Readers in the Goonerholic bar run by the inimitable Dave Faber or this establishment setup in his honour will have had the dubious pleasure of reading my opinions about referees down the years.
Well, guess what, you lucky souls?
There is plenty more in the tank!
To briefly summarise what I’ve already said… I don’t think they are any good at their jobs.
I think it is fair to say that most fans think refereeing standards are declining steadily and have been for years, yet also think they are powerless to do anything about it.
This provides a backdrop of frustration (or sheer downright anger) and a sense of injustice which permeates fans’ discussions. It is not improved by what most fans see as a refusal from PGMOL to accept that there is a problem with refereeing standards.
This general air of dissatisfaction rumbles on amongst fans and tends to be most vociferous immediately after some particularly egregious error. As such, the discussions centre around minute dissection of individual decisions, sliced up and placed under the microscope.
From such close range, the bigger picture is harder to see, and this focus on individual incidents and officials make it difficult to place what we see every week a larger societal context.
Perhaps we need to put our microscopes away, find a different vantage point, and look through a different lens?
That is what I am going to attempt in this piece; to walk a few miles in the opposite direction and look back at things with my binoculars, as it were.
The end result won’t be perfect, any more than that leggy metaphor was! I will miss important points and struggle to make sense of complex and sweeping influences which affect us in more profound ways than the quality of refereeing. But all of that is how it should be; that is merely a sign that the issues we face are indeed complex.
So, I’d like to approach this as an exploration and invite all of you to tell me where you think I have wandered off-trail or where you think I have missed a promising avenue of investigation.
I am committed to improving and refining the ideas laid out here. I am curious what others think and accept that they will have vital pieces of the puzzle that make up the bigger picture I hope to see more clearly. And I know I will have made mistakes along the way, which are all my own, and for which I take full responsibility.
However, through a process of collaboration marked by openness to constructive criticism and a genuine desire to learn and progress, I am sure I will get a lot further than I would on my own.
I might be wrong about this too.
However, I am not a PL referee, so I am willing to give this sort of madness a shot…
The formation of the Premier League changed the context in which football was played and the way that people engaged with it, which previously had been largely fixed for decades.
In the olden days, when everything was black and white, and nobody had ever heard the word ‘digital’, people went to matches or listened to them on the radio. They read reports in the newspapers and discussed them in person. Live games on TV were rare.
In the early 90s, the PL and Sky Sports changed that, and many more fans had access to football, both domestically and internationally.
Money began to pour in, and savvy people woke up to the fact that there were a lot of fans invested in football and there was serious wonga to be made.
When the internet became ubiquitous in daily life, the means of discussing football changed drastically – now there is exponentially more online engagement than there is discussion in person, and a vast proliferation of platforms and (virtual) places where people can do so, including this one.
(Note that I deliberately use ‘discussion’ when describing what people tend to do in person, but ‘engagement’ is as far as I am prepared to commit myself in describing what people tend to do online.)
But football is not the only thing swept along by the tide of change; anything and everything you can think of is along for the ride and, boy oh boy, there are a lot more things a person can do online than talk about the football.
Nowadays, the competition for the attention of human beings looking at screens is staggering. The amount of money invested in it is beyond comprehension, yet the returns prove that dosh to be soundly invested indeed.
Football is competing for attention in that arena, in a context in which it has never had to compete before, where attention means money. And it is changing accordingly.
Football is no longer just a game where people kick an inflated pig bladder about.
It has become a behemoth of interlinked media, marketing, advertising, branding and the rest of the long list of those favourite cash-generating sons of capitalism that dominate so much of modern life.
The media that we consume football ‘content’ through are designed solely to make a profit, and they protect the interests of their bottom line, nothing else.
So, in the context of refereeing, it makes sense that our media providers prop up a system which generates bad decisions and, in turn, engagement across their services. They court as much controversy as they can and hire people to stir things up. This is a relatively new type of broadcasting and one that provides an important backdrop for the current attitude towards, and administration of, officiating.
In terms of providing the drama that people are so addicted to – having been weaned on it so carefully and cynically by vast entities whose raison d’etre is to make money from hijacking their attention – dodgy decisions that cause a lot of people to go online and argue about them is a better outcome than consistently correct decisions that stir up no controversy.
