The common consensus among aficionados of the beautiful game has it that referees, for all that they obviously play a critical role in ensuring we have a game of football in the first place, should never enjoy prominence in the grand scheme of things. In other words, to borrow an old-fashioned saying that used to be adopted by adults of a certain vintage when describing children, match officials should be seen and not heard.
As a general rule, if the referee goes unnoticed during 90 minutes of action, we can rest assured he’s had a good game. The post-match analysis can concentrate on the players, the tactics employed by the respective managers, the atmosphere generated by the fans that brought the spectacle to life, etc.
Unfortunately, certain decisions made by referees have attracted the headlines of late, with the weekend’s cup semi-finals both north and south of the border doing little to reverse that sorry trend.
In Scotland, Celtic manager Neil Lennon has been no stranger to the blazers at the SFA this season, and his post-match comments and conduct concerning referee Euan Norris following his side’s defeat against Hearts at the weekend will almost certainly result in further censure for the Irishman.
Lennon was sufficiently incensed by Norris’ performance to charge on to the pitch at full-time to remonstrate with the beleaguered official. Of course, it is difficult to condone Lennon’s actions here, although any objective analysis of the match itself would conclude that the referee’s decision to award Hearts what turned out to be the match-clinching penalty was a decision of breathtaking incompetence.
Ironically, this comes at the end of a week in which grade one official Willie Collum claimed that Scottish refereeing was in a healthy place at the moment. Most rational observers were aghast at this, ironically at least in part given that Collum himself has been ridiculed in most quarters for some (at best) highly dubious decisions this season.
Any hope that referees would mercifully fade from the glare of publicity later in the day evaporated when Martin Atkinson awarded a second goal for Chelsea when the ball clearly failed to trouble the goal line, far less cross it, in the blues’ 5-1 win against Spurs in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.
It was frankly an astonishing error from Atkinson, and the feeling persists that Harry Redknapp’s description of it being ‘a huge mistake’ must qualify that assertion for the understatement of the season award.
In the cold light of day, however, most observers would concede that referees have a difficult job on their hands in modern day football at the highest levels. The pace of the game, combined with ever-increasing levels of scrutiny applied, must render football one of the most difficult of sporting events to officiate.
Nevertheless, it is fair to ask that referees get the majority of the important decisions correct, a situation that presently appears some way short of a foregone conclusion. Of course, it could be argued that those who most frequently vent their spleen towards referees tend to be those who, for a variety of reasons, make their job so difficult in the first place.
Whether it be the manager who criticises the officials as a means of disguising the shortcomings of his own players, or the players themselves who habitually seek to con the referee through theatrics or hounding him in packs at the merest whiff of an advantage to be had, the pressure has been mounting for some time.
The hope is that, for all the unwanted attention directed at referees lately, most fair-minded people do accept that the impartiality and integrity of officials is not open to question. Few referees, however, can draw consolation that such a forgiving assessment can be offered in the matter of their competence.
Given the low regard in which match officials are currently held, it’s possible to paraphrase the old saying in relation to a desired ownership of a gun – that is, any application to become a referee should automatically debar the applicant from ever becoming one.