[Football] Ref blaming

[beorhthelm]

I don't really understand why there isn't a video panel that sit down each Monday morning and run through the games, at least for the EPL, and issue cards for anyone found cheating, simulating. I would have thought the issue would be gone after a couple of weeks.

would love to see this, it would clean up so much play acting. and more cards for diving, so many challenges should either be a foul or a dive, refs will give a free kick or nothing. not every tackle just the obvious ones.

 

[BadFish]

But decisions are also explained to fans. Refs in top level rugby are miked up and you know exactly what they're discussing. Same for DRS in cricket. VAR decisions are not replayed on screens, nor are the refs' conversations published. Makes you wonder what they're hiding.

This is interesting to me. Why are we not allowed to hear their side of the story and what made them make their decision. I used to go and watch a lot of Aussie riles games with an umpire. While the crowd was screaming obscenities at the 'white maggot' umpires (because they wore white not because of their race ) My mate would calmly explain the decision in real time. I feel like we would all be much more understanding if the ref could say "from my angle it didn't look like it hit his arm" or whatever. We might not agree but at least we would know what was going on.

although the mistakes in the Spurs-Chelsea game really need looking at. Although imagine if the ref had said "the foul on Havertz wasn't given because he looked like he was making a meal of it (not my opinion,I just can't see why else it wasn't given). Then the goal was scored in the next phase of play so I couldn't use VAR to check the foul". Again we might disagree but at least we know what we are disagreeing with.

It might mean that the pundits will actually have to start talking about football though.

 

[Stat Brother]

So this has been going on since 1450 but only now will people be unwilling to referee?

There will always be people who want to ref. People who like being in charge, being in the limelight and, let's face it, staying fit, being well paid and seeing Premier League football from the best vantage point possible. Tends to offset Thomas Tuchel having a bit of a moan about a goal decision.

Moaning at the ref 10 minutes before kick off seems rather undignified.


Anyhoo this is easily sorted:-

Bin off Tuchel The Tw@t - everybody is a winner.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

I can take ref errors, as you say we have moaned about them for ever. It all tends to even itself out over a season. However there is no excuse for the complete **** ups made by VAR week in week out. In just two games, the push on Welbeck, the tackle by McThug, the pull on Cucu’s hair. Now the McThug one MAYBE mitigating circumstances because Caicedo could have been deemed to have gone in two footed too. The other two, no way. One was a pen and the other should have been at least a booking or sending off. VAR is not fit for purpose too often, I’d happily see it binned and live with refs making errors thanks.

I think there will be disciplinary actions taken against Tuchel for certain and probably Conte. Totally unacceptable behaviour and Tuchel’s outburst against the ref (whilst having some justification) should be stamped on

Kind of agree, but for me…. The PL is a multi-billion pound product, the standard of officiating is terrible, I watch other leagues and European games and they always seem superior.

I would love to know what that pillock at Manchester thought he saw, put them in front of the cameras and ask them to explain. We might 5hen have a degree of sympathy, though more likely disbelief.

Tuchel was right re Cucurella 100%.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

This is interesting to me. Why are we not allowed to hear their side of the story and what made them make their decision. I used to go and watch a lot of Aussie riles games with an umpire. While the crowd was screaming obscenities at the 'white maggot' umpires (because they wore white not because of their race ) My mate would calmly explain the decision in real time. I feel like we would all be much more understanding if the ref could say "from my angle it didn't look like it hit his arm" or whatever. We might not agree but at least we would know what was going on.

although the mistakes in the Spurs-Chelsea game really need looking at. Although imagine if the ref had said "the foul on Havertz wasn't given because he looked like he was making a meal of it (not my opinion,I just can't see why else it wasn't given). Then the goal was scored in the next phase of play so I couldn't use VAR to check the foul". Again we might disagree but at least we know what we are disagreeing with.

It might mean that the pundits will actually have to start talking about football though.

OK, but on condition that no-one argues with the ref’s reasoning. They just quietly get on with the game as they have had their explanation….’what a wonderful world that would be’

 

[Eric Youngs Contact Lens]

Trying to distinguish between different events is one challenge. I can accept that there will always be mistakes.. If I take yesterday's game, I can be more objective. The tackle on Havertz : no issue for me at all. Ref believes he legitimately got a touch on the ball, made the decision and signalled immediately as such, no foul. As long as that decision is reasonably consistently applied, that's fine. The Cucu hair -pull.. If that had led to a goal, it would have been chalked off. Think back to a Peter Crouch in the World Cup, (vs. Trinidad and Tobago?) where he rises at the far post but clearly holds the defender down by pulling his pony tail. VAR today would have been all over that and reviewed it. The referee missed it - poor Cucu, lucky Romero who would have been sent off.
I don't want the game to be refereed from afar, which was our experience when VAR 1st came in and prefer the on-field referee having the majority of decision-making based on what he sees unless there is a reason to doubt in a goal-scoring scenario. Same as Rugby - "Is there any reason I cannot award the try?". Welbeck push - I understand why it wasn't given, even on review - not because I don't think it was afoul, but we see so many incidents where players stop, anticipating the push and go down accordingly. I don't think that was what happened but understand why some might interpret it as such. Players have created this phenomena. Again, I disagree with the decision, but accept it IF it is applied reasonably consistently.

