Season of good will extends to referees
There is an acute absence of hot air about this deepest, darkest midwinter. And things could yet take a turn for the worse.
The Scottish Premier League have announced - in the language of the courts - that there was "prima facie" evidence of a breach of the rules by Kilmarnock and Motherwell in the postponement of their games against Aberdeen and Hearts respectively on 6 December.
The under-soil heating systems at Rugby Park and Fir Park couldn't have melted a single nougat that Saturday afternoon and the top brass are clearly cheesed off about it, although in the case of Killie not distressed enough to slap down a fine or a warning about points deduction.
Not even 100 lines saying "I must switch on my central heating".
Probably fair enough in these hard times when the game is wandering about with the backside hanging out its trousers... Although Motherwell will have to sweat on the outcome of a further investigation, which is more than the pipes under their pitch have been doing.
Of course, it is of little consolation to the supporters, players and management, particularly of Aberdeen, who journeyed south only to find out that Killie couldn't find a 10p for the meter.
On a busy day for the top flight, the SPL also announced new measures for post-match interviews.
"All SPL managers have been consulted and they have collectively agreed not to speak publicly about refereeing decisions after matches."
They added that managers will now just concentrate on the game.
This column can talk in the language of the Latins too. That's omerta, isn't it?
It also won't last.
I am already organising a sweep in the office as to which gaffer will crack first.
Imagine another dodgy penalty for the Old Firm, a blatantly offside goal... and your old reporter wandering up with a BBC microphone within minutes of the final whistle.
It will be like sellotaping a lid to a volcano.
Don't get me wrong. I have actually invited coaches, clearly seething at another example of refereeing ineptitude, to have a wee seat before they assess the situation, most famously with Craig Levein after Mike McCurry's howler at Ibrox last season.
The Dundee United gaffer had steam coming out of his ears and sought me out immediately.
I couldn't have stopped his rant with the aid of a sledgehammer and the funny thing was that his late chairman Eddie Thompson stepped into the interview initially to calm down his manager but soon flew into the overtaking lane in terms of the attack on the blundering match official.
And here's the point. First of all, it was wonderful radio, of course it was. It illustrated perfectly the passion people like Levein have for the game.
Secondly, he was right. Mr McCurry had a shocker.
But in this brave new world if the same scenario unfolded again we are to understand that Levein will smile benignly and describe how well his team shaped up at say, offensive throw-ins.
The agreement is nonsense because if managers are not going to criticise referees then there are days on which there will be no point interviewing them.
I agree that as a general observation coaches are over critical of match officials and on many occasions it is the get-out-of-jail free card which camouflages dreadful performances by their own teams.
But if a refereeing blunder truly affects a match then it is Pravda-like of the SPL to ask their managers to turn a Nelson's eye to the matter. It is shocking actually.
Sleep easy, my friends, that if the questioned is justified about a match official's part in the proceedings of a football match then this reporter will ask it, even if - in the case of Levein at Ibrox that afternoon - all I really had to do was hold the microphone and stand well back.
This is an agreement of folly and I suggest the 12 top coaches in this country have been press ganged into it.
I look forward to the first breaking of the ranks.
"Tell them who you are and what you are about," they said. To be honest, there are days when I struggle to remember myself. Forty years toiling at the coalface of football journalism does that to you. But I have reason to believe that I have reached the heady heights of the title of Football Correspondent of BBC Scotland which gives me a renown, in Scottish terms, of somewhere between Alex Salmond and the deep fried Mars Bar.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~02~RS~)
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Referees have since tha game started made mistake. They are not making newer ones it is just television slowing everything down and pundits who do not know the rules who cause problems. Less grief to the refs and things will in my opinion get better. Hum,an error will always be with us but I have never seen a referee cheat but seen plenty of players do it and there managers then try to condone them. Shame really
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
"If managers are not going to criticise referees then there are days on which there will be no point interviewing them."
Well don't, then.
Sorry to break it to you, Chick, but 95% of post-match interviews are dull as ditchwater, full of cliches, platitudes and self-serving verbiage. And that's just the interviewers. Exactly when it became obligatory for broadcasters to fill space with managers stating the obvious, I'm not sure.
