what are your thoughts on referees of late

[12th Man]

Whats going on with the referees?

I know they are there to do a job,to make sure that the game is played fairly and to do it with respect and integrity but whats going on.

The United players only had to fall over to get a free kick, I would also put the referee down for the assist for the first goal for waving play on when our defender is fouled,Q. who is awarded the free kick usually in a 50/50 between defender and striker? A. it depends what colour shirt you wear.Certainly was the case tonight. Every dive deemed to merit a free kick.

Regarding the Hibs victory how often does the winning teams fans boo the ref.

I know the old firm are well into their conspiracy theory's but If money seem to be the driving force behind a change in Scottish football, the mentality seems to be, give the SPL teams enough cash and they will agree to anything, give more cash to the 1st division and they will fall in line too. Whats the referees involvement in all this, are they getting more money seeing as the tv companies seem to have endless wads of cash.

I would say that since our club have stood up to the 10 team league, the decisions have more frequently gone against us.

What are your views? and will referees be financially better off if the the changes take place.

Is it getting to the stage where we have to send a scout to watch how the ref plays the game and set up a team to suit or will we be treated unfairly anyway as this certainly seems to be the case of late.

Thoughts

[Alex MacLeod]

Referee's are controlled, supplied and paid for by the SFA. That said I wonder at the mentallity of sending north a ref fom the Edinburgh and Lothians federation. Was he just pee'd off at having to make the journey and travel back at dark o'clock so thought he'd punish or was he genuinely garbage.

[bauhaus]

It erks me when all away teams say Inverness is a hard place to take the points, especially when they have been the team with 12 men, one wearing black!

No excuses, tonight we were not up to the task as a team, Utd were the better team and outplayed and out passed us. However, we didnt need the ref giving every slip, trip and fall to united. Two players in particular werent wearing studs tonight, as every time they were tackled, or not, they went down. Disgraceful tactics in my opinion, but a ref on a poor night bought into the fact that the team with the best disipline and least fouls conceded in the league turned into a South American hatchet eam for the night. We must have had 3 games worth of fouls given against us tonight. Some how I think this then feeds into the psychie of the players, as everytime they went to tackle the utd players they were getting pulled up for it. I noticed that they were even lifting their arms before the utd players were hitting the deck and yet when we were getting fouled on most occassions the ref played on. NOT FAIR, BUT WHY DOES IT SEEM TO HAPPEN ?

Do refs hate coming North aswell, so they take it out on us on the pitch . Tonights ref was certainly inconsistant and was by no means a "homer" . The crowds reaction also seems to confirm that this was not just my thoughts. Ironic cheering if we got a free kick. Several times tonight a foul was given against us, where a minute later a similar foul against us was waived away. Blatant dives or simulation by utd players were not dealt with by the ref, Mssrs Conway and Goodwillie were an embarresment tonight. Thought the SFA and SPL were going to get tough on the simulators. Though their antics were not inside the box it is very frustrating to see players use these tactics minute after minute, right throughout a game

We need stronger referees, and a 4th official who can use technology - replays and tough action on cheats to rid it out of our game

[Caley Mad In Berks]

The referee's job has never been easy. But it must be ten times harder for them these days knowing that almost every decision they make is scrutinised to the nth degree by 'trial by television'.

Surely the time has come to use this technology to help them rather than crucify them.

Rugby has embraced this idea for checking the validity of doubtful tries and it has not detracted from the flow and continuity of the game one jot. It could easily be used in football for goal line decisions, penalties and even corners. Personally I would not use it for offsides, but some might advocate this too.

I think the rugby idea of 'citing' post the game is also excellent, and if used in football would certainly reduce 'diving' and other forms of foul pay or cheating which the referee might miss in the game.

Come on Sepp. Step FIFA into the 21st century and get technology more involved.

[bauhaus]

Simple thing to do is highlight the cheats on the tv and reports and shame them into being an honest professional. Many clubs have them and come straight to mind - Celtics Hoopper, Aberdeens Mackie, Uniteds Goodwillie and Conway, Rangers Lafferty, etc All repeat offenders but they keep doing it, so why dont we show them up for what they are. They spoil it for others. Tell them to put studs in their boots so they dont run like they are on ice near an opponent.

[donjo29]

ever since caley said no to the 10 team league they have had bad refs and i am sick of it, its a load of crap

[WeAreSPL]

ever since caley said no to the 10 team league they have had bad refs and i am sick of it, its a load of crap

A definite conspiracy theory.

