We attract the best players and managers from around the world but don’t do the same for refs. Then we wonder why the officiating is much worse than the quality of players and coaches. The quality of the playing would be way worse without foreigners and quality of refereeing would improve with foreigners.
Agree or disagree?
We need refs that aren’t fat.
it seems like this group of officials are all carrying around an extra 20lbs. they all have a spare tyre around their waist.
I thought they were suppose to be professionals? how can you chase down 22, 20’something peak fitness Gazelles for 90minutes when you are luging two bowling balls under your top?
Some of these officials aren’t leaving the centre circle. its a joke.
there are studies, when you are exhausted and out of breath you might as well be dunk.
Better training and not getting them all from manchester would be a start.
As someone that officiated once upon a time, foreign referees make no difference.
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In other nations, the amount of bitching and moaning about referees is no different. They literally have a referee bribing case going on in Spain. MLS fans moan and groan about the standard of refereeing the same as the PL, Liga MX fans go on and on about corrupt officials. It’s the same nonsense everywhere. Hell I’ve been accused many times of being bribed or biased… Against teams I’ve never seen before in my life.
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Logistics. Some referees at the top level still work normal jobs so getting referees to travel internationally on a regular basis is not going to be popular with referees.
This guy referees ⬆️
Premier League referees also don’t make that much money to where it would be worth it to pack up everything and move overseas
That could easily be changed though. There’s plenty enough money in the system to pay them more if that’s the main hurdle to getting the best
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Each league thinks they have the worst referees, having foreign referees isn’t a bad idea but it’s not going to be a band aid fix, It’ll likely be an expensive solution to a minor upgrade.
Almost every player dives or try to make a faul look worse or fakes a injury. Clubs complain against the refereeing all the time. The rules becomes more black and white to decrease the risk of doing a subjective call that is wrong. Clubs still complain because the penalty is sometimes to harsh given the situation. VAR gets involved. Clubs still complain because it takes to Long to make a call. VAR try to hurry things up which results in more human made errors. Clubs complain again. VAR gets more control and takes trippel the time to make a call just to be sure. And it continues…
I just miss the old times where we had a ref who got the respect needed to make calls. Some refs looked as he could kill you with his fist if you started complaining. Yes there where wrong calls, but clubs respected that as part of the game. Get offside techology. Keep the goal line tech. Let VAR only look for malicious attempts which happens behind the refs eye sight. Soon TV will start using the VAR situations as advertising spot lol
Foreign refs are terrible too lol
Is there any evidence that referees from abroad are better? Can’t say that’s something I’ve noticed - in Spain Lahoz is apparently one of their best and he’s worse than any in England
Not evidence, but statistically it’s likely that if you make a poule of the world’s 50 best referees that the majority of them will not be English since the English only constitute a small % of the footballing world’s population
This is exactly my thinking. It’s hard to measure but it seems rather unlikely that there aren’t some referees working elsewhere who would improve the pgmol.
Wasnt the point of Brexit to make itnharder for foreigners to work there?
You might not be surprised to hear that I voted remain and have only become more anti-brexit since it happened!
They get paid relative peanuts (given the amount of money that’s in football), why would someone uproot their lives for 40k a year and abuse?
It isn’t that the quality of refs is inherently worse here, I think our processes and procedures are shit. It’s embarrassing hearing the VAR refs talk to each other. It’s too casual. Compare it to cricket, there’s a process that they follow. When you do the same thing over and over again, you get better at it.
Gillett wasn’t even up to par in the A-League, how the fuck did he get a gig in England?
Absolutely agree, although the question shouldn’t be “foreign” but simply “competent”.
The premier league has already crossed this line by importing refs from Australia, although they had to completely relocate and only ref here etc.
Refereeing in the premier league needs to be completely redone form the ground up. Much higher salaries and therefore higher expectations on fitness and knowledge and education, VAR should be independently done and not by refs who also work pitch side.
This is going to happen soon either way as several refs will leave, under the excuse of persecution, for the big money in the Saudi league. On the face of it it is ridiculous that a ref keeps control of players who some make more in a day or two than they make in a year.
Been watching some champions league this year. Those refs are just as useless.
What I don’t get is why the roster of referees hardly refreshes, you have incompetent referees like Taylor, Atwell, etc. reffing for donkeys years
Why don’t you pull in some Americans, you’re already a bigger sport here than baseball. You can say whatever you want about our culture in this sport, but the more involved we get the better it is for EPL and clubs
Americans get a lot of unnecessary derision because they insist on calling football ‘soccer’ etc so I wouldn’t want to exclude Americans. But it has to be on merit otherwise what’s the point?
The point of my post is that arbitrarily limiting a position to those with a specific nationality, necessarily limits the quality of those in said position. So if an American is good enough sure, but if they’re not going to improve it then not a chance.
There’s an issue with getting former players (of any level) involved with football. Refs seem to be kids who weren’t ever any good at football but liked football.
We need ex pros either being refs or being part of the VAR system to provide an ex players view of the game. People who understand that if you’re trying to play a ball and your foot rolls over or a players leg goes under your foot completely unaware to you, is a normal part of the game and shouldn’t be red cards. People who understand that jumping required you to used your arms to jump. People who understand what it’s like to have a football kicked at you from two yards away and how impossible it is to get your hand out the way and how your hand being up isn’t unnatural as you need to keep your balance.
Too many refs haven’t a fucking clue about the actual physical actions of playing football and all they seem to care about are the literal interpretation of the law rather than applying the laws with a degree of common sense or understanding of how the games played.
Afraid I’m going to have to disagree here… Though we might be able to find common ground. My issue with players in VAR is that almost every pundit is a former player and they consistently come out with biased, inconsistent, and often objectively incorrect information.
Where I think there’s more scope to reflect your point is in giving ex players a role in IFAB’s development of the laws but I wouldn’t want them anywhere near VAR.