What Referee's can do, is absolutely hold players, managers and coaching staff to account for their behaviour, and on the touchline especially, towards the 4th official. Sending both managers off was fine for me. They had been warned and both continued to act like petulant children. Tuchel's comments that it was "unnecessary" should also be sanctioned.. his behaviour was "unnecessary" and his chosen approach to the 4th official was unnecessary. Suck it up and be held to account. Imagine if somehow there was a points deduction at the end of the season for disciplinary reasons ? That would be funny to watch how behaviour changes over time if there was a material loss to be had. The pantomime is the pantomime, but to see the lauding of it by Souness for example is very unhelpful to the Sunday Youth referee who is exposed to horrible behaviour that is frightening and arguably mirroring what is watched by millions of kids and their parents..

 

[TugWilson]

Refereeing is one of the hardest and most unforgiving jobs in the world. The world, who gets to see an incident over and over again from multiple angles, has a go at the referee who must make a decision within a split second from his 1 angle if he's managed to see the incident through the cluster of bodies on the pitch.

What needs to happen is for the man in the middle to become less and less important, speeding up and increasing the usage of VAR. Have a couple of cameras along the edges of the pitch and VAR can tell the ref when the ball has gone out and who it's come off, reducing wrong corners/throw-ins and not slowing down the game. Make it so that the ref only makes the quick calls needed (small fouls, time-wasting etc) and prioritise getting decisions right over making the referee feel important.

I agree with the principle,when VAR use was announced i thought it would be exactly what the game needed to end "bad refs" and bad decisions,boy was i wrong.

My original hope for VAR would be that the miked up ref would be left alone to make all the decisions,BUT the guy on VAR would be constantly available in real time to point out an obvious (to someone with a better view,ie: US with the same view we get on the TV) for instance a goal kick or corner decision on the side of the pitch furthest from the linesman.VAR would only be used IF there was sufficient doubt,if handled correctly and by unbiased operators there should very rarely be a bad call.

As far as i am aware most of the top bods in the FA aren`t even X-players ,as with the VAR operators,what the heck is that about ?. If a call is correctly called and all in the ground see it on the big screen it will alleviate a lot of the trouble during and after games between frustrated fans.

As for touching a ref and being given a hefty ban,that depends on context entirely,if you are just touching the refs arm in a normal friendly nature as you might if you are trying to explain a situation where Fernandez has just dived for the 45th time that`s fine,but if it is obviously an aggressive manner of course not.

But don`t forget we do occassionally have Referee Heroe`s like the great Pierre Luigi Collina ,was he special or are our current ones just crap because they have never played the game ?. Imho all Var operators should be as Paul Merson said on Saturday,EX PLAYERS who understand the difference between a foul and a dive !

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

The job is made harder for ref's by the constant cheating that goes on from all players, going down like they've been shot then getting up and running just fine a few seconds later, claiming for throw ins or corners when they know damn well they touched the ball last, inching down the touchline for throw ins, there's loads of it. They are all told to do it from their clubs as well. Then the clubs moan when the ref gets a decission wrong.

I don't really understand why there isn't a video panel that sit down each Monday morning and run through the games, at least for the EPL, and issue cards for anyone found cheating, simulating. I would have thought the issue would be gone after a couple of weeks.

Absolutely.

Managers send the players out to dive, cheat and generally con the ref. Sometimes the behaviour is synchronised to the degree that they must have been working on this in the week. Yet they still have the temerity to criticise a ref when something doesn't go their way!

It would be incredible, if it weren't for the obvious conclusion that the ferocity of the manager's response is very carefully calculated. Tuchel knows the authorities will go soft on him. He knows also that there's no chance that tight referring decisions will go against him next week or the week after. Klopp, Pep, Mourinho do it. It normally gets them 5 to 10 points per season. Personally I prefer not having a manager who does this to a few points per season

 

[scamander]

just as an aside to it all, I wonder if all of this isn't part of the drive for 'entertainment'? Yesterday all they could do was bang on about how entertaining the Premier League was. Well, the constant rule changes and the insistence on interpretation have ensured an amount of controversy each weekend. The back pages are mostly gossip and controversy. All helps sell the 'product'.

 

[raymondo]

But are we attracting the right people? The larger the pool of potential refs we have the more chance we'll be able to find those who are in it out of a basic sense of wanting to achieve fairness and a love of football rather than those wanting to be some minor celeb or get off on wielding power in an arbitrary way.

