs to opposition player to stop 8 second count being activated until they are clear.

This all adds up to it becoming an almost impossible job for referees and its only going to get worse with new rules being introduced for the summer World Cup and next season.

Referee numbers are said to be reducing year on year due to abuse from players, management team and fans. I used to play Sunday League many, many years ago and it was bad then but personally I always respected the referee and never ever went up to them swearing and shouting to get a decision, however it’s regular to hear about referees being attacked on the pitch and sometimes after it. Up and coming referees are fast tracked and referee in academy league and development leagues which are now controlled heavily to stop families and friends from abusing referees.

Whilst this sounds good in practice, I also worry that they are being protected heavily from some challenging situations in non-league games where many excellent referees have come thouigh from and then have a baptism of fire if they get into the professional game.

Former players are starting to become referees in recent years, and whilst it tends to be players who have had careers in the EFL where salaries are not enough to retire on, they have played the game and according to pundits should be better.

Of course good players have never always made good managers, as people like Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney have shown, however maybe they might get the respect of players etc. When looking at the names of former players becoming referees I did notice a certain Liam Trotter. It’s disappointing to know he will never referee a Wimbledon fixture and seeing him trying to keep up with play.

One final thought… Without referees we have no game.

Who do we moan at then?

Over the last few decades referees from certain affiliations have gone on strike for a number of reasons such as financial reward and safety.

I would not be surprised in years to come a strike hitting Europe due to safety in some situations but also for trying to do an impossible job that all fans need to be done, but very few would volunteer to do themselves.