Why would the hugely powerful organisations making money off these constant controversies wish to improve the current standards?
And why should they, when their competitors won’t budge an inch or be hamstrung by a notion of fair play or sporting integrity?
The makers of the myriad games you can play on your phone won’t be deliberately making their products duller, and neither will anyone else competing for the attention of football fans in markets that have never before been directly in competition with those packaging and selling football content.
Even twenty years ago, I would have felt more of a cynic in writing that. Nowadays, we are all aware that online content is geared towards engagement; the target is anything that gets people to watch it and comment on it, and if that means algorithms promote racist or sexist content to teenagers, or do anything else that eschews decency, respect and goodness in the pursuit of increased screentime, then so be it.
Make no mistake, this is the world within which modern football operates.
Back in the day, football computer games tried to look as much like the real thing as possible, to appeal to people who watched football, the obvious target audience for a football game.
Nowadays, Sky Sports constantly plug a new mode of watching a live match with camera angles designed to make it look like a computer game!
This is a way to maintain the interest of a new generation who have grown up playing computer games far more than they have watching live football. They find it easier to maintain their flickering attention on a football match if it looks like the games they are used to.
Computer games used to imitated the real thing; now that process has reversed.
If this seems a little 1984, perhaps it might best be viewed not as a part of any concerted plan, but simply as a logical consequence of everyone involved following the money whenever they have a decision to make. The cumulative effect down the years is more Darwinian than Orwellian, shaping the football landscape one step at a time.
There is an old saying that the fish in the fishbowl cannot see the water it swims in.
I think any discussion of officiating needs at least to attempt to see the ‘water’ that modern football is swimming in. It is such a huge influence and, I think, provides a necessary context for any meaningful debate.
To reiterate, football these days is all about the money; and whilst most people appreciate that in theory, it is worth scratching a little deeper to see what this really means.
To offer just three instructive indicators; clubs are now owned by billionaires and investment funds (who most certainly did not get involved for the love of the game); shirts are emblazoned with betting company logos (I’ll leave you to decide for yourself whether you think this is a good thing); PL TV rights sell for billions of pounds.
The list of ways the game has demeaned and diluted itself for a steady stream of ever-increasing money is a long one. A very long one indeed. All fans need a level of cognitive dissonance to support our clubs these days, as the water all clubs necessarily swim in is getting ever murkier. Be it sponsorship deals, the contempt matchday fans are treated with by schedulers, the environmental impact of the game, or any other of the vast morally grey areas in how the game operates, we all have things about our clubs that we must set aside if we wish to continue supporting them.
It should not surprise us that all the entities who would hold sway in the matter exhibit a complete lack of interest in any debate about genuinely improving refereeing standards, as they actively do not want to see better refereeing. In their ideal world, people argue increasingly about referees, whilst the standard of officiating worsens at a slow enough pace that people gradually become inured to it and, incrementally, accept decisions that a decade previously they would never have swallowed.
Instead of informed and honest enquiry into what is needed for the long-term good of the game, we are bombarded with that new phenomenon being grappled with in contexts far more important than football: fake news.
We are gaslit into thinking that decisions which obviously contravene the laws of the game are in fact correct. We are told it is somehow appropriate that referees fail to punish dangerous behaviour and serious foul play yet dish out cards and subsequent bans for minor infractions.
Decisions are justified under the ‘letter of the law’ when scores of the same offences go unpunished every week. This inconsistency is mentioned sometimes in the same way one might talk about rain on a summer day – a bit annoying but ultimately not something anyone can do anything about, so you’d have to be some sort of unreasonable curmudgeon or proud wearer of a tin-foil hat to dwell on it.
To take just one specific example, there is a former referee who I have personally seen employed by Sky Sports to comment mid-match on a penalty decision. Having watched a few replays, he explained to the viewers that the referee had made the correct decision. When, a couple of minutes later, VAR had invited the on-field referee to review those same replays and he reversed his decision, the former ref being paid by Sky assured us (without shame, and contrary to what he had confidently asserted moments earlier) that this was, in fact, the correct decision. Apparently, people are supposed to respect his opinion, provided to us as a trusted authority on the rules of the game. You could not make it up.
