These ridiculous suspensions have gotten me ticked off. Suspending for criticizing?! I’ve had enough of this, I know that refs are human and such, but how do we expect for them to improve if someone isn’t criticizing them. Over the years, as an avid football fan, I’ve seen some good and some really lousy ref performances which just tick me off. In my opinion, the refereeing standards have gone worse and so has referee performances.
This has been displayed in fan polls with many showing dissatisfaction over refereeing performances in leagues all over the world, and the results have shown the dissatisfaction going higher and higher. My question is, what are the FIFA, UEFA, and other federations all over the world doing about this? The answer is: adding more refs. This solution is absolutely useless and absurd, main reason is because the refs are human, which means more human errors. As we’ve seen in leagues in Europe and such, especially in the Champions League, the extra refs commit huge errors like we’ve seen in the Chelsea vs Marseille match when the extra ref wrongfully overruled to not allow a penalty for Chelsea and in many other matches. Assistant referees are constantly getting decisions incorrect or don’t have the guts or courage to give the main ref the correct decision, just like in the Premier League in the Arsenal vs Sunderland match, when Titus Bramble literally pushed Andriy Arshavin inside the box which would’ve resulted in a penalty and a straight red card. Surprise, surprise as the ref gave neither as he didn’t have a good look at it. But that wasn’t what ticked me off, what ticked me off was that the assistant ref had a good view of the incident, and still said nothing to the ref. Like how didn’t see it?! Some incidents are just mind-boggling and could not be given the excuse of being “human errors”.
We football fans have been advocating for video technology for years, but FIFA have always been the resistant to the idea. Every sport in the world has video technology, but the most popular sport in the world still doesn’t?! What are the age are they living in?! This resistance has only added more pressure on refs and adding more refs has caused increase in their mistakes and errors. When an overrated and error-prone ref like Howard Webb gets chosen to be the ref for the World Cup final, then there’s something very wrong. The excuse that they’re “just humans” must stop and that there should be freedom to criticize as I believe it will help, not hurt refs. Also, there should be also be technological help to refs, as despite everything I wrote, they are still humans and will still make mistakes. This will help refs and help them improve, which not only will be better for them, but better for everyone involved and in love with football; from managers, players, and fans.
What do you think…. I like to hear your opinions.
Cheers,
Omar