Why does the English game have such poor refs at present??

[Red4Life_#7]

The incorrect decisions, mistakes and general poor refereering in the English Premier League. I read something a few days ago where they spoke about how poor the refereering is compared to the continent.

Var is causing it's own issues, but the refereering in the Prem has become a joke. Yesterday, a referee didn't even know he had blown his own whistle to start play for an attacking free kick (Brighton Vs WBA), only to be told by the players he had, resulting in a goal being disallowed, allowed then disallowed again.

I didn't write this message in the Ref and Var thread as I wanted to discuss specifically why our league has such poor Refs at the moment and I didn't want this message to get lost in that thread. What are the reasons, has the training changed etc

In the Championship a Ref pushing his head up against another player last week. No authority, example setting or control.

Why have things dropped so much? I'm comparing to the days of Graham Poll etc

 

[SER19]

It's the worst it's ever been. Been watching a long time and I genuinely wouldn't trust a single one of them with a world Cup semi final or final for example. They're shocking, and going by shaws comments, the mental side of it is to blame and there's an inability to just apply the rules. Some of the stuff this season has been the stuff of comedy.

Lee Mason in Brighton game yesterday.
The non offside in City vs Villa.
The exact opposite decisions given in the United and Shedfield united game just minutes apart.


They're appalling. And while no ref should ever be abused or threatened, atwell should be doing a routine post match interview today. Or at least his match report made available and assessor comments also.

 

[Oranges038]

Always has been awful refs, VAR was supposed to help remove the terrible and wrong decisions. Instead it seems like it's really just highlighted how terrible the standard or refereeing really is.

 

[cj_sparky]

It won't get any better, the next batch refereeing in the U18's/23's are, hmm... appalling.

 

[charlenefan]

VAR's actually made the on field refs even worse, I honestly think they now give decisions knowing there's zero consequences as VAR will rule it out if they're wrong. No accountability anymore for the on field ref

 

[Harry190]

It's tradition.

 

[Vidyoyo]

It's all very random and certainly doesn't look like there's much coordinated decision-making going on. People say VAR is crap everywhere though.

Edit - Also I think they've just half-arsed VAR generally. It was a huge invitation to start being more objective but I think they/the FA simply aren't eager to do that.

 

[roonster09]

I can understand if they make poor decisions when they didn't have help of VAR. Now they are scared to make right decisions fearing the backlash, that's just awful standards.

 

[Lay]

Maybe they're tired. A lot of games in short amount of time this season

 

[Robertd0803]

Because they are all afraid of the abuse they will get for screwing up decisions and also too concerned about their own image.

There has been some shit decision levelled against us recently let alone farcical scenes like Dunks free kick yesterday. Underlying reason the current crop of referees are mentally weak and incompetent.

There is no accountabilty for refs when it comes to them admitting to making shit decisions which is a joke. Lee Mason couldnt do 4th official duty tonight because of "an injury" yet it should have been automatic that he wasnt going to be involved after the game yesterday.

As @Lay says above tiredness could be a factor and the short turnaround time could feature as well. My question is when is the refs performance actually reviewed? Lee Mason has a shocker yesterday and yet is on the panel for a game the very next day. "Hey you made a bad call a few weeks ago so we will take you off duties this weekend, never mind anything that happened in the last 5 or 6 games in the meantime".

 

[cyberman]

If Lee Mason didnt feck it up yesterday, I think we get thst pen

 

[Pexbo]

Because they’ve been over protected for the last 20+ years.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

The leeway you'd give refs in the past (for example, without VAR I do think you'd have sympathy with the ref for not spotting the handball... Thus there would be less anger /outrage) no longer applies, and that is being coupled with VAR exposing that a lot of refs are either dumb / incompetent or actually just don't know the rules.

It also doesn't help when you have refs that are in the shape Jon Moss is in...

 

[Anustart89]

The leeway you'd give refs in the past (for example, without VAR I don't think you'd have sympathy with the ref for not spotting the handball... Thus there would be less anger /outrage) no longer applies, and that is being coupled with VAR exposing that a lot of refs are either dumb / incompetent or actually just don't know the rules.

It also doesn't help when you have refs that are in the shape Jon Moss is in...

It’s not just that they’re dumb or incompetent. They’re also ignoring the laws of the game in order to officiate according to narratives or biases. If what Shaw said is correct then the referee has made a call not because the laws of the game says he shouldn’t make it, but because of what people would say. That just shows a belief that the talk of the town is more important than the laws of the game for a referee, which should be a sackable offence for a referee. This cnut in particular though, who already has a ghost goal on his record, will probably be strutting around out there next week refereeing narratives rather than football games.