These former referees who have paid gigs on television do nothing more than back up their mates. There is no standard of personal integrity they will not violate, nor any mental contortion they cannot manage in the name of sticking up for the Old Boy’s Club.
It stinks. Fans (consumers) have never asked for it. But it is becoming increasingly pervasive.
Why?
Because it perpetuates the myth that there is no reform necessary – the referees do a great job and officiating is of a high standard. Ahem!
Sometimes, this cronyism is picked up and railed against. By some. For a while. And then, once everyone has had a good rant and vented their feelings, we all settle back into the status quo, and just hope we get through the next weekend without another egregious error befalling us. Because, after all, there isn’t anything we can do about it, right?
Instead of persistent focus on the poor standard of refereeing and what can be done about it, we are bombarded and insulted by a proliferation of explanations that defy logic and a basic understanding of football in order to illustrate that decisions that we can all see are ludicrous are actually correct.
If the laws of the game are unrecognisable from those you have known your entire life, then that isn’t because they have been highjacked and are arbitrarily administered by a small cabal of men in black. Oh no, it is just a simple lack of knowledge on your part!
But, fear not brave reader, you will be put out of your ignorance by a former pro referee who is happy to explain this week’s handball rule to you, or why the kind of assault you would be arrested for on a public street carries no punishment under the laws of the game.
Yet, despite the regularity and sheer brazenness of this narrative, people seem happier to go along with all this and argue vociferously with each other rather than address the actual problem. Of all the people who are wound up by the officiating standards, and there are many, most argue against each other, rather than arguing for change.
Does anyone really believe that it is an impossible task to make a clear handball rule and then apply it consistently? Yet every week we are offered a new interpretation, and contradictory views espoused by pundits who were saying something different the week before.
When did officiating become so chaotic?
Seriously. When did it become so utterly, abjectly chaotic?
And who does this chaos benefit?
There is no longer even the semblance of an obligation for our media outlets to impartially report and evaluate football matches; that just does not keep enough people watching.
We now have phone-in shows that don’t bother with analysis but simply employ figurehead presenters to make crass statements designed to goad people, and then spend the next hour allowing the angriest and least coherent people they can find the opportunity to be further wound up and vent over the airwaves. Because they can sell that to other people who turn up for the drama, in a way that they cannot sell rational, civil discourse.
Behind the scenes, we get told that these presenters are actually reasonable and personable, they just get paid to play a role in which they aggravate as many people as possible. Well, that’s all okay then.
How could anyone find fault there?
Although now I think about it, I don’t remember signing up for that.
I am starting to think I missed a meeting…
We have entered a new era where football is an entertainment industry far more than a sporting one, and there is more money in entertainment than there is in sport.
It is in this context that the conversation of officiating has to take place.
Next time, I will look at us as fans, and how we engage with each other, and how this shapes the debate.
Until then, I know I can rely on you all to be a shining example of how I wish football fans engaged with each other everywhere, so light up the drinks with your thoughts and wisdom.
Until next time, ‘holics.
If you’re reading this brilliant post on the ‘Home Screen’ just hit the word ‘Drinks’ at the foot of the article to read and join discussion of all things Arsenal (and some other stuff) stimulated by this article and the responses from the regular denizens of this virtual bar. If you’ve accessed this post directly, simply scroll down to see the thoughts of fellow Gooners and join the discussion.
Highly impressive writing, and I’m only part of the way through this first part. I do note at this stage that wonga and dosh do seem to be a recurrent theme. Will now keep on reading. 😄
Incisive stuff, GSD. I hope someone picks your thoughts up and runs with them in the corridors of power.
Bravo, GSD. Reading your post was like watching Pires racing down the win and then cutting in. It looked effortless, belying its skill and speed, but the goal at the end was as well-crafted as it was inevitable.
Your general points that the sports, media and entertainment industries have converged and that the social media business model’s dependence on ‘engagement’ drives football media are incontrovertible to me. There are outliers among owners, such as sovereign wealth funds, but their motivations are, if anything, even more antithetical to the spirit of the game than crass commercialism.