Football needs to be played in a better atmosphere, with less mutual loathing between managers/players and officials. If SPL managers have voluntarily decided to start treating referees with a bit of respect, I think that's a good thing. What's your suggestion for improving relations, then?
I'm sure your commitment to a Woodward and Bernstein-like quest for the truth is very admirable, but really, it is only a sport.
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To say that the managers can't comment on refereeing decisions is absolute nonsense. Are we just to pretend referees aren't on the pitch and don't have the influence to radically alter matches?
Chick is right; this won't last long. How long before Strachan, Levein or Smith come out attacking a dodgy decision? Until about 4.45pm this weekend or the next I'd imagine.
Ditch this nonsense.
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Why are referees immune from criticism from doing their job badly, unlike the rest of the population?
The bottom line is that if a manager criticises them unjustly then they should be punished but if they're right why stop them?
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It is certainly going to be interesting on how long the managers will be tight lipped. Like you said chick, if nxt weekends old firm match involves in a clearly onside goal being chopped for offside or a blatant penalty being denied, he player getting sent off harshly etc then it will certainly be a challenge for either or both strachan and smith to not bring up on how referees performance was. I agree that managers should be pulled up if they used the referees bad decision as an excuse on how they lost the game due to his teams terrible performance but if a managers team was dominant from start to finish and got more than 1 decision going against them that costs results then i believe managers have the right to say "we were robbed very badly". We'll see how this weekend goes and if theres any decisions that'l cost a team a result this weekend we'l soon find out if the men in black will be noted on the bad books by the manager. Will be an interesting one
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Why do the authorities consistently try to take the passion out of the game.
First censorship on celebrations: If players choose to take their shirt off because of their passion at scoring a goal, why should they not be allowed to (as long as they do it quickly...)?
Now managers must conceal their passion to save the blushes of the referee.
Not only this, but this isn't the problem that the SFA should be sorting out. Perhaps if the referees were trained to a better standard, managers wouldn't have to have a rant?
That said, sir whistler has a point, some of the pundits are terrible, especially on Setanta. If you don't understand the offside rule and its many nuances please, for the love of god, step away from the microphone.
Good article this week Chick.
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I agree with Steve Case, who wants to listen to platitudes and cliches especially on a highlights program......less verbiage more football please
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How nonsensical can the SPL get? Many goals scored are contentious, whether it's from possible offsides, or the grappling matches that take place prior to corners and free kicks. Is discussing such incidents to be verboten under the new rules?
Seems to go in the wrong direction entirely. Surely the answer is to allow / compel the referee to talk to the press, and give his take on the game. Maybe in the trial period, restrict it to one sensible journalist, and allow the managers to nominate up to 3 incidents each that they'd like the referee to explain. Referee gets to view them beforehand, then talks through his decision whilst the slo-mo runs. Also the ref gets to make general comment on the game, and nominate up to 3 incidents he'd like to show a replay of and talk through.
I'd much rather see that than pundits blathering on.
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This doesn't really surprise me. Following the increasinging level of complaints from the non OF clubs (Hughes, Levein, Macpherson)and fans against the number of decisions going against them, something had to be done to protect the referees and maintain the benefit to the OF.
Whilst they also get the occasional decision going against them, both OF clubs were represented in this clique and they gain from a larger percentage of the bad decisions than the rest.
It doesn't help that the majority of the socalled pundits are also ex-OF.
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My God how does it take so much to say so little? Refs and respect don't go hand in hand!
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I am collating as many examples as possible of contentious refereeing decisions in top flight football here - http://footballinsights.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/collating-contentious-refereeing-decisions/
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People need to remember that as well as being a sport, football is an entertainment, thats why Sky pay millions to the premiership for their "entertaining product".
