Is the standard of refereeing good enough?

Referees are put in place to produce a fair game and ensure both teams keep inline with the rules of the game. Referees are important in almost any sport simply because we(people) are too bias to be making fair decisions.

Football as a sport seems to have a very low standard of refereeing, there are numerous accounts of poor decisions which change the course of matches and in turn enable teams to snatch that undeserved victory or vital result. Obviously the game is very fast and without any sort of technology to help out a referee they are facing an uphill battle(not saying I support it). There are referees that when you see their name on the match sheet you know it's going to be a bad game simply because they are "known" or being card happy, giving away too many penalties or just general perceived "bias" towards one team over the other.

So do you think the standard of refereeing is good enough? To me the quality of officiating in football is poor due to rule interpretation and the way people are taught to referee(that said that's just from my experience). And if you think refereeing is poor, how could they fix it? Better rule definitions, relegation of bad referees for constant(not one off) poor decisions?

* Note: If you use examples please refrain from using(or implying) certain teams as it's about the refereeing, not some injustice that happened to your team.

Technology will certainly help to cut out the glaring mistakes like offside decisions and goal line issues. So technology is like a minimum first step.

I don't think better rule definitions are the way to go about it as the rules will always be open to interpretation. But the regulation bit is a good idea. But it should be used to reward the referee for good performances rather than as a way to punish them for bad ones. Incentivising the referees will go a long way in cutting out bias and motivating them to do a good job.

Money is the answer.

A Google search suggests that Barclay's Premier League referees get paid under £50 000 / year by the FA and £1000 per match. For linesmen this is less. These fees are quite ridiculous, imo, considering the amount of money in the game at the top level.

So - as with any sport or profession - if you want better quality work force, you have to increase the pool from which to pick. To do that in refereeing, you should increase their salary in order to get more people interested in becoming a referee.

Art Morte wrote:Money is the answer.

A Google search suggests that Barclay's Premier League referees get paid under £50 000 / year by the FA and £1000 per match. For linesmen this is less. These fees are quite ridiculous, imo, considering the amount of money in the game at the top level.

So - as with any sport or profession - if you want better quality work force, you have to increase the pool from which to pick. To do that in refereeing, you should increase their salary in order to get more people interested in becoming a referee.

Never would've even though of that, I assumed most top leagues would have referees on 100k+ a year. I've refereed futsal(indoor football) and you get paid very very well for doing that over here.

Introduce instant replay imo.

Its interesting to note the dichotomy between the U.S and Europe

Here the replacement officials in the NFL made a terrible call that lost the game for one of the teams, and its been a huge scandal where people were questioning the integrity and credibility of the league, and the criticism on the commissioner of the league has been tremendous...

Yet I've seen god knows how many wrong calls in European soccer that cost a team the game, and everyone gets mad for 20 minutes but then is kind of just like "oh well, bad calls happen." There is 0 accountability and no attempts made to improve the situation

Swanhends wrote:Its interesting to note the dichotomy between the U.S and Europe

Here the replacement officials in the NFL made a terrible call that lost the game for one of the teams, and its been a huge scandal where people were questioning the integrity and credibility of the league, and the criticism on the commissioner of the league has been tremendous...

Yet I've seen god knows how many wrong calls in European soccer that cost a team the game, and everyone gets mad for 20 minutes but then is kind of just like "oh well, bad calls happen." There is 0 accountability and no attempts made to improve the situation

Yeah i've not had enough experience in other sports but i've heard that in baseball etc if you are not good enough then you don't cut it/make it. From what I can gather they do get alot more, averaging around 120k per year.

the average la liga match is proof refereeing has gone extinct.

No form of contacts is allowed..

I don't want to bask the la liga but referees have done so much ruin to it.

aleumdance wrote:the average la liga match is proof refereeing has gone extinct.

No form of contacts is allowed..

I don't want to bask the la liga but referees have done so much ruin to it.

women football

Swanhends wrote:Its interesting to note the dichotomy between the U.S and Europe

Here the replacement officials in the NFL made a terrible call that lost the game for one of the teams, and its been a huge scandal where people were questioning the integrity and credibility of the league, and the criticism on the commissioner of the league has been tremendous...

Yet I've seen god knows how many wrong calls in European soccer that cost a team the game, and everyone gets mad for 20 minutes but then is kind of just like "oh well, bad calls happen." There is 0 accountability and no attempts made to improve the situation

Sadly that's the case in the US too. Regular refs make calls that change the outcomes of games all the time - in all of the big 4 sports. It was just that the replacement refs were so much worse (at a standard not seen in any of the major soccer leagues), and also had an identifiable reason (they weren't the 'real' refs) so it became a bigger scandal. Usually people bitch for 20 minutes and move on though, just like in Europe.

Swanhends wrote:Its interesting to note the dichotomy between the U.S and Europe

Here the replacement officials in the NFL made a terrible call that lost the game for one of the teams, and its been a huge scandal where people were questioning the integrity and credibility of the league, and the criticism on the commissioner of the league has been tremendous...

