REFWATCH : Huddersfield Town (h)

[handbags_harris]

Some very bizarre ideas to respond to there.

So practically who are these independent assessors qualified to judge referees ? Ex players ? Ex managers ? International businessmen ? Management consultants ? Taxi drivers ? Can't see you finding any of them who understand the laws of the game let alone able to comment on their application in the context of matches. Ex refs with relevant experience seem ideal. Extra input from others could be good, although the ready happens. Would you really advocate independent above appropriate ?
Protection ? The referees who are suspended, demoted or removed from the lists will disagree they are protected.
And of course for every referee you suspend, demote or remove you need a replacement. And where do they come from ? The same limited pool that the original one came from. Only they will be younger, less experienced and have a lesser track record. Doesn't mean they won't be good officials but if you think Championship refs are so poor then bear in mind they are the group that a demoted Premiership referee is replaced from. There is no great mass of referees just waiting for the call to do Liverpool v Chelsea or even Reading v Huddersfield. It is a long and arduous road to reach the Football League. Not many refs would make it in less than a decade and the commitment to do it is immense when you also need to work. Your practice idea to ensure a ready made supply of suitably experienced refs is awaited.
You say refs demeaned respect. They don't. They deserve it though. The Respect campaign is about much wider things than referees. You may want to read up about it. It is about attitude to the game, to opponents, the laws and much more. And at the top level,it has failed absolutely 100%. It's depressing to read the basics about Respect and then see players and managers who clearly have no idea about what respect is. And compare it to other sports where it's so ingrained that people can't understand why football needs a campaign. Respect is more about the person giving respect than the one receiving it. Referees don't demand it but players and coaches should give it. If a hugely physical, complex game like rugby can have an ethos of respect to opponents and officials the it's sad that football has the opposite. In which cheating is encouraged, even praised, in which bad sportsmanship is the norm and abuse of officials for tactical reasons is seen as clever management.
I get frustrated by referees, but I get frustrated by players who mak silly errors and managers who make bad decisions too. Hopefully I can sometimes empathise with officials and at the same time accept that they are human, are officiating in a game with few definitive rules that requires judgement based on OPINION rather than fact, and that like everyone they get stuff wrong. I'm happy to debate referees but get really angry at people who spout off nonsense without having a clue about the subject. Now prove you aren't just a big mouthed, clueless idiot who can make knee jerk clever dick comments about something you haven't actually thought through.

A tailored version of this should be sent to every professional football club in the country. And many non-professional ones too.

[sandman]

Rugby fell off it's officiating high horse at the recent World Cup. Citing it a some bastion of moral superiority as it's followers continually seem so keen to do is a bit rich.

[Franchise FC]

Rugby fell off it's officiating high horse at the recent World Cup. Citing it a some bastion of moral superiority as it's followers continually seem so keen to do is a bit rich.

Are you a journalist ? Extreme headline created from single incident type journalist ?

Rugby suffered from one (albeit very high profile) moment of madness from one official.

The control exerted by the likes of Nigel Owens, when he's not a big chap and some of those he was controlling clearly were, was exactly the sort of control we'd like in football. The two big areas that drive that sort of performance are the ability to talk to the players as adults (mostly - and that's the first flaw in my suggestion) and the fact that he has instant respect because any backchat will result in losing yardage.

Someone's bound to say that this would be removing the passion, but I disagree with that opinion, simply because the passion can be channelled into playing better, rather than arguing better.

Having said all that, the sight of Mike Dean celebrating the Tottenham goal on Monday was as as it was
It was clearly a fantastic bit of refereeing that led to the goal, but I can't see an assessor seeing it that way.

[Nameless]

Thought theJoubert incident was made much worse by the likes of Hastings and Dawson making ill judged remarks. Joubert did himself no favours by his hasty exit but his original decision was a minor error and the players on the field dealt with it pretty well. Compare that to how footballers react to correct refereeing decisions (see Obita and the first Huddersfield goal....)

[RoyalBlue]

One thing that perhaps might help is if referees were allowed/strongly encouraged to engage with the media after matches. And if we need to pay them a bit more to do that then do so.

I can remember one ref requesting to speak to the media after he got in the way of play and it led to our opponents scoring a goal against us. That ref had the balls and confidence to speak to the media and apologise to the team and fans for the way that his 'mistake' led to us conceding a goal. The result? Criticism replaced by loads of respect.

It would have been nice to hear that clown (for that is how he ended up being perceived by many) from the Huddersfield game explain just how he managed to blow his whistle and break down a promising attack and apologise for that mistake/accident (still not sure which of those two things it was).

And yes, a couple of words of apology from Obita for his mistakes, that cost us far more, wouldn't have gone amiss either!

[Nameless]

Personally I don't think sacrificing officials to the media would be very helpful. For one thing not every decision can be 'explained'. When I reffed I couldn't remember all the hundreds of decisions in a game, or why I made them or the context they were made. Also the media would put huge pressure on refs to supply quotes on all sorts of controversial incidents. What officials said would be twisted and misreported. It's much healthier IMHO to allow refs to make decisions honestly and accept them. Putting them up for trial by media would be horrific.

[Ian Royal]

It's not a bad idea as such. But it would require a media that wasn't deliberately provocative, judgemental, ignorant and banal.

There's a bit of an issue in that players, managers, refs, media and fans are all constantly reinforcing all of the problems within the game so any attempt to fix them is half hearted, quickly undermined and ultimately defeated easily.

The game is just fundamentally and irretrievably broken after years of degrading. But, for all that, it's still one of the best sports out there, so we'll put up with it, with plenty of moaning.