I would also add to your analysis that in their comingling, sports, media and entertainment have become a sub-sector of the tech industry, with its concomitant venture financing and portfolio company ownership models that regard ownership as primarily a matter of financial engineering and a cultural embrace of ‘disruption’ which inherently rejects past practices as outworn and obsolete.
Mark Zuckerberg’s mantra for Facebook in its early days was ‘move fast, and break things’. In their hurry to commercialise social media, no one stopped to ask, what if the thing social media were breaking was society? Controversy and its fellow travellers, fake news and conspiracy theories, have been with us for as long as humans have told each other stories. However, the ability to create, consume and most crucially distribute them has never been at the scale that social media have not just allowed but fostered for commercial ends through provoking and goading.
In the United States and Europe, the partisan political and social divides that algorithmically-generated controversy has created, amplified by ubiquitous misinformation and disinformation, are so deep that it is difficult to imagine that particular genie being stuffed back into the bottle, much as one hopes that human decency will find a way.
Those are the contaminated waters in which football swims. We should remember that football has been a business since the advent of professionalism in the Victorian era and not look back with too-rose-tinted spectacles. That said, the scale, relentlessness and ruthlessness of the game’s commercialisation now is unprecedented.
However, I am wandering from refereeing standards. Are their inadequacies a deliberate creation of those running the game to generate controversy or an unintended consequence of the state of the game in its broader social context?
In the spirit of your piece, let me pose some questions to test the hypotheses: Do all stakeholders benefit from inconsistent refereeing standards? Are there circumstances where consistently good refereeing would enhance the ‘product’s’ profitability? Is poor refereeing particular to English football (or even to the PGMOL), or is it universal? Most of all for this discussion, is poor refereeing the optimal way to generate money-generating controversy.
Bravo GSD! This is one of the best pieces this blog has ever published and it raises some big issues . The way football is presented has radically altered the product that is being presented . Against my better judgment I listen to TalkSport ( Shite) and often marvel that football can be presented in such a provocative and biased way. Sky and TNT are subtler but their coverage often distorts the nature of the game .
As you know I find the regional bias of the PGMOL offensive and ridiculous . Can you imagine if all Test umpires came from Australia and India ? The refereeing roots of PGMOL were planted by Mike Riley . Look at his performances as a ref himself especially at Pizzagate and marvel that he is the founding father of refereeing standards in England . But controversy is the oxygen that allows the Premier League to maintain such a hold . Most of the post match coverage is about decisions by referees or managers and rarely about the quality of football and TalkSport glories in the ability to wind up gullible fans to provide cheap radio with high audience figures that attracts advertisers like flies to a turd ( metaphor chosen deliberately )
In a world of gaslighting and flagrant dishonesty by those in public life , why woukd sport be any different ? The task for PGMOL is to keep churning out inadequate referees, preferably from Greater Manchester , with weak personalities, poor judgment and chronic myopia. They are doing a damn fine job so far .
Having read to the end now I must agree with the others who said this piece of yours GSD does not pull any punches but asks all the pertinent questions about why we must put up with such pitiful refereeing standards. We must not, is of course the answer, and must not get distracted from the heart of the matter, which you have pointed your fat finger at so eloquently.
Exactly the kind of insightful, thoughtful and well argued piece we have come to expect from you, Dino. Thank you.
Your point about the gaslighting of football fans is well made. As in so many areas of life generally, in football we are increasingly coerced, cajoled, compelled to disbelieve the evidence of our own eyes, to suspend disbelief and act with a credulity bordering on stupidity as we are presented with utter nonsense by people who, we are told, are experts. This definition has become increasingly meaningless over the last 10-15 years as a result of the fact that what they say simply doesn’t stand up to any degree of scrutiny. Now I never went to medical school, but since when was the shoulder above the sleeve on a short sleeved football shirt anything other than a part of the arm? And yet we are invited to believe that a goal can be scored with it. That obvious fouls such as Joelinton on the keeper the other week, described as “clothes-lining”, are not and that there is nothing to see here. Many of us are simply sick of it.
