Today's refereeing qualities

I love football. Ever since I was a small boy, I've followed the best-supported sport in the world. I've been a supporter, a player, an assistant manager, a referee and served the game in many other ways as well. Not all at the same time but, at various stages of my life. In order for me to pass my referee's qualifying exam in 1978, I needed to know everything about the game in which I was to officiate, inside and out. That knowledge came from my many years of watching and playing the game... and being coached by some of the best in their field. Determination was a big assist in me earning my badge.

Nowadays, I watch my football from the comfort of my armchair. Not because I choose to but, because that's the way that life keeps tossing curveballs in my direction. Yet that doesn't mean that I cannot assess the viability and vulnerability of the referees and linos in the matches that I watch and, believe me, from what I see each week there are a number of 'high profile' referees officiating in the English Premier League (EPL) whom I would not allow anywhere near that competition if I was in charge of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL).

Week in and week out the referees that PGMOL arrange to officiate at top ranking matches manage to cock things up, from poor decision-making to missed penalties to failure to produce yellow or red cards when very appropriate to do so. And, don't think that the Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR) will step in to save the skin of the 'man in the middle', because VAR is being overseen by their buddies who are also PGMOL-registered referees and are accompanied by an assistant referee (or 'lino' in old money) from the EPL list and a Video Replay Engineer who works the monitors 'to find the best angles to view potentially missed offences at'. How about 'referees are only human'? A football commentator derived phrase that's debatable in the eyes of many football supporters but, as I found out during my many happy years officiating 'in the middle' on park pitches, referees are 'only human' until they get things wrong; then they become all manner of low-life.

According to the PGMOL website, it is set up 'to deliver the quality of refereeing required by the Competitions' and 'mirrors the setup of a football club with coaches, sports scientists, sports psychologists and physiotherapists all part of the improvement process'. Why is it, then, that PGMOL-appointed officials still manage to incur the wrath of EPL clubs over and over every week? Something is definitely not right when a referee can be paid thousands of pounds per annum to impartially officiate in the top-level games but can, at the same time, cock up several straightforward decisions in a game that can and does have consequential repercussions throughout the competition. Same with the cup competitions, too.

For many, many years, we have prided ourselves on having the best referees in the world. I think that crown may well be slipping or has already slipped a bit nowadays. By their very (in)actions, EPL referees can seal the fate of relegation-battling clubs and still pick up their monthly pay packet. The referees, unless they do something really wrong that brings referees or the game into disrepute, will still be in the EPL the following year; clubs relegated due to refereeing blunders won't be.

I believe it all comes down to the referees' ego. When I started on my referees' course in Bromley in 1978, the very first rule of Fight Club is 'You do not talk about Fight Club',  was 'Don't be noticed'. And I kept to that rule, until I sent four players off in a game once, then everybody noticed me. With EPL referees, they are always on TV, they are 'live' in front of the nation (and probably other nations as well), they are in an amphitheatre-style setting where the crowds yell and crow at the performers in the middle who are getting paid to perform. Who wouldn't get an ego boost from such scenarios? But it all comes at a cost; the cost of paying referees to do their job properly and to their best ability yet instead we the paying public, the supporters and the subscribers to TV football channels see cock up after cock up in our beloved game.

But, what is the alternative? If the most inept referees are removed from the EPL, who are they going to be replaced with? Are refereeing standards any better further down the pyramid? Could National League (NL) level referees officiate at the top level? Would they go on an ego trip induced by the 'instant fame' and 'fat wallet' scenarios already mentioned above? The frightening thing is, if we didn't have referees, there would be no games; if there are no games, there would be no football clubs to support. With no football clubs, there would be no football stadia. With no football stadia, there would be no supporters to spend hundreds of pounds each week through the turnstiles. The game would be dead. Do the referees therefore already know the power they contain in their whistles and act accordingly? Food for thought.

I have written about two referees over the years who I believe we now miss in the game. One was the late Roger Kirkpatrick and the other is Pierre Luigi Collina. They had character and charisma on the pitch. Everybody wanted to see them officiate and they never let anybody down. In my very humble opinion, they were the best at officiating in games while adding a bit of humour, too - something that seriously appears to have been drained from the referees' repertoire in the modern game...

Trevor Mulligan