It’s obvious that these cnuts think they’re part of the show that is the PL and not merely there to officiate the game.

 

[Bobcat]

The incorrect decisions, mistakes and general poor refereering in the English Premier League. I read something a few days ago where they spoke about how poor the refereering is compared to the continent.

Var is causing it's own issues, but the refereering in the Prem has become a joke. Yesterday, a referee didn't even know he had blown his own whistle to start play for an attacking free kick (Brighton Vs WBA), only to be told by the players he had, resulting in a goal being disallowed, allowed then disallowed again.

I didn't write this message in the Ref and Var thread as I wanted to discuss specifically why our league has such poor Refs at the moment and I didn't want this message to get lost in that thread. What are the reasons, has the training changed etc

In the Championship a Ref pushing his head up against another player last week. No authority, example setting or control.

Why have things dropped so much? I'm comparing to the days of Graham Poll etc

Because there is zero accountability. Not from the FA and not from the press

Players and managers do post match interviews, why not the refs?

 

[Chipper]

Hard to say without knowing the ins and outs of the referee scene. I know they're not very good from watching them and that's consensus as no English ref was invited to the last World Cup for the first time.

Would obviously look at the training they're given first, would also look at who decides which refs are promoted to the top level and which aren't because you'd have to think there might be some better ones out there being overlooked. Would try to raise participation levels as well. The more people who give it a go the more bad ones you're going to find but also more good ones who will hopefully rise to the top just as long the assessors are good at their job which like I said probably needs looking at too. Think there's a certain stigma to being a ref, at least in the UK, not sure about elsewhere so getting more people into it might be hard but worth a go. They also get a lot of abuse at all levels of course.

 

[Bubz27]

A big part of it is that they're incredibly well protected and there's no real deterrent for making a mistake.

If they mess up, majority of the time ex-refs will back them in the media. Mason got taken off 4th official duty today because he's "injured" apparently. Another example of protecting a totally inept refereeing performance.

 

[Amarsdd]

Lack of accountability. It's as simple as that.

 

[horsechoker]

There are a lack of refs according to this. Perhaps the trade is suffering from quality due to the low numbers

 

[Posh Red]

Hard to say without knowing the ins and outs of the referee scene. I know they're not very good from watching them and that's consensus as no English ref was invited to the last World Cup for the first time.

Would obviously look at the training they're given first, would also look at who decides which refs are promoted to the top level and which aren't because you'd have to think there might be some better ones out there being overlooked. Would try to raise participation levels as well. The more people who give it a go the more bad ones you're going to find but also more good ones who will hopefully rise to the top just as long the assessors are good at their job which like I said probably needs looking at too. Think there's a certain stigma to being a ref, at least in the UK, not sure about elsewhere so getting more people into it might be hard but worth a go. They also get a lot of abuse at all levels of course.

I heard that at grassroots level some now wear body cams to protect them. I wonder if that would help cut out some of the abuse.

 

[Bastian]

Maybe they need to be imported.

 

[Idxomer]

A lot of them look unfit as well which is something you rarely find in any European league.

 

[darko]

Too many rule changes and changes in rule interpretations even mid-season. I have some sympathy for officials.

 

[Lentwood]

The current crop of referees are, let’s face it, generally oddballs who have never played the game at all, let alone at any half-decent level

The FA should be actively looking at players released by non league/lower league clubs in their early/mid 20s and offering them refereeing scholarships.

Obviously many wouldn’t take it up and it would take time to train them, but eventually you would get a strong crop of officials who have actually played the game at a decent level

 

[Shane88]

Zero accountability and secrecy has bred this arrogant crop of incompetent clowns.

Why the feck are Premier League refs covering their mouths when discussing with VAR when other professional sports like rugby broadcast to the world their decisions and the process behind them?

 

[Drz]

Personally don't feel it's exclusive to England.
VAR for all it's faults has highlighted grey areas in the rules, the poor knowledge of said rules from the referees and the incoherence in the way the referee setup is organised post-VAR.

 

[alexthelion]

Because there is zero accountability. Not from the FA and not from the press

Players and managers do post match interviews, why not the refs?

This, this and this.