Interesting that no ex pro footballers become referees - it's a shame, but far easier to be a crap pundit...and better paid

 

[The Wizard]

Refereeing mistakes as annoying as they are, fine, in fact some of our best atmospheres at the Amex have been when we’ve had an absolute pomegranate of a referee

VAR on the other hand and Linos not flagging for people being 26 yards offside, can piss off, the funny thing is with VAR is that it’s still open to human perception and opinion, football is and always will be, it’s like that tackle before tottenhams first goal yesterday, 4 of us watching the game, 2vs2 as to whether that was a foul.

People think VAR or robotic decisions will work but it just sanitises a game that was never meant to be perfect.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Going to eat the sport from the inside.

Must be punished very harshly if there's going to be anyone at all willing to do the job in due time.

If you dive down the newspaper archives, one thing gets obvious: every referee in every country in every sport has been shite at least since Gutenberg invented the printing machine in 1450.

This strikes me as quite odd and makes me believe that it is really our perception of refereeing that is entirely ****ed up. We simply don't understand how difficult it is. A flaw in the human brain.

As such, you have to expect that common people for the next 500 years are also going to consider every referee as a shite one. That is fine I suppose, or rather: it is what it is.

But when players and managers puts all the blame on the referee after any game they didn't win, it fuels the situation. The Tuchels of the world are for whatever reason seen as people you should listen to, and so the fans do - and at some point or another it is going to end really, really badly as one of the hundreds of death threats top refs & their families recieve are going to turn into reality. At that point it is going to be very difficult to find people willing to do the job at any level.

I really hope the PL (and the EFL for that matter) goes further to protect the referees. Of course, some balanced criticism could be acceptable, but when managers and squads group up to do verbal gangbangs on the refs in the media after games, it is borderline the act of inciting violence towards the involved ref, and should be punished with a 10 game ban or similar.

Ref's have always had a bad rap. Yet years ago the only people able to come to that conclusion was those at the game and maybe a comment by the commentator doing the highlights. With live football on TV, the introduction of ex-pro's back in the studio, and even Ref Watch on Sky only highlights the failings week after week. The officials are certainly under more scrutiny than most players or even managers. Here in lies a huge issue the authorities hardly ever admit an error, rarely does a ref get "stepped down" for poor performance and they act as this superior body that acts to piss off all the others.

The errors we have seen these last two weeks are systematic of the problems encountered. If I made the wrong decision such as the whole team of officials did in regard to the Welbeck non-penatly then my job position would be in question.

The use of VAR should be able to give clear concise advice to the on field ref, it fails in the main to do this. The hair pull on Cucurella couldn't be given as it was deemed as not being a red card offence yet it was obvious a free kick, the debate of the colour of the card is subjective. The fact it was a 100% a foul wasn't. Then you the leniency afforded to Wilson for not retreating from a free kick and then time wasting when being subbed is the ref re-write the rule book. It's written in black and white. He should have received his second booking and been sent off.

If ref's want to be given a better rap they need to be better in their officiating but also change VAR to not only deal with red card issues. Is a hair pull a red card, well yes it should, but here's the point it was a foul. VAR should be able to intervene.

 

[beorhthelm]

VAR was never intended to clear up every incident. supposed to spot obvious errors that are missed, due to angles or speed of game. problem is fans and i think officials forget this. should have a time limit, 3-5 sec, if the 4th official cant determine an error in that time its not obvious.

 

[Icy Gull]

Interesting that no ex pro footballers become referees - it's a shame, but far easier to be a crap pundit...and better paid

I wish Carragher would get a job as a manager, he seems to think he’s a tactics guru and knows everything. Well that’s the impression I get when I can understand what he’s saying.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

With regards to the Cucurella incident, I read that this was checked by VAR. The issue is that it was doing so to confirm if it was a red card or not. As it wasn't deemed a red so there was nothing for VAR to do.

There's a big communication gap missing because a few people (myself included) aren't wholly aware so we think it's not being used.

They could run basic info videos on Sky Sports or have the presenters run through the basics. Instead the pundits seem proud to not know how it works. Surely that should be part of their job?

As for the rugby idea, this only works if everyone understands and accepts that if the ref doesn't see it then it doesn't matter. I would support only captains being able to speak to the ref and anyone coming up to the ref agressively (and putting their hands on the ref) gets a card.

Massive issue here is that VAR is supposed to review it to highlight it to the ref who then decides. For the VAR officials to decide that it isn't a red is going against all the briefings. Was Cucurella fouled? Yes, it should then be up to the ref to decide the fate of the player. It takes no time to ask the ref, did you see the incident. If yes and he's happy that's it if not he then views it on the sidelines. VAR is not being used as it should be. The idiot in charge of the ref's is unaccountable.

