AFS Feature: Treatment of referees
Who is really to blame?
Rather like mothers, fathers and primary school teachers, football referees are looked upon as a breed of person who is not allowed to make mistakes. It is only later in life that we understand that teachers and parents are human after all and thus allowed to have frailties of their own. It is rare, however, for any discerning football follower, to extend the same empathy to those men who used to wear black.
View any media outlet, written or otherwise, in the aftermath of a bout of weekend fixtures and you will be hard-pressed to find a report or analysis which does not highlight the supposed inefficiencies of a referee whose decision, or indeed overall performance, has affected the outcome of any given match. Managers, players and spectators alike will all search for someone to hold responsible for their own team’s inadequacies, and who better than the man in charge? But shouldn’t we just accept the referee is just like any one of us, prone to error, open to failings, guilty of nothing more than honest mistakes?
In football, as in life, most decisions, good or bad, will even themselves out over a period of time, yet the blame culture which is prevalent in our society dictates that we tend to dwell on those outcomes which are to our disadvantage and suitably discard those which actually benefit us. By way of example, way back in 1966, did Geoff Hurst really score? To many an Englishman, it is a rhetorical question as we have quickly accepted this was in the country’s favour. Twenty years on and Maradona and his ‘Hand of God’ places a different perspective on things. From an English point of view, that goal cost the nation the World Cup, because of course we would have gone on to be crowned world champions but for that one act, even though this was a quarter final encounter and two victories away from international glory.
Given the exposure which football currently enjoys, there is a clear duty for high profile figures within the game to dictate that referees are afforded more protection and support in order that mayhem does not prevail. The media are in the business to sell their product, and hence will sensationalise at any and every opportunity, and for that reason alone could possibly be excused. However, they have the vehicle to preach to the masses, and boy do they know how to drive it. The managers and players have a much higher obligation to respect those in authority and to ensure their comments and behaviour do not overstep the mark. Many aspiring referees are watching keenly and some will be driven away from the game if they think it is a profession not worth following. Cliché as it may seem, but the game cannot start without a referee.
Various solutions have been proffered to improve the control of games, the two which have received most press being full-time officials and goal-line technology. Can anybody really say with conviction that the introduction of full-time referees has ensured that officials’ errors have been eradicated? After all, Premiership goalkeepers still excel in the art of letting in ridiculously comical goals and international strikers still inexcusably miss open goals, yet these artists have been full-time and at the top of their profession for years.
Make no mistake about it, goal-line technology will be a part of football in the near future, but it needs a huge amount of fine-tuning before it can be implemented. It also sets a dangerous precedent in that it may well be employed in other aspects of the game, with the possible consequence of undermining the referee all the more and further alienating potential referees from the game.
Far better then, that those in high standing positions who have the ability to influence the impressionable public should take accountability and promote the game, and the treatment of officials, in the right way.
Simon Swinn