So what can be done? Well in a world of increasing corporatism, perhaps one answer is simply to cease to engage with organisations that continue to insult the intelligence of the “customer”. If we can’t change the organisations themselves, then we are left to do what we can do- withdraw our own small financing from them. Cut subscriptions where possible and find alternative ways to engage with the game in a more sane manner. Who knows, perhaps if more people took this approach they might even begin to listen.
So what can we, ordinary football fans, do about it? If we decline to attend Premiership matches, our places, at the Emirates at least, will be swiftly filled by the hordes who can’t get a ticket under normal circumstances. We can cancel our Sky and TNT subscriptions, as many have already done, and that would certainly be noticed if enough did so, but would enough people do so? I watch matches from kick off but never watch the crap build-ups and rarely watch the half-time or post-match waffle (do they notice? – I think not), unless there is an incident that I want to see reviewed – and there’s the hook that GSD has identified! I’m caught despite my disaffection. We’re doomed, I tell ya, doomed!
Finally got around to reading this. I can only stand and applause, GSD.
Wonderfully written, and true to the spirit of this blog. Excellent points on football and beyond.
And plenty more food for thought provided by Ned and all the drinkers above. So many excellent questions….
I’m at the same point, bath, but as I said in the previous drink, seriously considering about giving up on the ticket chase. Not that it’s been very successful this season so far anyway.
GSD – Applause, Applause 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I’m not sure, in all honesty, quite how to comment on this, having read the lines and between a few of them, without simply reiterating what you have already said quite brilliantly.
There is one angle to elaborate on but it needs thought. Which I will now give it.
Cheers, Dino.
Ollie @8. I’ve actually been more successful this season, having drawn a complete blank until the dire FQ Cup tie against Pool in January. I was successful in the Lesta ballot but unfortunately will bee in Bilbao that day. Hey ho! Good luck in the Saints ballot whenever it eventually happens….or will they conveniently forget about the silvers from now on?
Ok, thought has been given !
Firstly, I love the analogy of the murky water in the fishbowl that we, as the swimmers, can’t see.
But there must come a point where the water is so dirty we keep bumping into the glass and can’t even enjoy a swim. I guess the question is can we then jump, flip and splash enough to draw the attention of the bowl’s owner into realising that unless he cleans all the muck and effluent out of the water, then all his fish will die.
We fans, sorry customers in the modern context, have been so disrespectfully treated by football’s masters, that some have indeed found their interest either in declining health, or dead. As Bath and CER have already questioned though, will enough interest die to make those masters require change.
It’s not only the fans – sorry customers, I really have to get used to this – that are swimming in this filth of inconsistent, incompetent, controversial officiating. We are lucky enough to have with us a manager with the commitment, intelligence and passion of Mikel Arteta and an equally blessed squad.
Imagine how they feel when so much planning, skill, hard work, injury and pain is dismissed at a stroke by the brandishing of a “letter of the law” red card by a referee who knows the definition of everything but appreciates the spirit and intention of nothing.
I guess my own question to add to the discussion is “at what point, will the managers and players feel compelled to join the fans in trying to make enough splosh to get the water changed ? “
YouTube channels such as Four Four Two and Football Meta show that engaging—and thoughtful—analysis of the game can be produced without resorting to the TV formula of point vs. counterpoint pundits drumming up shallow snippets of artificial controversy to keep you viewing between the ads. A secondary point is that football has changed a great deal since many of the current TV pundits were players, diminishing their expertise.
Bath@7: Media companies track their audiences segment by segment in the greatest detail they can. They do it for one reason: to sell advertising at the highest possible rates. Watching a minimal amount of the programming does impact the broadcasters’ raw viewing numbers and the demographic composition of the audience for other segments, and thus what they can charge advertisers and, thus, overall revenue. Remember also that commercial networks have to give advertisers make-good airtime for free if viewing figures don’t reach those promised at a given advertising rate. We will have to minimise our viewing in our hundreds of thousands to move the needle, but, as with voting, that shouldn’t be used as a defeatist excuse for not doing it. You can also not buy the goods and services being advertised. Brands don’t like paying for ineffective advertising.