 

[Swansman]

Ref's have always had a bad rap. Yet years ago the only people able to come to that conclusion was those at the game and maybe a comment by the commentator doing the highlights. With live football on TV, the introduction of ex-pro's back in the studio, and even Ref Watch on Sky only highlights the failings week after week. The officials are certainly under more scrutiny than most players or even managers. Here in lies a huge issue the authorities hardly ever admit an error, rarely does a ref get "stepped down" for poor performance and they act as this superior body that acts to piss off all the others.

The errors we have seen these last two weeks are systematic of the problems encountered. If I made the wrong decision such as the whole team of officials did in regard to the Welbeck non-penatly then my job position would be in question.

If the authorities admitted errors, they would do nothing but admitting errors. Football is a game of mistakes.

Moises Caicedo had a 79% pass completion rate against Manchester United. If you're a doctor or a nurse and give your patient the wrong medication 21% of the time you'd be so ****ing sacked there's no tomorrow.

But jobs are very different. Not many jobs resemble those of footballers and refs, where you for 90 minutes constantly have a second to make the right decision or things turn into shit. There's very few jobs like that.

So if refs should either apologise/admit when they mistake or get sacked, what do we do with Caicedo? Clearly he failed doing the right pass 9 times out of 42 this week - should he go in public and apologise for missing those passes? Or should he get his contract terminated?

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

If the authorities admitted errors, they would do nothing but admitting errors. Football is a game of mistakes.

Moises Caicedo had a 79% pass completion rate against Manchester United. If you're a doctor or a nurse and give your patient the wrong medication 21% of the time you'd be so ****ing sacked there's no tomorrow.

But jobs are very different. Not many jobs resemble those of footballers and refs, where you for 90 minutes constantly have a second to make the right decision or things turn into shit. There's very few jobs like that.

So if refs should either apologise/admit when they mistake or get sacked, what do we do with Caicedo? Clearly he failed doing the right pass 9 times out of 42 this week - should he go in public and apologise for missing those passes? Or should he get his contract terminated?

Of course ref's make mistakes. However the Welbeck one was seen by those officials doing the VAR and still didn't act. There's no excuse for that. The commentators, the press, even Gallagher on Ref Watch said it was a penalty. That's the sort of mistakes I'm on about not simple errors.

I don't believe that the ref should be part of the post match interviews but I do think there should be open dialogue by the FA about how such decisions were made and if a mistake was made what steps are being made to get better. A ref is bound to miss things but people watching TV screens shouldn't.

Personally I'd like to see each manager given one review each half that they can use. It can be limited to a period of 20 seconds of play leading to a goal or a major incident such as a penalty incident. This could then be reviewed live with the ref and the VAR team. Whatever the outcome that review is used up. I'm sure that the chance to see incidents again, such as Welbeck's, would result in the correct decision. The pitch side screens should be located at two points around the pitch allowing the assistant a chance to be there and any player or official from any team encroach an area close to the ref and screen is booked.

VAR then only to be used for offsides and serious foul play.

 

[BNthree]

I don't really understand why there isn't a video panel that sit down each Monday morning and run through the games, at least for the EPL, and issue cards for anyone found cheating, simulating. I would have thought the issue would be gone after a couple of weeks.

Would love this to happen. Even if it isn't a card as such but some sort of written warning and if they player gets more than 3 of them they miss a match or the like. Just some way to stop the cheating and let the players know they can't get away with it.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Re ref blaming. I cringed when Tuchel was asked whether his red card for fair and he said "It was not necessary. It is just another mistake the referee made".

Before the red card was brandished Tuchel had clashed with Conte when Spurs equalised for which - under the letter of the law - he rightly received a yellow.

He then left his technical area to run 30 yards up the touchline - past Conte - punching the air like a loon and was lucky to escape without a second yellow.

He then clashed with Conte again and incited a melee. Anthony Taylor rightly showed both managers a straight red.

At least Conte had the grace to not comment on receiving his red, but Tuchel had a pop.

Furthermore, the incident that got Tuchel started was the Havertz "foul" when the replays showed Bentancur got a touch on the ball when sliding in. The ref saw this and waved play-on, but Tuchel's reaction egged on Havertz.

This is the backdrop against which the officials are operating. The right thing would be for Tuchel to receive an additional penalty for criticising Taylor who had a super game - apart from missing the hair pull on Cucu.

 

[SUIYHP]

Like many on here I think problem is largely with VAR, personally I don't think it is effectively communicating what is going on. Maybe we should take a lesson from egg tossing here (both ours and the yank version)- open mics for tv viewers that taps into comms between referees and VAR room when there is a decision being made, then a loudspeaker for an official (maybe ref or fourth official) to announce the outcome to the stadium crowd. It would at least highlight how bloody difficult it is to officiate on these decisions.