We need to remember that, also in this nanny state of Health and Safety and government targets, statistics, political correctness we need a bit of freedom. I think this is a poor decision, as an Aberdeen fan who has been robbed a couple of times in Glasgoe by poor partisan refrereeing, (Eddie Smith and Steve Conroy, both lifelong Celtic fans)
I wanted this issue to go the other way where we involved the referee and gave them a chance to explain the decision, often that is the better resolution as they know the rules anf FIFA directives better than the average fan, they also know when they have made a foxes paw of a decision.
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Why can't reporters simply report on what has happened, make the criticisms of players, refs and managers and be done with it? How often do we pick up papers or watch post match summaries to find that the report is based on who said what and to whom and not a bit of reporting on what actually happened in the game. Why should managers and players write the columns?
Because reporters can't?
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hi are you ever going to deal with the vile element of scottish soccer culture towards scots of irish descent?
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xavi6
Given that most Scots, irrespective of religion, can claim Irish descent then your comment is far reaching. Most fans do not come under the classification of vile, but those who do are neanderthal elements of evry club's support. Players do not always endear themselves to fans by their actions and behaviour and are the first to weep when they get a hard time from fans and media.
A bit of thought on all sides, including and probably especially the media who are highlighting trivia simply to sell papers or boost ratings.
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Chick - a good blog this week well done!
bringing up the first point you raised I feel that under the circumstances where clubs have just not bothered to turn on their undersoil heating (not where police are asking for a postponement due to bad weather) that the clubs forfeit should be that they lose the home advantage and the re-scheduled match should be played at the away teams venue, with the away team benefitting from an extra days gate receipts - you would probably find that there were very few call offs from then on!
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I think the press (TV press) like Chick try to get too cosy with the managers. Old Chico would never dare go up and say "Well Walter, your boys had a stinker today" so instead they dig up a controversial decision that happened in the game to have a mutual enemy. Refs make mistakes, so do players and managers. Journalists too.
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Football is a game where one goal, if any, determines the outcome of most matches. 90 minutes of running around for one little thing to decide it. I think this is why it's such a reservoir of frustration and anger - that and it being played, watched, and administered by cavemen.
No goal should ever be wrongly ruled out for offside, or ruled in when not onside, simply because football should have some kind of technology.
No sport in the world has so many cameras giving you individual shots of each player, but then doesn't use that technology in the game. It doesn't use it for determination of facts, nor for disciplinary action. Even cricket can do it. But football doesn't. Football still seems to be in the 19th century, and there doesn't seem to be any sign of it catching up.
And if people suggest its use, then it becomes 'you can't replay every incident' and therefore you don't replay any incident, which is daft. No sport replays every incident, so why would football?
Until football sorts itself out it will just inspire detached amusement, or downright disgust for the behaviour it propagates.
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Good post this time Chic.
My take is that yes, when they've ballsed up, refs should take the flak.
However, what really boils my juice is when you see managers blaming poor decisions for their side's loss, when, in fact, the reason was poor finishing or something else.
This is the sign of a bad loser and not an example to set to the kids learning sportsmanship.
Now I know this is not SPL (sorry) but a good example is last year's MU v Portsmouth FA Cup quarter final, when SAF & Carlos Quieroz seriously spat their dummies, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7285393.stm.
Then again, is there a great winner who isn't a bad loser?
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There's nothing new under the sun.
I can recall 30 years ago writing to the highly respected Bob Crampsey on the subject of referees, and getting a letter back saying that in his view, the two biggest problems with the game at that time were referees' inconsistency of applying the rules, and periodic attacks of blindness by linesmen. Isn't this exactly what we are seeing regularly each week?
In any workplace, people improve as a result of analysing their performance and taking corrective action where required. What we are seeing today as a result of protectionist policy is that today's referees are no better that they have been in the past, and often, a lot worse.
I don't support vitriolic attacks on match officials, but their decisions often have a serious impact on the outcome of a match, and spectators (not just managers) have a right to know why they made that particular decision. No one is suggesting that refs will never make mistakes, but where they do, they should be man enough to hold up their hands and admit they got it wrong. I believe people would respect them much miore if they did.
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The important distinction is that, while managers should be free to point out referees' mistakes, they can't be allowed to imply that they have deliberately favoured the other side over their own, which could be libel. But I can't think of an example of this anyway, so I reckon this omerta is unnecessary.
