[Football] The Complete And Utter Shyster, he's an arrogant SOB!

Acker79 said:

Also, a glaring mistake can still be an honest mistake. And still, managers and players aren't generally punished for glaring mistakes, so why refs? No being out of position doesn't help. Being off balance doesn't help when a strike loops a shot over the goal. But we don't fine players for that. We accept he's human and even the most basic of skills can be lost in the heat of the match.

Why not afford referees the right to be a human and make mistakes, even glaring ones, as long as their is honesty and usually a level of competency.?

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Audax said:

Maybe they could take a leaf out of how Umpires are handled in cricket. The umpires are routinely graded, and the grading can be used to determine whether or not they are considered to be on the Elite Panel (who are the only umpires allowed to stand in internationals). The system ensures that every year, only the best umpires from the previous year are used for international games. Similar systems run down the ladder - umpires are constantly being graded for accuracy of decisions, and only the best umpires rise to the top levels - and any umpire whose standards slip will be rapidly slid back down the ladder.

I would have thought it would be pretty easy to do something similar for Football. Cricket re-selects the Elite Panel yearly, but I think it would be easy enough to re-select a "Premier League Elite Panel" of referees every half season at least. It'll be even easier to do once VAR comes in (speaking of ... I personally feel the on-field ref should *not* be involved in reviewing decisions. Just like cricket, the review should be independent to prevent any issues of the on-field ref being biased in favour of their own original decision. Independent VAR also means that the number of decisions overturned via VAR could be used as a proxy for monitoring referee performance).

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