Referees - a thankless task

I had a score @5/2 btts and Brazil to win so in my totally unbiased opinion it was a terrible decision by the officials and the "goal" should have stood.

Very good point crackerz! Refs do a great job and do not get the respect they deserve. Some of the players are outright cheats.

Totally agree crackerz, refereeing has been exceptional during this tournament, hardly a bad decision. I too found it strange the pundits were seeming to criticise Webb despite saying he got all the decisions right

Agree with the OP.  I feared the worst with Brazils penalty in the first game but it's been excellent since.  Not much been made of it but its noticeable how refs have not been dishing out the yellows which has kept 11 a side and contributed to an exciting attacking World Cup.

Some of the things pundits and commentators say about refs is scandalous.  They never praise even when the ref is right (my favourite is when a ref correctly gives a controversial decision and the co-commentator claims he's lucky as he didn't get a clear and guessed - in any other field they'd be praised for using their experience and judgement to make the right decision).

Contrast the way commentators treat cricket umpires.  First of all they accept umpiring is difficult and then try to explain why a decision is reached rather than just mock the official.  In cricket they'll often conclude whether a decision is 'fair' based on the facts and evidence, in football commentators only deal in right or wrong ignoring the fact many decisions could go either way depending on how incidents are interpreted.

totally agree crackerz, its an impossible task. Refs are wrong if they are right.

Take the game fred, some people still dont think it was handball, what chance have refs got.

The ref doesn't have a vested interested in cheating, although I agree they don't get the respect they deserve.  That's both cultural and media led.  Fwiw I think it was a penalty but it was almost impossible for Howard Webb to tell in real time from his view.  Howard is one of those refs who if he isn't very sure he doesn't give it, a stance he continues with his lack of red cards.  He very much plays the political percentages in his decision making with awareness of the bigger picture from his perspective.  And it clearly works because he landed the World Cup Final.  Personally, I think Mike Dean, the penalty king, is the best referee in England.  He is totally fearless when it comes to awarding penalties.  He can do that imo because he almost never gets it wrong.  I think if Howard took that stance, he'd get more wrong. 

The handball was handball and a very good call.

morning CLYDESBANK....I get the impression that you are/were a ref?

Almost an impossible job - as people have already said they are criticised by pundits & fans even when they get decisions right - without the benefit of hindsight all you can hope is they make their decisions honestly and this I believe they do

its bizarre that so much fouling is allowed in the world cup

its like weve gone back 12 years

will the same rules be applied in premier league next season

stoke and west ham will be top 6 teams

There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this,and it is that technology is desperately needed.The game must be brought into the modern era,and not rely on officials hoping to get it right,as said,on the spur of the moment.
  The technology is used in other sports,so it is about time it was used for football.The situation will only get worse.
Regarding the time taken for these rulings,it is nothing in comparison with time wasting tactics,and stoppages for various reasons.Kevin Pullein has done a survey as to how long the ball is actually in play.Interesting reading!

no sofia.  I did analyze refs for betting purposes around 3-4 years ago, so I know a bit about them.

In any game of football there will usually be 22 dishonest people seeking to con one honest person and usually it is the one honest person who gets the stick from the pundits because they used to belong to the dishonest 22 and so will naturally side with the players. I've seen the Hulk incident from various angles with the benefit of slow motion and on balance I think he used his arm. When you have that degree of technology, time to peruse and no pressure to get the right decision and you still can't arrive at a definitive conclusion it illustrates the difficulties for that one honest man.

The ref doesn't have a vested interested in cheating,

In two senses they do. 

On a human level, no-one enjoys being booed by thousands of fans so there is a subconscious bias to favour the home support.

On a career level, certainly in England if you want to progress to UEFA and FIFA, you must be reffing the games between the Big Four.  And refs that got on the wrong side of Ferguson (for example) would find themselves off that list pretty sharpish

the one honest man didnt make the decision

There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this,and it is that technology is desperately needed.The game must be brought into the modern era,and not rely on officials hoping to get it right,as said,on the spur of the moment.
  The technology is used in other sports,so it is about time it was used for football.

That's an easy thing to say, but technology across all sports is primarily used to verify facts (will the ball hit the stumps, did the catch carry, was the ball touched down, was the ball over the line, was the ball thrown forward)

In football you can look at the goaline, you might be able to improve accuracy on offside decisions, but beyond that there are elements of doubt even with video replay.  Handball requires intent; sometimes it is clearly present or absent, quite often it's a grey area.  Fouls are very much more difficult; the laws talk about "impeding" which totally unquantifiable.  Is a nudge enough?  And if you go down that route then necessarily you would have to introduce some sort of collision analysing software to ensure that a player was actually knocked over by a tackle and didn't drop over an outstretched leg instead.  Without something systematic, delays could go on for minutes at a time.  In sports that have many breaks in play that might be acceptable, but football is not that kind of game

when exactly did the linesman flag because the ball was in the back of the net and he still hadn't raised his flag.

