Giving each ref each team only twice a season would solve the ref crisis at a stroke « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
Mike Riley and the refereeing crisis – part 3
By Walter Broeckx
In an earlier article I talked about the secret garden of Mike Riley where he tell us which rules they use to appoint refs but apparently as it all is a big secret he can do as he like and pleases whoever he wants to please.
How could he solve the problem? Well in fact it is very easy.
They say (and I quote again): The appointment of match officials for matches is traditionally announced each Monday with 19 referees available to officiate 10 Premier League matches and six selected Football League matches. The appointments are made by the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) that they have 19 EPL refs. And we know that in the EPL each team has to play 38 games.
Now I don’t know if my maths are still correct but in the long gone days I went to school if I divided 38 by 19 I got a result of 2.
So with 19 refs they all could be assigned 2 games of each team in a season. That would be that each team would get the same ref in one home game and in one away game.
The individual impact of each ref on each team would be a maximum of 6 points. So Arsenal could know at the start of the season they have to calculate a loss of 6 points as they will have a particular referee (who for the sake of argument we will call Dean) who is biased against them twice in the season. Now and the season isn’t over yet we have had a risk of losing 15 points under one such ref. (We lost 12 of them by the way). And like I said the season is not yet over so I expect him once and even maybe twice around Arsenal this season. If we have him 6 times this would mean that he can have an impact of 18 points in one season. This is a totally ridiculous impact.
And by the way things are going for the moment with the PGMOL sending the same ref to us every 3 or 4 games to Arsenal it could well be that we will have him 6 times (even 7 would be possible) this season. That is 3 times more than the maximum games that should be allowed. Just his presence on our football field takes away 50% of the abilities of our team.
The same goes the other way round. Manchester United having the same ref 5 times in a season (who for the sake of a name we will call Webb) could bring them 15 points and at least a couple of highly debatable penalties in their favour.
It would also mean that there is always a cool down period when a ref has had a bad game. In fact they could appoint the refs even before the fixture list is made up. They could appoint and I just take an example Ref Dowd for the first Arsenal game at home and then he only will come back for the 20th game away from home. So even if he would screw us like he did at Newcastle last season it would take almost half a year before you face him again. By then any dust flying around will have settled. Now I remember we had him again just a few weeks after the Newcastle game.
A bit like when Marinner last season did the Chelsea- Man United game and SAF was very angry about his game. And so they gave him a cool down period of about one year of no Man United games. Funny how we never seem to have had such a cool down period when Dean or Webb came to our fields and screwed us over?
But with the system I present all this would not be possible. And each ref would only pay one visit to Old Trafford in a year. Or the Emirates. Or any other PL stadium. And would see their players and manager back after a few months only.
I never like to go back to the same team in the same season. And this is the same for most refs. And in Belgium they do try to keep it that way. But in Belgium they have far more PL refs so they can interchange their refs in a better way.
In fact most refs don’t like to go to the same stadium twice. If you face a team 4 or 5 times in a season, the chance of the ref taking bits and pieces of the previous game in to the next game becomes more possible. And as a ref you should start each game with a empty sheet. But if you face the same players every 3 or 4 weeks you build up a history with them. It can be a good one or a bad one but I don’t think it is a healthy situation. Not for the players and not for the ref.
So maybe the PGMOL doesn’t mind such dangerous relationship?
Now the defence of the PGMOL will be that they give the top games of the top teams to the top refs. Okay this could be a fair statement but this in fact is a bullshit statement if you ask me. So the PGMOL in fact is telling in public that some refs are not fit or qualified enough to do some games. And yet we (the managers, the players, …) cannot question those refs? But by saying what they say the PGMOL themselves is telling us that some refs are not good enough.
Well, Mike Riley, let me tell you that some of the refs that have a Fifa badge (the top refs) have been really rubbish this and last season in the top games.
Another result is that apparently the top teams deserve to get the “better” refs (and of course I am writing “better” in sarcastic mode). And a result is that the lower teams have to do with those not that good refs. Now if we would take the point of view that the better the ref, the better the decisions are this means that the worse the ref, the worse his decisions will be. And as a result the lower placed teams have a greater chance of getting wrong decisions. So this alone means that lower placed teams have it more difficult than the better placed teams. I don’t know about you but this really sounds very unfair to me. Again the 2 games under each ref does sound much fairer than the way the refs are appointed now.
If the system I propose will be applied a ref that loves you can bring you a maximum of 6 points. And a ref that hates you can cost you a maximum of 6 points. Still not perfect but in any case much better than the system the PGMOL and the PL are using for the moment where one individual can cost you up to 18 points in one season. That is a possible 15 % of the points you can get. 18 points could be the difference between winning the league and ending outside the champions league spots.
How can any person with some sanity accept such a massive impact from one person that could be biased against your team or in favour of your team? I really think this is unacceptable and opens the door to malpractices of all kind. And as I said before: we don’t know the ref his bias but the PGMOL and the PL know his bias all too well because as they have said themselves: they take it in account when appointing the refs.
The solution is simple Mike. If you want to be fair you only send the same ref twice to each team. But it takes a fair person to apply it. Are you such a person?