I don't think so, I just think they are all clueless.

[12th Man]

It certainly is frustrating. Referees are only human, mistakes are made and you have to make allowances for that, different referees like to apply the same rules but hone in on some rules more that others for example one may like keeping the momentum of the game flowing another may frequently break up play because 'contact' was made or perhaps he fell over so there must have been contact.

What ever style of refereeing was used it certainly wasnt a fair game, the ref was booed off the pitch at half time I was hoping for a vast improvement in the second half, by that I dont mean to have all decisions going our way to make amends for the first half but just to do your job and do it fairly.

If a referee cant officiate a game with Honor and integrity to ensure that the game is played fairly then dont bother turning up for work.

[buckett]

To add to the tongue-in-cheek nature of this thread, isn't it strange how it's always the stand-side linesman who's accused of incompetence?

[+DoofersDad]

No it's not strange. From the North stand we can see he is incompetent whereas we give the other one the benefit of the doubt. There was an incident on Tuesday when the ball ran well over a foot out of play and the Utd player backheeled the ball back into play and the linesman did not flag. It was a terrible decision . Had that happened the other end of the park we would have been none the wiser.

[RiG]

My biggest gripe at the minute, and it drives me insane at times, are the spineless linesmen / assistant referees who seem utterly incapable of making a decision by themselves and instead rely on the referee to make a call before going along with it. The most recent example that I remember was the home game against Saint Johnstone where the ball went out of play off a Saints player and the linesman gave a corner. Upon seeing that the referee had given a goal kick he changed his mind and flagged for a goal kick as well! If these guys aren't brave enough to make their own call and stand by it, especially when they are closest to the incident, then they should piss off and stop wasting our time.

[MabawswaRichie]

My biggest gripe at the minute, and it drives me insane at times, are the spineless linesmen / assistant referees who seem utterly incapable of making a decision by themselves and instead rely on the referee to make a call before going along with it. The most recent example that I remember was the home game against Saint Johnstone where the ball went out of play off a Saints player and the linesman gave a corner. Upon seeing that the referee had given a goal kick he changed his mind and flagged for a goal kick as well! If these guys aren't brave enough to make their own call and stand by it, especially when they are closest to the incident, then they should **** off and stop wasting our time.

Against United on Tuesday, the stand side linesman waited for the ref to give the call on no less than 3 occasions. 2 of these incidents happened righ infront of the guy.

[super1ct]

The linesman will make their call but they are there to help the referee. If the referee feels he had a clear view of the situation then he can make his own call. The linesman are not experienced so will not be as sharp as you want. Watching the premiership you see great referee's which makes scottish fans want the same is but the truth is the better the league, the better the refs so until the league improves then it'll be same old! When you watch neutral games you dont tend to notice the ref's and surprisingly no-one was complaining when we were winning ... yeah we've not been playing great right now but lets not lower ourselves to the old firm standard by blaming refs

[CaleyD]

The quality of match officials has been on the decline for years....despite them being paid more now than they ever have!!!

It's easy to throw technology out there as the answer, but so many errors are being made over the course of a game these days that matches would end up running for hours on end with all the stops to check videos or whatever.

Sadly, as with many aspects of the game, the problem has been allowed to get so bad that it's going to be tough to fix....and to fix it, the SFA would need to admit there's an issue in the first place.

I think a grade 1 ref gets about ?800 for an SPL match these days....an amount that is seldom reflected in their performance on the park. Many of our players are on less than that, and the "oh but they come under a lot of scrutiny because of TV these days" is not an acceptable excuse for them having a bad game. They certainly wouldn't be around for long if the were consistently under performing, so why should it be any different for the referees?

Maybe if they worked more than a handful of hours a week for their money and spent more time on personal development and reviewing match videos to identify instances of cheating by players (which then get punished) then things would start to improve.

[+Fraz]

I don't think that there is any conspiracy, just that the refereeing is very poor and inconsistant.

What I do not understand is why nobody in the SFA ever seems to pick up on it and when constant mistakes are being made take said ref off games for further training, but they seem immune. If they apoligised sometimes, people would (might) have some sympathy.

If I was constantly making mistakes in my job, you can be sure the customers would complain and that my boss would take action!

That said even if Gollom, sorry Collum had personal training from Colinna he'd still be sh*t!

[CELTIC1CALEY3]

Iain Brines and assistants got 10/10 today. No bookings. A credit to fair play on both sides.