OP , spot on , no webb fan myself , but a refs job know is impossible , EVERY GAME from lower leagues upto the world cup , 22 cheats on the field , all trying to grab an advantage , what **** me off is when the pundits in the studio analyse the game afterwards and say " the lad has been clever there " no what you ****g mean is that he has conned the referee , **** sake cheating is cheating ,

Sugarfoot gives an excellent summary of why more technology in football wouldn't work.  The sport doesn't need it and doesn't lend itself to its extension unless some extraordinary technology could help with offsides perhaps.

im pretty much against more technology

they could extend goal line technology to all lines, in due course, should help refs and linos

and theres always a case to say marradona handball should be overturned...
but until you can be 100% certain of 100% accuracy of technology on 100% of incidents , it should not be introduced, imo

take yesterdays handball ...

did hulk really intend to handle it ?

for sure he gained an advantage when the ball hit his arm, but did he intend to chest it down ?


we could still be waiting for a restart on that one

I guess it depends if the aim is to play the game at the fastest possible speed with accuracy of decisions irrelevant, or slightly slower with greater accuracy of decisions.

So many many of the decisions to be made are subjective that technology will not necessarily help provide a definitive answer - look at the pundits discussing things seemingly forever - so I'm against. The only way they can conceivably help is with offsides because they can be considered quickly - the game is so fast nowadays & so many decisions are wrong - not deliberately but they are difficult to see when forwards are pushing forward, defenders running out & who is interfering with play and assistance in this regard I think helps.

Totally disagree.Why should the outcome of the game hinge on whether the ref. was right ,or wrong,when a replay could show more.IF,in the event that a replay shows the outcome to still be inconclusive,then fair enough,but in the event it shows yes,it was handball,no it wasn't handball,yes,it was a dive,no,it was a trip,yes it was inside the area,no,it was outside the area etc. etc.
I have seen too many important games ruined by atrocious decisions from the officials,so a change is needed.Those that don't want change must be living in the past.Look at the oh so simple way of marking out 10 yards,that hasn't come to the UK yet!!!

I agree. It's one of the reasons I watch much less football nowadays.

Using that logic there is no need for a referee because all decisions can be made from a studio

It would cut down the diving etc.

Not stuck in the past at all unbiased.  I agree it works well in many other sports.   No problem with the principle of technology, it's how it would work in practice.

If you would like to propose a viable system of how it would be successfully introduced then I'd be interested to hear it?

What decisions would you introduced technology for?  Offsides?  Penalty area incidents?  Disciplinary issues?  Goals?

How would decisions be referred and by who?

How far back in play would you go to look an infringement?

Yesterday's handball is quite a good example of the problem with technology.  You can spend 10 minutes pouring over endless replays without any clear agreement.  It's not like a line call in tennis or lbw in cricket.

Ps - please let me know which major European league uses the foam to mark 10 yards.
Pps - wasn't England the first big league to use goal line technology.  Hardly backward.

Totally agree with crackerz and Eeternaloptimist..

The point about 22 dishonest players trying to con 1 honest man is brilliant but it's a point that the media would NEVER make because they're commercially involved in saying how wonderful football is....

What irks me is the standard of punditry. All ex players, all therefore experienced con artists.. I would love just ONE of the broadcasters covering football to employ an intelligent, articulate person who could run rings around the other numpties...

I've long felt that the cosy 2/3 ex-pro's on a sofa should be mixed with professionals who know the game and can talk coherently about it without the inherent anti-ref bias that footballers have.

Injera,I am no great fan of Robbie Savage,or Roy Keane,but they do,or did,say it how it is."You do what you have to do",and "it is everyone for themselves out there",spring to mind.So there are some straight talking pundits about.
  Berto,you obviously didn't hear the mikesmith ,on tv.,saying the shaving foam isn't new out there.Who mentioned Europe?
   It has already been tested as to how quickly a review can be made,and how quickly the miked-up official can be told the outcome.Getting things right is important for the health of the game.Plus,importantly,it helps to cancel out most opportunities for corrupt officials,or do you believe EVERY lino,and EVERY ref. is 100% straight,because I don't?

A refreshing and reasoned thread.

Think the reffing in this tournament has been excellent. They seem to be letting the games flow and have introduced a different threshold as to what is a penalty and yellow card.

All hindsight pundits and co-comms should be forced to comment without a replay. They would then understand how good most refs are.

Super ,agree the standard of refs. is pretty good,and so it should be for the World Cup.However,it puts our motley Saturday afternoon crowd to shame.Yet you get the likes of mikesmiths,and pundits nearly always having a go at foreign refs.in the European games,more so than against our lot.As if trying to imply that foreign refs. are inferior to ours overall.

Nothing new with that. I think the same logic applies with their overrating of English players.

#    Referee    Avg Yearly Salary    Competitions
1    Howard Webb    £120,000    EPL, UEFA, FIFA
2    Martin Atkinson    £85,000    EPL, UEFA
3    Mark Clattenburg    £75,000    EPL, UEFA
4    Mike Dean    £38,500 + Match Fee (£1000 per game)    EPL
5    Phil Dowd    £38,500 + Per Match Fee    EPL
6    Roger East    £38,500 + Match Fee    EPL
7    Chris Foy    £38,500 + Match Fee

Plenty of people would love to be as sh!t as some of the above, and still get paid those wages.

lol yeah that looks thankless. getting paid a very nice wage for a couple hours work a week!

i mean 38k a year isnt brilliant, its ok pretty good, but for a few hours running up and down like a woopsie its a crazy salary! then an extra grand in ya sky rocket just for turning up? sweet or what
wtf do they do the rest of the week? theyve probably got a load of other nice cushy earners on the go.

they really are what fans have been calling em for years!