Yet I've seen god knows how many wrong calls in European soccer that cost a team the game, and everyone gets mad for 20 minutes but then is kind of just like "oh well, bad calls happen." There is 0 accountability and no attempts made to improve the situation

Haha this is really accurate. But I think it happens because most people sympathise with refs in football. They don't benefit from the tools that NFL refs have at their disposal.

don't forget NFL refs earn 200k a year

Yohan Modric wrote:Introduce instant replay imo.

Only in case of red card maybe and only one replay for each team in a game.

Great idea about bumping up the wage. I would look into reffereeing for 100k per year and i'm sure more people would see it as a valid career choice.

aleumdance wrote:the average la liga match is proof refereeing has gone extinct.

No form of contacts is allowed..

I don't want to bask the la liga but referees have done so much ruin to it.

Its a Spanish thing.

If you're going to introduce instant replays you may as well go all the way tbh.

Either use them for all the big calls (red card/goals/offside) or don't use them at all.

Thing is, refereeing in football is 10x as hard as any other game. NFL has about ~10 billion referees on one game + the ability to watch video replays, challenges, and the ability to overturn calls etc. (which you can do in football I guess, but it has to be overturned before play begins again).

Basketball has 3 refs for a really small court, which just makes it much easier to begin with.

Don't know much about baseball honestly, but I doubt it's harder than football.

Refereeing in football is not easy, it's a very challenging task. Not only is it challenging on its own, but then you also have divers, ref crowding, and people constantly judging you. This contributes to what I think Bhends was referring to- the fact that it's not really a big deal in Europe when a bad call is made. Because it's become commonplace to have bad calls every once in a while- due to the difficulty in reffing.

I don't take much credence in the NFL thing compared to football though. The outrage is largely due in part to the fact that the NFL were using replacement refs, and also due to the fact that the NFL refs have so much technology at their disposal, and still got a very clear cut interception wrong. It was just ridiculous all around, something like that in football in Europe would have gotten a lot of attention as well.

IMO Art Morte is correct here. I think the first thing to do in increasing the quality of refereeing is money. When you compare both the amount of refs, the difficulty in reffing compared to other sports, and how crucial they are to the game, the amount football refs make in top leagues is just awful. I mean, a lot of refs in top leagues have other jobs, that's how bad it is.

If that doesn't work, maybe we look at other options, but I think money has a large part to do with it.

Instant replay would make everything much easier imo. Just have a TV screen show every controversial decision.

Technology will only benefit football in respects to goal line technology. Since this occurs once in a blue moon it wont change the referring standards that much. Don't get me wrong it will help deciding if it was a goal or not, but wont change the standard that much.

If anyone is from Australia and follows league then they'll understand a 3rd ref just means another opinion. Of course having a replay will benefit the game, but in a 50/50 its just a coin toss on the refs interpretation of the rule. Ive seen video refs completely get in wrong week in week out on 50/50's after 7-8 replays. It will only slow the game and wont fix every issue.

Goal line technology i would accept other then that prob not worth wrecking the game. You get calls or you don't, thats just the game, unless your team is Manchester united.

The joke was a troll, don't wet your panties.

I actually don't have any sympathy for referees.

Take Mike Oliver for example. 2 weeks ago, he gave that shocking penalty to Welbeck against Wigan. He got criticized by Martinez (who got charged by FA because of telling the truth), and now Oliver realized it was a terrible call.

Instead of wanting to prove himself as a good referee the next game, and have a top game.....He doesn't even give a yellow for the following tackle.

Baffling....Referees don't really care. Maybe if compensation was higher, they'd be worried about losing their job, Art may have a point

@CBarca: I think you're right on all of those points, but the idea in this thread is that some of those ideas can be taken. Add a second ref on the pitch maybe, and have each take a half, so that there can't be "well from where the ref was standing, I understand how he got it wrong" moments. Pay the refs more. Goal-line technology. A video booth official upstairs to check replays quickly and overrule the ref in cases of grevious oversight. There are tons of ways to learn from these other sports' strategies and make bad calls LESS a part of the game.

Yohan Modric wrote:Instant replay would make everything much easier imo. Just have a TV screen show every controversial decision.

I honestly could see coaches using that to tactically break up play and time-waste.

Refereeing is good enough. But nowadays, you have so many different replays and camera angles that you're going to catch every error. These guys have to make a split second call with a the naked eye in real time... obviously, there will be errors.

As far as replay, i would say only on goals. If there's a goal, you need to see if it's legit. PK also to see if there was truly a foul. That's it.

Only exception to what i say are La Liga refs. They mostly suck lol.

my biggest problem is that the referees behind the goals sit on their asses and collect paychecks, they are supposed to be making calls but 90% of the time just let things go

the refs behind the goal should be calling pks, disallowing pks, being the goalline official, calling out players for diving among many other things but instead they do nothing.

what is the purpose then?