The other Sunday the entire nation (according to the man’s man Richard Keys) watched Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester United. Super Spectacular Sunday or something, or maybe Dull Derby Draw Deadlock D-Day. But going back to the Spurs game, I think we can all agree that surely a game of this importance shouldn’t be settled by a sending off?
No? Well Jonathan Pearce thinks so. And he said precisely that as United were reduced to 10 men.
I am clearly being lazy – I have obviously missed the rule change brought in by FIFA that stated that laws change according to the importance of the game. Or maybe the law has always been in place and I am just really stupid. Or maybe Jonathan Pearce is an idiot. It’s one of the three (maybe more).
It also seems appropriate to ask what stature of game Pearce considered the match to be – at the end of the day (my cliché of the day) it was Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester United. A big game, an interesting game for the neutral and both set of fans alike (or so I thought), but it’s hardly the World Cup Final. It was 5th v 2nd (1st by end of play).
It’s the same liberal application of logic that sees commentators bemoan referees sending off players very late in a game, instead preferring that they used a “bit of common sense”, or commenting that a red card had “ruined the game as a spectacle”, as that’s the last thing we need – afterall, it’s a sad day when applying the laws of the game correctly is more important than entertaining the masses.
Tony Cascarino once commented, as he discussed Ronaldo’s red card against Manchester City a couple of years ago.
“It’s a red card, but I just wish, for the sake of entertainment, that referees used common sense sometimes.”
Here’s a suggestion – why don’t commentators accept when commentating that the referee is there to apply the laws of the game, not turn a blind eye. Afterall, it is not just a case of commentators not knowing the laws, more that often they think they should be liberally applied. Or again, maybe it’s me. Maybe I missed the announcement that stated that contact with another player is automatically a foul. Or the rule that a player who raises his hands is automatically risking violent conduct and thus can have no grounds for complaint. Or the agreement that deems acceptable a commentator’s analysis that he has “seen them given” when judging a penalty appeal, as if this has any relevance to the situation.
Applying common sense is a quite idiotic mantra to push. No two people have the same idea of what constitutes common sense – and as I have said before until I am blue in the face, it is not the referee’s job to be doing that anyway but applying laws. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances occasionally. A slippy pitch should be taken into account when assessing some tackles, a feisty derby may require a different approach from the referee, but throughout, the laws of the game never change.
One of the biggest cries is “all we want to see is consistency” and I think I can help here. I had a good ponder about this, I even thought outside the box for a while, and I think the solution is to let one single referee do every Premiership game. This way, we will get consistency. Yes, I know there’s a few logistical problems with this approach, and no two games could be played at the same time, but instead of focusing on the negatives, let’s look at the positives. Total consistency, and the same standard of refereeing for everyone. I see no downside.
Referees are human beings. As if every referee can apply the laws and assess situations the same. It just doesn’t work like that. There are areas where consistency is needed – for example handball by a defender jumping in a wall at a free kick. And referees need a more consistent approach to issuing red cards, as there is too great a discrepancy amongst them. But in other areas total consistency is nigh-on impossible.
Continued on Page TWO
It has been this way for a long time with commentators and pundits alike. Take Andy Gray, who also seems also to think that laws shouldn’t be applied all the time. We can go back as far 2006 to see an article of his for football365.com, when he penned a scathing piece on Graham Poll after he sent off James McFadden. The gist of his argument can be summed up in this extract:
You would have thought that Graham Poll would have kept his head down this week, taken himself out of the firing line and made sure he wasn’t involved in any controversy that would put him on the back pages again.
He must have known that his every move would be under scrutiny after the weekend, that anything he did would be open to question because of the reactions of the Chelsea players – so you would think that he would have avoided any contentious decisions on Wednesday night.
If referees sent players off every time they gave them a volley of abuse, every other game would be abandoned. It’s a passionate and emotive sport where the fear of failure means that anger is always bubbling just below the surface ready to explode if you feel like you’ve been treated harshly.
This is not a modern phenomenon. I swore at the referee all the time and I’m hard pushed to think of a player who didn’t, even the supposed nice guys of the game. Anyone who thinks foul language can be eradicated from the game is barking mad.
What Andy Gray is basically arguing is two things. Firstly, that a referee that has had a tough week, or given some controversial decisions recently, should keep his head down and not make any more controversial decisions. Andy Gray thinks he should not apply the rules as he sees fit, and call decisions the way he normally would, but chicken out and turn a blind eye. Secondly, he comes out with the moronic argument that football is a passionate game, and swearing at the referee is a natural consequence of this passion. By his logic, as football is the only sport where referees are treated in this way, then football must be the only game with any passion. I mean, I’ve never seen ANY passion in a game of rugby or cricket.
This is the one other area I think we do need to see consistency – punishing abuse from players – it will soon stop.
The irony is that a commentator can joke about women not knowing about the offside law while sitting in the studio every week showing themselves to have a crass ignorance of the laws, and fellow commentators can spend years talking about a daylight rule when deciding offside that never existed as more than general guidance and was dropped years ago anyway.
At the weekend, these same arguments raised their head once more. Frederic Piquionne put West Ham 2-1 up late on in the game against Everton then was sent off after his over-exuberant goal celebration.
Chris Kamara on Goals on Sunday was not impressed with the referee, stating that he could have shown some of that famous “common sense” and let him off, especially as it was his last season as a referee, so sod the assessor in the stand. Andy Cole nodded his head in approval. Of course the referee was entirely correct to send him off – he was doing his job. It’s a stupid law in my opinion, but a law nevertheless. The referee acknowledged this by shaking Piquionne’s hand as he sent him off – he knew he had no choice.
And throughout this, who has escaped any blame? Why, Piquionne of course. Reinforcing the old stereotype that footballers are thick, he jumps into the crowd whilst on a yellow card. Of course it appeared to be a vital goal, and he was overjoyed and keen to celebrate – but it is possible to do this without jumping into the crowd. Only one person was to blame for that dismissal, and it sure as hell wasn’t the referee, yet still people are quick to blame him. Unbelievable, Jeff.
Maybe I was the only person speechless at Mark Clattenburg ignoring a blatant penalty for Chelsea at the end of the Blackpool match last September because it was 4-0 and the match was about to end, and he would have had to send a player off. Maybe I was the only person nauseous at him laughing with Drogba and then high-fiving and hugging him.
Maybe it was just me. I mean, he was only applying a bit of common sense afterall.
[divider]
