Referees.

[Woodwardfan]

The game has changed a lot, it's no longer all about prestige, it's now all about money.
The clubs,players and the referees know this,but the problem is the fans haven't caught up yet ...

Well said. Sums up my OP in just a few wo

Has refereeing changed or has the scrutiny of the press and media just turned everything around? I hear about this 100MPH game that the poor dears can't keep up with and think its laughable. In the past the pitches could be mud baths which brought its own issues for refereeing.

I don't think there are more contentious decisions (I don't remember a time when I didn't think referees at BDTBL were shite) I just think we have a 24/7 sport hungry media looking for every decision to give Alan Brazil and Warnock something to discuss, then over to Colin Murray, Hawksbee and Jacobs and the coup de grace delivered by Adrian Durham at 4pm.

The game isn't that different but the 249 cameras at every single game make it a very different discussion point.

I still remember to this day Hansens handball in the League Cup Final pretty much on the line that got missed (mid 80's?) Then there was the 1966 was it, wasn't it decision in a world cup final. Now days rather than getting on with the game we would be having a jerkathon over goal line technology or (shite)Hawkeye, somesuch or something or other.

The more we fuck about with the basics of the game the further away it gets from us.

Take cricket as an example. Its clear that without technology umpires in the past were wrong so many times it made the game a lottery. Now that technology has been introduced it shows up the serious limitations of umpires and helps them do their job properly.

Personally I would allow refs to refer to the 4th official who should have a screen whenever that is available. No, it couldn't be available in Concord Park but so what? There is enough money in the game to provide it throughout the football league.

My main theme however is to get the authorities to give the refs every backing to purge out cheating and dissent/intimidation. Whenever the clubs and media moan about sendings off and multiple red and yellow cards they always back off and hang the refs out to dry. Book the divers, book the wrestlers at corners, adopt zero tolerance for dissent. If they repeat the offence or argue book them again and send them off. I reckon it would take little more than a month to clean up the game and then the refs can set about officiating in a much easier scenario.

Simple but would it be the bigger clubs who lose out the most? Yes it would and that's why it won't happen. The big clubs have the most cheats and also intimidate the refs the most. Cheating is a honed skill these days and the top clubs are the best exponents.

 

[Bladesway]

heh. that is a good one. you haven't been reading my posts, im probably the most anti monty on here
i don't like them because everyone swoons about them. they are a bunch of cheating diving bastards. busquets is a disgrace to football. they seem a bit teachers pet to me and every plastic seems to love them. perhaps it's a punk thing
TBF i did admit i was biased

Sorry any team that has Pepe and Ronaldo in it has the cheats championship tied up.

P.S I am one of those plastics who has watch Barca since he was 7. I watched them when they were world beaters and I watched them when they had players like Kluivert stealing a wage when they were truly awful. I'm not an avid fan as such but I appreciate good football no matter where it is played. I love watching Liverpool right now because they are the most exciting team to watch. Bayern, Barca and a cast of others get me out of my seat.

People moan that Barca keep the ball too much. Laughable really isn't it. If you are that good go get it off them. If they are that boring how come they make Champions League semis and finals pretty frequently? Year in and out teams like them (and Real by the way, they aren't half bad) put our Premiership stars to shame.

Teams like Barca are the reason Spain win things and teams like Man City and Chelsea are the reason we as a nation don't.

 

[felix]

But maybe they are neither incompetent nor cheats. They are nearer to the action than we are and probably get 90% of decisions correct, which is probably the same level of competence that most of us manage.

What annoys me about refs is when they show a lack of commonsense, like refusing to call back Gibbs of Arsenal after Oxlade-Chamberlain owned up that he had commited the handball offence for which his team mate was sent off on Saturday, but you get jobsworths everywhere.

Without a ref there would be no match. They do a grand job, in general, are criticised too much and would have a much easier task if players did not cheat so much, not only by diving but also mobbing the officials whenever they give a decisive decision. For example, I am struggling to remember the last time a player who was sent off didn't perform a gesture of injured innocence. When a team loses an important game it's almost routine for the manager to blame the ref because if there is one group of people in the game who get more abuse than referees it's managers, who are slated up hill and down dale by fans who think that because they can get promotion for their club on computer games they know more about the game than men who have played 500 matches.

Today's example: Billy Davies sacked by Forest. Ridiculous and unfair but no more so than Davies's own habit of blaming the officials whenever his team were beaten, which makes it hard to feel sorry for him, really.