Although I agree totally with SteveCase: if it leads to a reduction in post-match interviews (banal, pointless, predictable), I'll be a very happy man.
Of course, referees tend to make mistakes in favour of teams playing with a huge home crowd supporting them (and I'm saying this as a Celtic fan: we've often benefitted from it, as do Man Utd, Milan, Barcelona...). Levein, etc, highlighting the worst examples of this is helpful because it keeps it in the public eye.
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PS. you caught me on the hop with your early blog this week Chick. You off somewhere nice for Christmas?
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I look forward to managers adopting a secret code whereby a shambolic performance of McCurry proportions is commented on by talking about the rundown state of the stands, the lack of shoes worn by the home supporters, the absence of taste in the pies and whether the pitch grass was an appropriate shade of green.
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Can I ask why my original post (#25) was refused?
I'll try again, but state it in a more sugar coated way and hope that whatever it was that was so offensive has the edge taken of it......
Chick believes that the only thing worth speaking to managers about is how the whole outcome of a match hinges on contentious decisions, and if he's not allowed to do that, then it's not worth interviewing the manager.
My original point was that this is an astonishing admission to make by a football journalist. By implication, Chick has made it clear that he deems it not worth asking a manager about the plethora of missed chances that would have resulted in a win had they been taken, the inability of the managers midfield to supply the chances, or the clangers dropped by the manager's goalkeeper that led to the loss of goals, or the amateurish defending that may have led to the loss of goals. In short, Chick is saying that he wouldn't bother to question a manager in an interview over any aspect of the match that the manager himself could directly influence.
Is this in part due to getting his fingers burned when he question Walter Smith about the wisdom of signing Brian Laudrup and Basile Boli?
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"Sleep easy, my friends, that if the questioned is justified about a match official's part in the proceedings of a football match then this reporter will ask it"
Why? What benefit will you get from it? Its not exactly in the 'public interest' is it?
The manager thought the decision was wrong.....massive story, that! The only thing you'll achieve is causing their team to suffer because their manager has been banned.
Sounds like just another journalist trying to stir up a bit of controversy for their own ego if you ask me.
Take a leaf out of their book, and concentrate on the game.
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So much was made of the Kilmarnock game being off, Chick Young you are an irrelevance.
Was quite so much fuss made last season when Rangers had a game at Ibrox postponed against East Stirling?
The End.
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Craig (29)
The Rangers game against East Stirling was of course a Cup game and so obviously not subject to SPL rules.
It was also not about undersoil heating.
So it's a failed attempt at diversion on your part.
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BlueHeaven (30)
Not an attempt at diversion, just pointing out a fact.
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"If managers are not going to criticise referees then there are days on which there will be no point interviewing them."
Instead of asking them if they are pleased or disappointed with a result (which is OBVIOUS) and then asking them what they thought of the referee's performance, try asking the managers proper questions about their decisions: e.g.
1. Did you get your tactics right/wrong today?
2. What was your thinking when you made that substitution? Should you have made it earlier?
3. Are you going to try and bring in extra cover in that position?
Try it, Chick - it might grow on you and make you marginally more interesting to listen to.
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most genuing football fans would just like to see some consistancy in their decisions.Why is it a problem to release a statement.As far as i,m aware there has been nobody born YET that has never made a mistake.
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Things are getting too politically correct the world over. If a ref makes a poor decision then he deserves to be criticised.
Fergie, Mourinho etc are all winners, and if some poor judgement on the ref's part costs them and the club dearly, then get stuck in.
These ref's are considered professional, so with that must come some form of responsibility. They must be held accountable for the actions they take.
How about suspending them for a few matches when they make glaring errors, and deduct some of the salary they earn.
I am all for people who have played the game to a certain level being in charge of all pro matches. That way they have an appreciation of what football is about, rather than a list of rules and regulations and no common sense.
I hate to say it but i feel the day of the big screen playback will have to become part of the game if some of these clowns continue to make bad decisions week in week out !.
Happy New Year Chick and yer mucker Murdo.
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