Referees

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Referees are a law unto themselves they seem to think they can make the rules up as the game goes on.

Phil Dowd in the league cup final should have sent Vidic off in the 4th minute he was the last man.

Time for the FA to seriously look how the games are officiated and how the rules are applied.

[Row Z Royal]

Nah.

[Dickie Davies]

Yarp.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/doncaster/8544066.stm

Doncaster Rovers lodge complaint against referee

Doncaster Rovers have made an official complaint to the Football League about referee Neil Swarbrick.

Ryan is angry that Swarbrick turned down two penalty claims and ruled out two goals against Rovers during the 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Rovers chairman John Ryan told BBC Radio Sheffield:"The word appalling comes to mind.

"I've spoken to David Allison, the head of League referees, and told him of my absolute disgust of several decisions."

[Royalee]

Referees are coached poorly by people who don't understand the game, are obsessed with stamping their authority on games and are not helped by Sepp Blatter's Fifa Presidency during which he's brought in the most ridiculous ruling in recent history in the 'goalscoring opportunity red card' law.

[Terminal Boardom]

Referees are coached poorly by people who don't understand the game, are obsessed with stamping their authority on games and are not helped by Sepp Blatter's Fifa Presidency during which he's brought in the most ridiculous ruling in recent history in the 'goalscoring opportunity red card' law.

What evidence do you have for this?

The problem is not the referees. They are the pawns stuck in the middle. My gripe is with the administrators who continually confuse matters with their poorly worded nonsense. The biggest problem facing referees is that they are no longer allowed to apply Rule 19.

[cmonurz]

Ineresting comments from Poll, and highlighted in the Times, our former top referee saying that Dowd would have been looking for any possible reason not to send off Vidic, given the early point in the game, and the occasion.

It should be the job of the referee to apply the rules, not form an opinion on the spectacle.

[eleventh earl of mar]

Laws of the game, not Rules. Different competitions can have different rules I.E. Europa League with two extra referee's assistants, but the laws of the games are the same in all competitions.

[Terminal Boardom]

Ineresting comments from Poll, and highlighted in the Times, our former top referee saying that Dowd would have been looking for any possible reason not to send off Vidic, given the early point in the game, and the occasion.

It should be the job of the referee to apply the rules, not form an opinion on the spectacle.

Totally agree. I asked myself, as an ex-referee whether or not Agbonlahor would have got a shot off if he hadn't been fouled by Vidic. The simple answer is yes which would in turn be a case of preventing a goal scoring opportunity. It had to be a red card. That he did not even brandish a yellow is beyond comprehension. I wonder what would have happened had the referee been an 18 year old doing a Sunday League game and being assessed?

[PlasticRoyale]

Referees are a law unto themselves they seem to think they can make the rules up as the game goes on.

Phil Dowd in the league cup final should have sent Vidic off in the 4th minute he was the last man.

Time for the FA to seriously look how the games are officiated and how the rules are applied.

4fs!

[Hoop Blah]

Referees are coached poorly by people who don't understand the game, are obsessed with stamping their authority on games and are not helped by Sepp Blatter's Fifa Presidency during which he's brought in the most ridiculous ruling in recent history in the 'goalscoring opportunity red card' law.

You've let yourself down there with a massive factual inaccuracy!

Any self respecting Reading fan should know that the red card for a professional foul (one that denies a goal scoring opportunity) was introduced way before Blatter became President. Why? Because our very own Lawrie Sanchez was the first player to be sent off for it.

As it turns out FIFA didn't even want to adopt it and so the English League made it a local rule which was then picked up by FIFA for the 1990 World Cup.

Blatter wasn't made President until '98.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Hands up who wants to be a referee?

How many ex Pros are Refs?

And we wonder why they are shit.

Next time a Ex player now manager rants about a poor decision thats costs them, maybe they should be asked why they dont become one themselves?

[Dirk Gently]

In the words of the maestro,

If my players made as few mistakes as referees do we'd be top of the league all the time.

[Hoop Blah]

I've always maintained that all youth players attached to professional clubs should go through a refs course. It would:
- help them understand the rules more
- help them understand the refs point of view more
- give something back to the local community as they'd also be made to ref kids and park football
- give them another route to stay in the game if they don't make it, they might just get a taste for ref'ing

[Jack Celliers]

I've always maintained that all youth players attached to professional clubs should go through a refs course. It would:
- help them understand the rules more
- help them understand the refs point of view more
- give something back to the local community as they'd also be made to ref kids and park football
- give them another route to stay in the game if they don't make it, they might just get a taste for ref'ing

That's a good idea. We might get some more clued-up pundits as well.

Perhaps some fans could do with a similar course. There was an unbelievable incident in a Peterborough game recently. A striker tried to control the ball with his hands in the opposition penalty area. The referee blew, and the crowd started calling, 'off, off, off..."

[Sun Tzu]

I've always maintained that all youth players attached to professional clubs should go through a refs course. It would:
- help them understand the rules more
- help them understand the refs point of view more
- give something back to the local community as they'd also be made to ref kids and park football
- give them another route to stay in the game if they don't make it, they might just get a taste for ref'ing

And as all coaches in youth soccer must get at least a level 1 coaching qualification I would add that they should also do a basic course on the laws of the game.

