Anthony Taylor is probably the best one we have. Which isn’t a great advert for advert for referees, but there you go.
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I agree, but we can also acknowledge that he is a cog in a biased/corrupted set up. Once we accept that as the norm we can move on.
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You might be thinking of Jon “I’m going to give a penalty” Moss, who was James Milner’s PE teacher.
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Aren’t we all?
Move on to what?
By that definition every ref in the professional league is corrupt? How do you move on from that, perhaps the better approach would be to disband the PGMOL and bring it back under the FA. Because there isn’t much of an alternative you can’t disband it and then go but here is another new alternative group that they’ve all joined.
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Matty, I have a long held view that there is bias and corruption in refereeing and VAR. I’m not going to start listing the “unusual” decisions suffered by Liverpool as its been done so many times already. In fact @jaffod has catalogued this stuff more than once. His memory is much better than mine
Whether you agree or disagree is fine. My answer was to @Rambler and his post re Taylor.
I don’t think Taylor or anyone should be frightened for themselves or their family at any point. But I do think he has made very poor decisions in the job he is getting paid for. If disbanding PMGOL is a way to stop these people ruining competition, then fine.
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No.
I’m not to be honest.
His comment about ‘expecting perfection’ is the one that struck me - my view is that football has embedded a notion of perfection in the idea of officiating. Transparency and communication are not seen as relevant, decisions are unassailable, so inevitably any actual referee falls short of that ideal. It is a stark contrast to officiating in rugby, where the referees are generally treated with greater deference but explaining their calls is completely normal.
In essence, they have made a rod for their own backs.
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I think the point to note with referees; more often than not; they are the sole recipient of the anger directed at the poor standard of officiating in general, and the incompetent hierarchy that run the PGMOL.
None of us are perfect at our jobs, that is a fact, and it is a fact we need to acknowledge, but never do, when venting our expletives at the guy calling the shots during the game. Years ago that was part and parcel of the ‘only a matter of time’ expected chanting from the terraces, as soon as a few decisions raised the blood pressure levels of the fans.
Yet in a world that is getting more sinister and angry by the day on the one hand, but also a world where in employment, H&S takes precedent across countless scenarios, then maybe, just maybe the time has come, to make the job of the referee, and his/her family safer. For example, it is not Howey Webb, or even Howey Webb’s boss that has to take the flak and run the gauntlet of hate after a game.. no not them, but it is them that are supposed to ensure safe working conditions of employees.
With state of the art cameras at the games now, where nothing goes unseen, surely before a serious incident, or a fatality occurs regarding a referee, the way a game is officiated needs to move away from the present day archaic methods of single individual deployment, into the bear-pit white hot cauldrons of some football grounds. In a share the burden, lessen the load, and take away from an individual decision maker, the ramifications and sinister pitfalls in making a ‘wrong call’, why not have 3 incumbents in a far away studio making a democratic decision when it matters, or when specifically requested by the guy in the middle… In short, take the most of the decision making away from the guy on the spot, after studying video evidence of the incident…
While being fully aware old paradigms will forever challenge new ideas of pro-active creativity, there has to be realisation that if a system has not only become stagnant, but more sinister and dangerous to individuals directly in the line of fire, new concepts need to be implemented before it becomes too late for some poor sod further down the line…!
Goes back to my comment of how insular refereeing as an institution has become and how bad that’s been. No one expects perfection or anything close to it. They expect good faith attempts at making defensible decisions done with a degree of humility that it might not be right but they have a reason they can explain for giving it. Refs’ conscious separation from the rest of the game made them lose interest in communication, or what in business jargon might be called stakeholder management, and all they’ve got left is their metrics and a focus on being mathematically rated as highly as possibly. They are focusing on perfection to satisfy each other not us and so focusing on things that are not really measuring what “the game” thinks is valuable in a ref performance
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Coote has pleaded guilty to the child pornography charge:
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Referees should be able to go about their business without being threatened, and their family should be able to go and enjoy the game. The second part, when it comes to Anthony Taylor, is a bit puzzling. I wouldn’t have the foggiest who his partner or kids might be. Why can they not go to the game, incognito, as they are not public figures?
If Taylor is getting criticized by fans on the terrace, what do his family members expect? Referees will be criticized, it’s part and parcel of the game.
The substantive issue that needs to be addressed, IMO, is the disbanding of the PGMOL. Somewhere along the way it has developed an antagonistic, them v us sort of posture, and it has become isolated and unaccountable.
Refereeing should happen from within the game, not from an organization that seemingly cannot be touched, or critiqued, evaluated and improved. The PGMOL is protectionist, isolated, defensive, and too out of touch.
Disband and form something better, that is fit for purpose.
Oh, and I couldn’t agree more with what Arminius said above about the culture of refereeing. Football should take a leaf out of rugby’s book and have the referees explain decisions along the way. Nobody expects perfection, but they do want transparency, and some sort of rationale given for the questionable decisions.
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I think this probably be implemented full scale instead of what we currently have.
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Excellent idea in principle. It seems to work well in hockey but I fear it could get messy. What if we are in added time and the manager of one side decides to make a spurious appeal to break up the opposition momentum … will every appeal automatically be reviewed? Will play stop if the appeal card is shown?
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Absolutely.
If Klopp had that card we would have two more titles in the bag.
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It’s not though, it’s just the same constant level overall which is poor.
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If the standard is based on ensuring the outcomes of games rather than fairly officiating them then they are doing a great job…
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The decision to rule the Virgil goal out yesterday was abysmal - and I was hoping that the likes of Dermot would agree this morning on ref-watch, but as usual, he’s there to protect his chums and their decisions as best he can, rather than say it how it is - hiding behind subjectivity. At least Bothroyd says it how it is - Robbo wasn’t in the keepers sight - it should have stood. More annoying that City scored the same goal (vs Wolves) and it stood. The linesman flagged 30 secs after the goal and decided that he could see (from his angle) that Robbo was interfering - fucking bullshit.
The whole refereeing performance was poor yesterday I though - City were falling over constantly, winning fouls, we didn’t win those same fouls. Oliver (on VAR yest) is the best there is (low bar) but he’s frustrating as once hes made his mind up there’s no changing it.
Notwithstanding the ref’s yesterday, we were poor, but that goal being given entirely changes the game state yesterday and you never know how it goes from that point on.
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Another couple of things I noticed: One was that Wirtz was fouled (professionally) on the break on at least 4 separate occasions. Only two of those resulted in a yellow card. I’m not sure if any should have been a second yellow.
The other is that the assistant constantly flagged for us being offside on the break rather than letting play carry on. Now I am all for an early flag if it is clearly offside, but when they showed the stills of a couple of them, they looked very close. Most were not shown so I can’t comment one way or the other, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one or two should have proceeded.
Incidentally, I posted on the post-match thread that the assistant referees were exactly the same as those who went with Oliver to the UAE beano before the Spurs debacle a couple of years ago. I’m wondering if they have an issue with us after that little brown envelope scheme was stopped.
I suppose that, since our performance yesterday was pretty crap, not many people are looking at the officiating situation. But prior to the match, lots of people on social media were saying that Oliver would fuck us over. He didn’t disappoint.
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