Refs are allocated games in advance and I don't think they ref games every week and as there are second and third reserve officials available I think it would be easy to suspend the under performing refs. The problem is that they don't actually punish them do they ? If refs were suspended and an issue was explained publicly as to why they were suspended then perhaps performances would improve. Put it this way, if a player gets suspended, everybody knows why so why should refs be any different ? Refs are protected too much and don't even have to go on tv to explain any contentious decisions do they. In this supposedly open era why do we have to put up with below par performances without accountability.
It's easy to suspend refs, there's enough willing to step forward. My point is that this does nothing if the reserves you bring in are just as bad if not worse. Punishing someone doesn't necessarily raise their standards. In fact, punishing people for making mistakes if they're performing at or near their best can be drastically demotivational and lower performances. I don't want to see referees punished for honest mistakes, I want the standards of the profession to be raised. One way I see of doing that is by improving the environment in such a way that refereeing is not an entirely masochistic pastime.
Where I completely agree with you is the lack of transparency in football refereeing. I'd love to see the same as rugby or some of the olympic sports where the refs have mics and you can hear them explain their decisions in real time (right or wrong). But we can't have that in football, because no one would be able to air the content given the language the players get away with. And the refereeing bodies are ultra-protective because, well, look at what they put up with.
So, for whatever my take is worth, the major changes in football ought to be to bring it in line with other sports by enforcing respect towards officials, change some of the standards so that ex-players can fast track to professional refereeing. Whether we implement this from the top down or grass roots up, just have it so that it's like in other sports - a captain or coach can ask for clarification, ask a question, but abusive behaviour (swearing, surrounding the ref) is an enforced offence - and
then I think it would be easier and fairer for us to demand more from them.
As is, I have no fucking idea why anyone would be a ref in the first place and I'm not even a little surprised that so many are terrible.