I can never believe that anyone with a serious interest in the sport cannot be bothered to learn the laws which govern the sport ! Most cricket and rugby fans have a decent knowledge of the laws of their respective sports but football fans seem to be happy to remain ignorant, hence calls for red cards for being 'the last man', the belief that you can commit any sort of foul as long as you 'get a bit of the ball' and the inability to work out why linesmen don;t always flag offsides the instant the ball is played !!

[Franchise FC]

I've always maintained that all youth players attached to professional clubs should go through a refs course. It would:
- help them understand the rules more
- help them understand the refs point of view more
- give something back to the local community as they'd also be made to ref kids and park football
- give them another route to stay in the game if they don't make it, they might just get a taste for ref'ing

And as all coaches in youth soccer must get at least a level 1 coaching qualification I would add that they should also do a basic course on the laws of the game.

I can never believe that anyone with a serious interest in the sport cannot be bothered to learn the laws which govern the sport ! Most cricket and rugby fans have a decent knowledge of the laws of their respective sports but football fans seem to be happy to remain ignorant, hence calls for red cards for being 'the last man', the belief that you can commit any sort of foul as long as you 'get a bit of the ball' and the inability to work out why linesmen don;t always flag offsides the instant the ball is played !!

At least the 'last man' argument holds some water.

It is LIKELY (but not certain) that the last man commiting such an offence is denying a goal scroing opportunity.

[Royalee]

Referees are coached poorly by people who don't understand the game, are obsessed with stamping their authority on games and are not helped by Sepp Blatter's Fifa Presidency during which he's brought in the most ridiculous ruling in recent history in the 'goalscoring opportunity red card' law.

You've let yourself down there with a massive factual inaccuracy!

Any self respecting Reading fan should know that the red card for a professional foul (one that denies a goal scoring opportunity) was introduced way before Blatter became President. Why? Because our very own Lawrie Sanchez was the first player to be sent off for it.

As it turns out FIFA didn't even want to adopt it and so the English League made it a local rule which was then picked up by FIFA for the 1990 World Cup.

Blatter wasn't made President until '98.

You've misunderstood me here - I know that players used to be sent off for a professional foul - Blatter replaced this with a law stating that players should be sent off for 'denying a goalscoring opportunity' which has made a mockery of the game. You punish players who have made honest attempts to win the ball once with a penalty in many cases and effectively punish them again with a sending off which is totally wrong yet you see players like Ricardo Carvalho professionally foul players in the middle third and rarely get punished. The change in the wording has caused massive problems and ruins many a game and Blatter's presidency is responsible for it.

[Royalee]

Referees are coached poorly by people who don't understand the game, are obsessed with stamping their authority on games and are not helped by Sepp Blatter's Fifa Presidency during which he's brought in the most ridiculous ruling in recent history in the 'goalscoring opportunity red card' law.

What evidence do you have for this?

The problem is not the referees. They are the pawns stuck in the middle. My gripe is with the administrators who continually confuse matters with their poorly worded nonsense. The biggest problem facing referees is that they are no longer allowed to apply Rule 19.

I'm a qualified referee and have refereed well over 100 games. During the training and assessment you are criticised for trying to use any common sense and the majority of assessors from the local FA are overly officious pencil pushers who don't understand the game. In one youth game (I think it was under 13s or 12s on one of my earlier games) a team were losing about 10-0 and their goalie's brought a player down by accident - I gave the penalty but didn't send him off as there were about 5 minutes left, you get fined for red cards even at that level and the game was pretty much over, the penalty was scored, the game ended 12-0 or something like that and at the end of the game the assessor comes over, said I had a good game but should have sent off the keeper so marked me down for it. For me it just summed up some of the people running our game in this country.

[Hoop Blah]

Referees are coached poorly by people who don't understand the game, are obsessed with stamping their authority on games and are not helped by Sepp Blatter's Fifa Presidency during which he's brought in the most ridiculous ruling in recent history in the 'goalscoring opportunity red card' law.

You've let yourself down there with a massive factual inaccuracy!

Any self respecting Reading fan should know that the red card for a professional foul (one that denies a goal scoring opportunity) was introduced way before Blatter became President. Why? Because our very own Lawrie Sanchez was the first player to be sent off for it.

As it turns out FIFA didn't even want to adopt it and so the English League made it a local rule which was then picked up by FIFA for the 1990 World Cup.

Blatter wasn't made President until '98.

You've misunderstood me here - I know that players used to be sent off for a professional foul - Blatter replaced this with a law stating that players should be sent off for 'denying a goalscoring opportunity' which has made a mockery of the game. You punish players who have made honest attempts to win the ball once with a penalty in many cases and effectively punish them again with a sending off which is totally wrong yet you see players like Ricardo Carvalho professionally foul players in the middle third and rarely get punished. The change in the wording has caused massive problems and ruins many a game and Blatter's presidency is responsible for it.

Not sure I see the distinction there Royalee. Blatter simply put into the letter of FIFA's laws pretty much exactly what was being enforced already.

What are yo saying is the difference between what was happening here (and later used at the 1990 World Cup) with what was put into the rules of the game and still applied today?