 

[The Purley King]

Anyone can check my previous posts on this topic I seem to remember having a similar conversation a few years ago.
I played semi pro football for 12 years before my knees packed in.
After a couple of years I wanted to get back involved again so did my refs training. I was hoping to make a 2nd career from the game.
It would have taken me 5/6 years of refereeing to ref at the same level I played at!! (Mostly level 7/8 in the pyramid)
I did a year of Sunday league before giving up. I was hoping I’d move more quickly up the ladder as I had real life experience of what goes on in a game (much of which nobody will ever see on the telly ).
I also had experience of referees conferences and the “club” they are all in. I can understand the reasons for it but make no mistake a ref will NEVER throw another ref under the bus. Just won’t ever happen.
And that is the reason var will never work properly because refs (collectively) will never admit to a bad decision. Especially the high profile ones with a king sized ego.

 

[The Purley King]

Also this is the reason we will never hear the conversations between ref and VAR.

 

[Fitchett]

https://goalometer.com/referee_stats/Manchester_United.php

Good analysis of cards issued against us, by referee, since 2001. Interesting to see that the so called top refs (Dean, Oliver, Atkinson) now, and (Webb, Bennett, Elleray, Clattenburg, Riley) earlier, issued the most against us. The message is clear - penalise United if you want to make it to the top as a referee!

 

[Fluctuation0161]

VAR is highlighting more than ever how poor English referees are.

 

[Flying high]

Narrative.

The refs clearly make decisions based on the players involved and the match situation. They manage games rather than ref them.

 

[saivet]

I often see this, but is it actually something unique to referees in England? It's easy to be so critical when you see every goal/big decision for every game in the league. A lot of us will just be following the bigger clubs abroad.I wonder what La Liga, Bundesliga or Serie A fans think of their refs and VAR for comparison.

 

[Gio]

The level of scrutiny is like nothing before. Go and watch a full match from the 1990s or earlier and you don't have to wait very long before you see a referee drop a huge clanger. It is just they often did not get scrutinised because of a lack of footage, fewer camera angles and less of a hard-on for the controversial narrative. Now we have Humphreys on BT leading the post-match analysis almost invariably with whichever bad decision they've picked up during the course of the match. However, what that level of scrutiny has exposed is that there is occasionally a lack of in-depth understanding of the game. I think @The Purley King makes a good point that there is sometimes a mismatch between the interpretation of those who have played hundreds of games in their career versus those who have not and have refereed them instead. Some of that is coming to the surface with the highly granular way decisions are currently being analysed.

Not always that easy though, I would agree with @darko that referees have struggled with the volume of rule changes and particularly the retrofitting of rules to suit VAR.

 

[Denis' cuff]

They referee to please the gallery (pundits)

media controlling the game

 

[roonster09]

The level of scrutiny is like nothing before. Go and watch a full match from the 1990s or earlier and you don't have to wait very long before you see a referee drop a huge clanger. It is just they often did not get scrutinised because of a lack of footage, fewer camera angles and less of a hard-on for the controversial narrative. Now we have Humphreys on BT leading the post-match analysis almost invariably with whichever bad decision they've picked up during the course of the match. However, what that level of scrutiny has exposed is that there is occasionally a lack of in-depth understanding of the game. I think @The Purley King makes a good point that there is sometimes a mismatch between the interpretation of those who have played hundreds of games in their career versus those who have not and have refereed them instead. Some of that is coming to the surface with the highly granular way decisions are currently being analysed.

Not always that easy though, I would agree with @darko that referees have struggled with the volume of rule changes and particularly the retrofitting of rules to suit VAR.

There was always a huge scrutiny isn't it.

 

[Cast5]

I think they’ve been poor this season, but makes me wonder do the people who complain actually watch other leagues? They talk about English press but do they read Spanish or Italian news papers and they moan about English commentary do they listen to other countries commentary? English pundits as well do they listen to foreign pundits?

I often see terrible decisions in other leagues and we have had some awful refs from Europe in the CL and Europa that have cost us. I just think the PL is the most watched, So there’s more eyes on poor decisions, if the Soucek elbow against Fulham would have been in a Cadiz vs Valladolid game would it have been talked about?

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Referees of yesteryear would have looked bad with the same microscopic frame by frame multiple angle lens applied.

It’s a bad crop. But the insane levels of analysis in this country makes it far worse.

Mistakes will always occur. Focusing on them after the game has made things feel terrible.

 

[Ajr]

There should be two refs in each game

 

[Classical Mechanic]

I'd imagine it's a scrutiny thing. You only have to watch the 'finest' from other European Leagues in the CL and Europa to know that the level appears to be similar elsewhere. I'd add the review system in the EL from the viewers perspective seems is terrible as well. Limited replays and one of our goals against Sociedad appeared to be offside.