Time to sort out these referees..

This is an age old debate about referees and refereeing decisions and its one that we have not yet managed to come up with a solution for as yet.

There have been suggestions of touch line cameras and close circuit camera’s being used in the modern game to help match officials officiate with a much higher degree of accuracy. This approach would take away some of the interpretation in the game that can have some real devastating effects.

Both Brendon Rogers and Neil Warnock felt that referee Lee Probert was in consistent with his decision making and made some key decisions which ultimately changed the outcome of the game. “Fine you may say, that happens.” Yes it does but when those decisions are the difference between you going down and staying up, and they are clearly wrong, surely something more needs to be done.

There is a lot of money in the game now and therefore an awful lot at stake. This now makes the cost of the error even more damaging and even more important to get right.

The introduction of the 4th official in 1991 had us thinking that maybe some further assistance would emerge once the role had evolved. We did not get so lucky though, as the 4^th official’s roll is still to make sure the replacement ball is of adequate playing standard or to check a player’s boots before entering the field of play. Oh, I nearly forgot, the 4^th official is now able to talk directly to the referee but the referee still has ultimate power.  Maybe it’s me but I’m struggling to see the value that the 4^th official adds to the game given their limitations.

To my mind there is just too much at stake to put something so important in the hands of an ordinary individual who like most people is subject to all the human elements, fear, confidence, bias to name but a few. Mr Probert failed to award a penalty from a certain hand ball which he said he even seen but fortunately deemed un intentional. 

If a player controls the ball with his hands and subsequently gains an advantage, oh and then bangs the ball in the back of the net, to be fair, you would have cause to be aggrieved.

Then there was Armand Traore bringing down Graham for a certain penalty which was also waved away.

That said, it is still a case of if you haven’t got a solution then….

Well I have, and it is this; as we do with players who perform badly, we should yellow and red card referees!

If a referee is having a really bad game, why should he be left on the pitch running a mock, abusing his power and causing devastation to one club or another?

Why not give the referee a warning in some way (Yellow card) and if it continues, replace him (red card).  As it stands, the accountability for running a mock is seriously un–balanced when you consider the amount of big controversial decisions that go on in the game with alarming regularity.