Shocked by how low those salaries are.....the work load of a modern full-time referee is huge, obviously the obscene wealth of the premier league hasnt trickled down their way

I've always found it pathetic when managers / players criticise the ref for getting a big decision wrong..so what, how many mistakes do the precious prima donnas make in a game ffs?

its quite a bit easier to referee than play the game. if you asked the refs to score the goal james rodriguez did last night, i reckon theyd be struggling.

i dont think michaela tabb will be getting a 147 anytime soon either

Why is it called "hand ball" when if it hits the top of your shoulder it's a hand ball?

I don't understand people that say technology wouldn't work because you can't be 100%, or that there's a difference between matters of fact and matters of opinion. The referee makes his decisions on his opinion as things stand, all you are doing is allowing a TV ref to also have his opinion, and also give him the benefit of replays to help. This is the way it would work:

You look at a controversial & important decision. If the wrong decision has obviously been made, or there is an excellent case that the wrong decision has been made then the decision is overturned. If you can't tell either way, or there is a fair bit of doubt, then the decision stays as it was originally made.

Take the Brazil handball goal. Webb gives a foul. Brazil refer it (maybe using one of their two permissable referrals) and we go "upstairs". A quick look at a couple of replays very quickly shows that it is almost impossible to see exactly where it hit (arm? shoulder? chest? a bit of all three?). There is certainly no obvious case to say the referee's decision was wrong. On field decision remains. Goal remains disallowed. Brazil lose a referral.

Let's have another example. The Brazil penalty v Croatia. Croatia refer it. We look at a few angles. There is lots of evidence to say the referee was wrong and it wasn't actually a penalty. Penalty therefore not given and we possibly also book striker for diving. We restart with a goal kick and Croatia still have two referrals, as they were right.

In both instances, decision correctly made and controversy gone.

Sure there will be some that will still be argued about but as long as everyone realises that decisions are only overturned if it is fairly clear the original decision was wrong and that where's there is doubt or debate then the original decision remains, I don't see the issue and it will be an improvement on the current situation.

offsides should be incredibly easy to do with technology. exact same thing as goalline technology, just need to have a line that scans the whole pitch instead of the goalline. ref upstairs stops the replay when the ball is kicked, the line shows and says if hes offside or not. with a small margin of error in favour of the attacker, like an inch or so.

marychain1, I don't think having two opinions is a good idea at all.  everyone wants consistency, but having a second ref making a decision immediately diminishes that.  there might be a case for letting the ref see something twice if he wants to review it (perhaps he can wear google glass)

would a video ref have allowed robbens pelanty ?

Come on then you technology supporters - the Robben penalty?

how many replays do you want to decide yes or no?

PS Good luck on that!

he dived, you could tell from the triple pike

we have rugby union for that

Throwing one's arms high in the air whilst allowing one's knees to lock indicates a dive...

Chuck him out of the tourny

rugby union with fake blood capsules ?

Still not much being said by the technology advocates

gouging and biting ......

On the Robben penalty, a player making an absolute b*llend of himself shouldn't negate the fact that it was a foul.  So I think video ref would have given it.

@sideshowbob 29 Jun 14 16:12 

"i dont think michaela tabb will be getting a 147 anytime soon either."

I wouldn't be surprised if she has got one or got close. She was European Ladies Pool Champion in 1998 and played for Scotland for 12 years, so she'll be pretty useful.

her highest break in snooker is 26

if there had been video evidence then he wouldn't have dived in the last minute of stoppage time as the video evidence would have given him the earlier penalty where he was fouled and there would have been no need for a late dive as holland would have been winning 2-1 at that time.

they would not have been a foul and pelanty earlier in the game if video evidence was
in use as it would have been used earlier than that incident and the whole match
becomes a different game.

each game would last over 5 hours at current rate of fouls not given by referees

each game would last over 5 hours at current rate of fouls not given by referees


Excellent news...the paying public might get a bit of value at last.

re the Robben penalty - decisions would only be changed if there is clear (uncontentious) evidence the on-field decision was wrong.

As it was debatable (probably a dive but certainly contact) you couldn't overrule the on-field decision with any confidence and so the original decision would be upheld.

but you could go back to the last holland foul that was not given and give a free kick the other way


you cant have selective video evidence, otherwise its unfair

i dont see why people cant see that

youd never get a game finnished

If replays are going to work it can only be on the basis of limited referrals (2 max)

Football's popularity isn't in decline, it's hugely popular and growing.  There is a strong case that you shouldn't tinker with a winning formula, keep the game flowing, keep the debate and keep the uncertainty.  I actually think the strongest argument for referrals is that it combats betting corruption through bribing referees.