Refereeing model unfit for purpose
The referee, the match official and his merry band of assistants, the fourth official, the referees’ assessor … the list goes on. Are we just moving into a weekly abyss where the major talking points of any given football match are dictated by the referee? It’s gone beyond a joke that, in 2012, we have no technology on the field of play.
The clamour for it over the years has been bandied around, passed back and forward and around again through the corridors of Fifa only to be annulled and put back in its box by the powers that be that don’t want to see their hold on the game changed. Well, what about the very lifeblood of the game?
Yes, the fans; the very same fans who pay good money week in, week out to see their football teams, to follow them mindfully over land and sea and beyond to see their games ruined by refereeing decisions that have been proved afterwards to be wrong. Something has to give, either through technology or integrity.
We have passed the point of no return, the axe is falling and the clamour gets louder every week for the man in black to speak to the media or the manager or both after every game. How can people in a black outfit make decisions on a whim that can change football matches and not be questioned?
If you are a prime minister, you are questioned; if you are a councillor, you are questioned. If you write some tattle on social media networks, you are questioned. So why can’t a referee, whose decisions change games and lives, not be answerable?
Since the advent of television and cameras being allowed willy-nilly access to the field of play, the game has changed. The stakes are much higher. But still the 1800s way of doing things, on one man’s decision, has remained the same.
We all know that referees need help and that one, two, three, four or even five men cannot make a decision that is correct. TV judges can help. Only rarely do you see bad decisions being given the nod in cricket or rugby because their officials have gone the sensible route and use technology to help their employees, without changing the laws and rules of their sport. But the football authorities continue to swerve any clamour for change in the beautiful game.
The powers that be use TV evidence to charge players after the game but use everything in their power not to change things that occur during a match. This is double standards and it has to end soon. We can blame the players for failing to help the referee but you have to look at the laws of the game that have been meddled with incessantly over the years while masking over the real issue – that the 140-year-old model on refereeing is unfit for purpose in the modern game.
take a look a little bit further … the refs are suffering from burn-out … too many games, too few men in the middle … there used to be 20-plus refs in the elite Prem Lge group, now there’s only 16 … and few signs of any up-and-comers progressing through from the Foot Lge ranks … but goalline technology has to happen, even if financial logic says why? … how many times will it be needed in a club’s 38-match season ?? … perhaps once, twice, maybe not at all … where’s the cost efficiency in that ?? … but rugby league and union have video replays for tries … so let’s go for it
I have to agree Mr G, the modern game is too fast (at some times even for the camera) for one man to oversee. And it wont matter if there are second, third, fourth or ten officials dotted around the pitch, it would still be one man’s word against another. If technology is readily accepted in other sports; horseracing, rugby, cricket, tennis, Formula One etc, then by its refusal to use every means to deliberate contentious decisions football could be accused of obfuscation at best and match fixing at worse.
Maybe a minute’s silence at every dodgy decision would eventually swing it.
you know what I find amazing? every time an incident happens the press association get straight on the phone to FIFA and ask whats happening about goal line technology and always the answer is the same; ‘we’re in the process of testing the technology’. FIFA must have been in this process for the last 20 years. How long does it take and how hard can it be? Testing at NASA doesnt take this long.
It really is a simple solution that does not need to be to complicated. The goal line technology is now a must because of the frequency of these incidents occurring. The problem i feel is that some referees now have such an inflated ego of themselves that they believe they are always right. Like you say, very rarely will you see any of them come out and explain why they made a decision so they will despise the prospect of technology second-guessing them. Let’s hope that common sense prevails…