Like you, I watch just the match, nothing pre- or post-game. I usually turn off the device during half-time to register that I am an abandoning viewer and clear all memory, history and cookie data after a game if watching on an electronic device, but then I am an inveterate cleanser of my browsers (Paranoid? Moi?). It crimps targeted digital advertising, making you less likely to be served ads for something you might be tempted to buy.
Ned @12 – you switch off if you’re watching on an electronic device ?
Doesn’t include the old steam TV then ? 😉
Excellent comment of yours @3 btw 👏🏻
Trev@11: Your final paragraph makes an important point. Clubs are key stakeholders at two levels. As businesses, they need the revenue from broadcasting rights. The PL has prospered mightily from the exponential increase in what the broadcasters have been willing to pay for them. Yet, they are not clubs’ sole source of revenue. Matchday and sponsorship revenues are far more dependent on fan numbers. Fan disaffection is a real risk. On the footballing level, clubs, but even more players and managers, care about winning trophies and titles. If the opportunities for those are turned into a lottery by incompetent refereeing, there will be a backlash. I suspect it is already quietly happening in the background.
Trev@13: No steam TV. Castle Ned is beyond the range of nearly all over-the-air broadcasters. TV and streaming services arrive via the internet, assuming the treadmill is working to power it up.
In the fans’ stakes, for whatever it’s worth, and whether it actually leads anywhere, I have joined the Girondins Socios a couple of weeks ago.
Superb write up GSD!
Not sure you really got to the crux of the matter in depth though.
The general incompetence of the referees is the only problem. The media fluff that follows the bad decisions by refs and VAR personnel is of no importance to intelligent, knowledgeable fans. Let the media nerds rant. Who cares?
Fix the problem first.
Clarify and simplify the rules.
Add another referee. It worked for hockey (ice) in N. America. Consequence will (hopefully) means less trips to VAR.
Make referees accountable to an independent panel. Just as in real life; incompetence means looking for another job.
Sounds simple to me – but…….
Re: Ned @12, “We will have to minimise our viewing in our hundreds of thousands to move the needle, but, as with voting, that shouldn’t be used as a defeatist excuse for not doing it.”
Thank you for making me feel empowered in future moments when I do not watch the likes of Dermott Gallagher.
Boff, you hit the nail on the head when you said the media fluff is of no consequence to intelligent, knowledgeable fans. It isn’t. The problem is that whole radio programs, and even radio stations and TV channels rely on the not so intelligent, knowledgeable fans phoning in to vent on air. Some of these media institutions are very influential and don’t want the officiating situation to change because without the controversy they lose viewers, listeners, their programs and their advertising revenue.
We can ignore those programs all we like but that won’t improve the core problem either while there are unfortunately so many willing on air venters and keyboard warriors – all hammering away on their phones and PCs eternal deliveries of unsolicited advertisements.
eternal = between ……. don’t ask !
I don’t know when Matt reaches northern Italy, but I was greeted by some serious rain tonight…
An interesting article Dino. Maybe a trifle over long. I must admit that I was unable to read every word with as much attention and thought after I came across your question somewhere around the middle along the lines of “Is there anyone who thinks it’s impossible to write a clear handball law?”
Well. I do, for one.
As far as I recall, the authorities have wavered about whether or not a handball had to be intentional. If it is supposed to be intentional, then the referee is immediately required to make a subjective judgement about a player’s intent – fertile ground for conspiracy theorists who don’t like, say, the referee’s home postcode. The solution is apparently simple – do away with the intent clause; punish a player if he touches the ball with his hand. (There is also plenty of scope to worry about how far up the arm the hand extends, but that’s a discussion for another day.) Sadly if you frame the law that way, then you get incidents where one player blasts the ball at the hand of another, when they are only a metre or so apart. Handball! Cue fans, pundits and mouth-breathing phone-in participants to rail against the decision.
There are lots of other minutiae that would need to be covered by a “clear” handball law.
While I agree with your overall point that it’s not actually in anyone’s commercial interests – well, certainly not the broadcasters – to put in the investment to improve refereeing standard, I recall reading something where you seemed to suggest that it was actually in their interests to depress standards and I don’t agree with that.