[kilda]

Excellent officials today and we won. Mmm

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Here are prime examples of referees at their best

How to referee

[12th Man]

I thought the officials had a good game yesterday too but in all fairness their job was made easier by the players on both sides with no simulation involved, a foul was a foul and an offside was an offside. bar one maybe two freekicks in the whole 90 mins which is pretty good going.

What were the names of the officials they did well.

[Oldken27]

What a load of conspiracy tosh!!

Refs get some decisions wrong and some right.

They are not perfect but human beings who strive to achieve fair interpetations of the players actions within

the rules of the game.

neksor

[SPLJaggie]

How about bringing in a tennis type system where a team can challenge up to 3 desisions in a game, that will be looked at by a video ref, if the game ref gets the desision right the team loose a substitution. No challenges in the last 5 minutes in the game.

[TopSix]

I see Mike Tumilty has been appointed for the game on Sunday.

[TheKnowledge]

Looks like I just signed on to Kerrydale Streetthere. Where's the Caley Thistle forum?

How can the refs be against all 42 league sides in Scotland? Which team is getting the benefit? They make mistakes, just like the time I got chucked out of Blue for being in the girls toilet, with a mirror, and my trusty sock. These things, from time to time, do happen. The refs also appear to be against Scotland, and Portugal, and Argentina, and Man U, and Chelsea, and 'Arry...........

I've spent WAY too much time with some seriously misguided 'We Hate Rangers and Diouf more than we like Selik' fans recently. They know referees full time occupations, yellow card stats, and what denomination there children's school is. That's one stage of Robert Di Nero's final mental state in Taxi Driver. Everyone needs to Harden The **** Up and stop being so sensitive. Whatever the refs says, is the right decision, because that's the decision. Please can we get the geographical discrimination chip of our collective shoulders? It's a bit pathetic. You'll need a Martin Luther King teuchter type figure to get that myth to enter popular opinion.

The thing about the better the league, the better the ref is wrong.

[Huisdean]

Looks like I just signed on to Kerrydale Streetthere. Where's the Caley Thistle forum?

How can the refs be against all 42 league sides in Scotland? Which team is getting the benefit? They make mistakes, just like the time I got chucked out of Blue for being in the girls toilet, with a mirror, and my trusty sock. These things, from time to time, do happen. The refs also appear to be against Scotland, and Portugal, and Argentina, and Man U, and Chelsea, and 'Arry...........

I've spent WAY too much time with some seriously misguided 'We Hate Rangers and Diouf more than we like Selik' fans recently. They know referees full time occupations, yellow card stats, and what denomination there children's school is. That's one stage of Robert Di Nero's final mental state in Taxi Driver. Everyone needs to Harden The **** Up and stop being so sensitive. Whatever the refs says, is the right decision, because that's the decision. Please can we get the geographical discrimination chip of our collective shoulders? It's a bit pathetic. You'll need a Martin Luther King teuchter type figure to get that myth to enter popular opinion.

The thing about the better the league, the better the ref is wrong.

I, for one, do not think there is a conspiracy against us but if it is not that, then the referring standard is most certainly geeting worse. Everyone accepts that refereees will make a mistake as they only see the incident once and have to make thier mind up. What is concerning is the number of basic mistakes that referees are now making which they should not be at this level. As someone has already pointed out, if they constantly make mistakes, someone should be taking them aside and showing them what they have got wrong. That just doesn't seem to happen. The other thing is consistency. Referees will give a foul for one challenge but not the next time and, of particulr relevance, give a fould for a challenge outside the penalty area but refuse to give a penalty when a similar challenge happens in the penalty area. To my mind, we have a lot of refs happy to make easy decisions, although they get that wrong as well, but not the hard ones.

This will ultimately cause serious problems for football unless the SFA start to act and do something about the standard of referees. Little chance of that happening though.

[davie]

I actually doubt that the standard of refereeing is getting worse, and I've been shouting at them since 1970 or so. What is different is our ability to see what is going on. This ain't grainy black & white BBC anymore, it's multi-angled CGI enhanced Sky and that's where the problem lies. There are so many angles that you can question the ref from - he has two eyes, a brain, a load of ill mannered louts shouting at him from opposing viewpoints, a few thousand other ill mannered louts baying for his blood and the likes of Lennon spontaneously combusting. Now make a 100% correct, impartial decision at all times. You're having a laugh. Accept that mistakes will be made, and they will pan out over a season. The ref is still the "sole arbiter of fact" (what he says, goes) and long may it be so.

Edited March 8, 2011 by davie