The Job of a Referee

The Toughest Job In Football?
By Abigail Richards

Did it cross the line or didn't it? Penalty or no penalty? Was it a handball or not? We've been hearing plenty from the Premiership about bad refereeing decisions. And I bet everyone thought that was over the day Graham Poll announced he was hanging up his whistle.

High profile "mistakes" by Rob Styles (Liverpool vs. Chelsea), Lee Mason (Fulham vs. Middlesbrough) and Howard Webb (Manchester United vs. Tottenham) have lead to wide-spread complaints that refereeing in England's top league is not up to a good enough standard. Styles was even dropped from the referee list for this weekend's match program, which was dismissed as routine by referee's chief Keith Hackett, who told BBC Radio 5live that "It is just like with players, if they miss an open goal they are likely to be dropped."

I have to say that it's not the same thing. Yes, Styles made a refereeing error, but the solution is not to drop him and hope that he learns his lesson. Referees aren't players. Players are dropped when they're losing form or struggling from injuries, and usually return to the side when they've recovered. But Styles (left, with the infuriated Liverpool players) didn't suffer a loss of form, he made an error in his judgment. And who can blame him? With Chelsea's players surrounding him insisting it was a penalty, and the intense atmosphere of a buzzing Anfield, can anyone honestly say they wouldn't have done the same thing?

Sure, it could be argued that referees are paid to handle the pressures of taking charge of the big matches, but they're not machines. They don't have built-in goal-line technologies and can't rely on television replays before their decisions are made final. Like it or not, the referee and his assistants assume total control when they step out onto the field. They're trusted to do their jobs and should not be dropped for making bad decisions.

Instead more help and support should be given to the men in black. They do, I would argue, have the toughest job in football. Neither set of fans particularly like you and you're just as scrutinized (and possibly more so) if you make an error as any of the 22 players on the field. I for one am not totally convinced that goal-line technology is the answer, but surely there is more that can be done rather than 'dropping' the referee for a week? What does that achieve other than humiliating those who make the mistake? They're already practically forced into apologising and then after they do so they're told that they won't be able to do their jobs the following week. This is not the way to go about things.

Referees do not receive enough protection when they make these alleged "mistakes". Do we really want another Anders Frisk situation? Frisk (right) was the referee for the Champions' League clash between Chelsea and Barcelona a couple of years ago. After a match where none of his decisions were incorrect, at least according to the chairman of Sweden's football referees' association Bo Karlsson, Frisk and his family received numerous death threats and he decided enough was enough. This was not an isolated incident however. Frisk was also struck on the head by an object thrown from the crowd at Roma's Olympic Stadium during a Champions League match against Dynamo Kiev the previous September. UEFA punished Roma, but clearly the situation was no better 5 months on at Stamford Bridge.

On that occasion what did UEFA do? They blamed Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. They declared him the "enemy of football" as they pleaded Frisk to reconsider. Unsurprisingly Frisk did not change his mind. In a game where players are coddled and outspoken managers revered by their fans, the men in black are the outcasts, quite literally cast aside when they do something wrong. Along with working on goal-line technology, the FA, UEFA and FIFA should be doing everything they can to help out the men with the undoubted toughest job in football.