Curley: Unfair to criticise umpires

NATIONAL referee’s chief Mick Curley insists that intercounty whistleblowers should be allowed to continue to select their own umpires.

After the recent Leinster SFC final controversy, there have been suggestions that referees who are not on inter-county refereeing panels should be drafted in to act as umpires.

But Curley strongly disagrees with that assertion.

“I wouldn’t agree with that and I don’t think many of the referees would agree with it either,” said Curley.

“Umpires have been variously described and very ungraciously described by various commentators.

“The role of the umpire at the moment is very strict in the sense of what they can do and what they cannot do.

“The referee has the ultimate decision and he makes that.

“The criticism that the umpire gets is very unfair in terms of the number of games that they officiate and the job that they do. These lads are with the referee for a number of years even before he gets onto the national scene at all. The referee trusts them and that is very important.

“It (trust) is absolutely vital and I am talking from experience because down through the years I had a number of lads with me and they knew exactly what to expect from me and I knew exactly what to expect from them.

“I had absolutely no problem turning my back on what was happening behind me because I knew they would watch it and bring it to my attention if anything untoward did happen.”

Curley also believes that the criticism directed from media sectors towards referees this year has been very unfair. Curley again defended Tyrone official Martin Sludden’s handling of the Leinster final and criticised a media pundit who lashed Sludden in the aftermath of that game.

“This was an example of a GAA pundit using a very privileged position he has as a correspondent for a newspaper to make way over-the-top comments about a referee’s performance.

“I have said this before and I will say it again, Martin Sludden, in the Leinster final, had a very good game up to that. He had done most things right. People need to get it out of their heads that referees won’t make mistakes. Our mistakes are no greater than any other mistakes that are made on or off the field.

“People will say that Martin Sludden’s mistake cost Louth the Leinster final, but I don’t agree with that. If all the other mistakes had been taken out of that game, it could have been a very different outcome.

“Louth had golden opportunities to score goals and they could have been out of sight and it wouldn’t have mattered if the whole Meath forward line had thrown the ball over the line.”