I think our best hope is that the regulators wake up to the fact that if standards of officiating are allowed to decline too far, the fans (consumers, if any broadcaster should chance to read this) will notice and will vote with their feet (credit cards). How far is too far? That’s something no-one knows, it’s probably further than it was in halcyon days before social media, when sheep were worried, but I think there is a floor beyond which it cannot be allowed to fall.
Pangloss @22, you only need to remember ITV’s Saturday afternoon televised wrestling and contemporary WWE to see how media companies encourage the degeneration of sport through the promotion of staged drama and controversy.
That is the path that the PL is on and the global audience, which is its new priority market, will gobble it up as they have no memory of how the game used to be, where of course controversy was generated by players such as Bremner and Cantona or managers such as Revie and Ferguson rather than the new stars and ‘Ringmasters of Controversy’, the referees.
It’s clearly not in the media companies’ nor therefore in the PL’s financial interests for the controversies caused by bizarre referee decisions to be minimised through a drive for raised refereeing standards and correct use of VAR. TV companies, through their contracts, will continue to dictate the agenda. Expect no change.
For years I carried around the mantra ‘ Accidental handball is no offence ‘
It’s a good starting point because penalising players who touch the ball inadvertently leads to ludicrous situations where players defend with hands behind their backs and can’t use arm leverage to jump properly.
’If we start with my premise the law could state
In the referees opinion there was a deliberate attempt to play or control the ball with the arm below shoulder height or the player adopted a stance which deliberately made his: her frame bigger to block the passage of the ball
The referee will need to consider distance from the kicker , pace of the ball , stance of the player alleged to have handled and weather conditions’
It presents the referee with a decision to make but avoids some of the unfair situations we have seen over the past few years ( eg Saliba at Chelsea last season )
I’m sure the GHF drafting committee can improve this but it’s a straw man to start with
Good start TTG, and in truth, a good final position. Clarity and common sense. Provided the referee is a clear sighted, objective and unbiased arbiter.
OK, I’ll bite.
How about when a defender prevents the ball from going into the goal by the ball striking the arm, in a normal position. E.g. Lewis Dunk against us nine days ago?
If an attackers scores, but the ball brushes his arm/hand, even if accidental, the goal is ruled out.
Is that fair and equitable?
What about involuntary handball?
C100@26: If the foundational principle is that accidental handball is not an offence, then whether a player got an advantage and the outcome of the passage of play should be immaterial, should they not?
Ned at 28. But that doesn’t apply for attackers at the moment. If we were redrafting the law from scratch, one could apply this principle and it would be more equitable.
Mind you PGMOL would still fuck it up.
Good point C100 @26. Under that circumstance, a defenders hand or arm preventing a certain goal, as with Dunk, when the arm is not tightly clamped against his body (unnatural in most settings), even unconsciously, should be a penalty.
Exactly, C100 @29.
Just to be clear
I am starting from ground Zero
Accidental hands is NOT an offence even if an advantage accrues from it
In the Dunk case the decision would if the handball was involuntary or accidental. Of it was – no handball . If it wasn’t – penalty! Ref to decide with VAR help if necessary but using those criteria
And there we are – right back where we started – Ref decides ….
I agree that accidental or unintentional handball should not be an offence – and it should be easy enough for a referee to decide. But we are talking g about a group of referees who have demonstrated that they can’t make a sensible decision because they have no apparent understanding of a game situation.
I don’t know how many of PGMOL have played the game to any sort of level at all but they just don’t seem to be aware of what is really happening in many different situations. They don’t need to have been top professional players but having played some sort of serious football would help. I seriously doubt whether many, or any, of them have.
Dunk’s hand was in a pretty natural position, but away from his body therefore making himself a large obstacle to the shot. He also moved the arm slightly out towards the trajectory of the ball. I don’t know how best to interpret another person’s intent in that setting. He was aiming to obstruct a shot. The position of his arm but most particularly the small movement thereof made him a bigger obstacle. I would give a penalty as his clear intent was to block the shot as best he could. Kavenagh did not give a penalty and either didn’t see it or did not interpret the position and movement of the arm as being with an intent to block the shot. The VAR judge did not call him back so nor did s/he see the movement as intentional blocking of the shot. And there’s the rub. Handball will always be subject to interpretation and therefore subject to the adjudicator’s prejudice. At least we now have the opinion of two PGMOL varmints.
