Take muzzle off and let our refs bite back
However, we still see vast potential in the whole man-bites-dog approach he is alleged to have deployed.
That’s exactly what we need: referees giving it socks to players, though, of course, we best make it clear that we are not urging aspirants to take it to the extremes Clattenburg is reported to have reached.
There’s a halfway house here, somewhere.
The game would be a whole lot more interesting if referees were not only entitled to comment on the performance of players but could, in fact, operate apunishment system.
“Eh, Rio,” a Clattenburg of the future might roar, “you didn’t exactly crunch him with that excuse of a tackle. He skipped by you like you weren’t there. Rubbish, I say. Penalty to City — and a yellow for you, Rio. That’ll teach you to dive in.”
You know those ill-advised runs Gaelic football forwards sometimes make? The ones where they run-Forrest-run, then slow down to a jog, before eventually attempting to shake off opponents without incorporating any discernible form of evasive movement, apart from a few on-the-spot solos? Those runs where the dominant accompanying noises are of team-mates groaning at him to “let it go, for God’s sake” and hulking defenders urging the groundsman to “open the gate, he’ll bring it home”.
Know them? I bet most of you have made them.
There’s no better cure for play of such unrelenting torpidity than to give the referee the power of adjudication and punishment.
“You had a man free inside, and I know he’s not mighty or anything, but you should have popped it into him — free out, into the black book, and don’t let me catch you at that nonsense again.”
Referees are described as the ultimate arbiters: but they’re not, and they won’t be until they get the power of attorney, the power of veto, and, if needs must, a copy of the Power of Now.
A referee of our acquaintance — well, he’s still of our acquaintance, though no longer a referee, which might not surprise you as you read on — was known to Clattenburg his way through games in the gloriously lower reaches of a regional football league.
He delights in relaying an exchange from one not-so-fine day when he reached the end of his impressively short tether: Player: “Ref-Er-Eee, penalty!” Referee: “Come here, you. You lot turned up here today 20 minutes late. With 10 players, none of whom look like they live a monastic lifestyle. The rest of us were half-frozen waiting for you. And now you’re complaining about a decision I didn’t make. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was a penalty. I haven’t a clue — sure I was too far away at the time. I was out last night too, you know. But can I just ask you one question? Given your team’s overall approach to this fixture, what entitled you to think that you’d have a world-class referee doing the game?”
And, with that, off he, er, skipped to continue his invaluable work, buying a dive here, missing a handball there, and occasionally arriving at the scene of a crime before forensics had tidied away the evidence.
Referees have minds of their own. Let them use them.
One day, referees will send managers on their way for sending on bad substitutes or taking off players who are making an impact.
The prize for an own goal must surely be a straight red.
Our old friend, the poorly-weighted back-pass leading to a goal against the run of play, should not win a torrent of sympathy for the player: his personal development would be better served by a derisory grunt from the referee, and maybe a two-match ban.
Yes, that’s another thing, referees should be able to write out on-the-spot fines.
Then, and only then, would players learn to respect referees. Then the moans would come to an end.
We’ve tried everything else. Respect the ref initiatives. Love and peace.
Wasted chance, we retorted.Give referees real power. Let them call it as they see it: nothing sticks like stick.