Bath @33
That’s one word. The citizens of your University City would have used another.
If it is of any help, may be it is, may be it is not, in the FA’s first set of laws of the game, published in 1863, four of the 13 laws related to handball:
8. If a player makes a fair catch he shall be entitled to a free kick, provided he claims it by making a mark with his heel at once; and in order to take such a kick he may go back as far as he pleases, and no player on the opposite side shall advance beyond his mark until he has kicked.
9. No player shall carry the ball.
11. A player shall not throw the ball or pass it to another.
12. No player shall take the ball from the ground with his hands while it is in play under any pretence whatever.
In the course of various revisions, Laws 8, 11 and 12 were dropped and Law 9, by now Law 8, was amended to: No player shall carry or knock on the ball, and handling the ball, under any pretence whatever, shall be prohibited.
A year later, a handling exemption was allowed for goal-keepers and a note to the laws defined handling as: Handling is understood to be playing the ball with the hand or arm.
That definition was subsequently added to the laws’ definition of terms and remained unchanged through the International Football Association Board taking over lawmaking in 1897 until 1903 when it was changed to: Handling is intentionally playing the ball with the hand or arm. Incidentally, when penalties were introduced in 1891, one of the things they could be awarded for was ‘wilful handling of the ball, within 12 yards of the goal line’.
So, in short, the history’s lesson is that intent has been integral to the offence of handball from the game’s get-go.
Ødegaard taken off injured after 67 minutes.
In the words of the great John Laurie- Doomed.
If Ødegaard is out for Sunday, does Nwaneri get his first start?
Ødegaard taken off injured after 67 minutes. In the words of the great Clive Dunn – Don’t panic!
Bit late to the discussion but many thanks to GSD for providing an excellent overview of the current situation. I agree the money driven parasites will do nothing and the tail will continue to merrily wag the dog. It’s a pity the fans are divided as in fact they are the only ones with the voice to actually force changes. As we saw with the super league make enough noise and our glorious leaders will crumble.
As for the PGMOL, it is a lost cause now in its current form. From Glenn and Webb down there is no confidence in its values or it’s performance as far as I can see. Whether that is corruption or incompetence I don’t know, I suspect both on a person by person basis but anyway the result is the same. The change needs to start at the top and cut a large swathe through the old boy network, a 90% sort of swathe I mean. Bringing in foreign referees would be an obvious start but it won’t happen, Boff’s idea of another ref is interesting too,
or let the ref simply implement decisions made off-field. We probably need to try several new ideas and accept some will fail. To be honest I think Bath’s advice of expect no change is probably sound but I hold on to a small sliver of hope that the fans will actually organise one day.
Handball will always be a judgment call, as will other decisions, interfering with play in an offside position etc. The first and fundamental step is change the PGMOL, all the tinkering and word-smithing in the world will make no difference if we don’t get honest and competent implementation.
Hmmm, my final paragraph @38 was not meant to denigrate any of the fine efforts at the handball rule in previous drinks!
I just thought you might like to know that the referee on Sunday is Jarred Gillett.
That’s all. Carry on.
We must have dragged the cannon over the grave of a much venerated spiritual leader of a hitherto unrecognised primitive tribe to have been inflicted by this run of adversity.
Dig in. Form a defensive line. Kick the bastards.
Two things can happen as a result of bad luck like this.
One – you get beaten.
Two – players step up and you finish up with a stronger squad.
Tottenham v Gillett P8 W4 D0 L4 17 yellow cards received
Arsenal v Gillett P7 W5 D0 L2 11 yellow card received
Referee Chris Kavanagh was right to send Declan Rice off in Arsenal’s draw with Brighton, the Key Match Incidents panel has ruled.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cq82lxlng1po
To paraphrase the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, Well they would, wouldn’t they?
Thanks for the link Ned, that panel agreed with 22/23 of the decisions they reviewed and trotted out the familiar he had no choice refrain to describe the Rice incident and then concluded it was clear, deliberate and impactful – they should be beaten in a public square.
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