If Josh Smith tested positive for Covid within 24 hours of doing the fitness test, then surely PGMOL should be offering him a further fitness test. In any other organisation you wouldn’t be disadvantaged for having Covid. It appears obvious from the appointments that Smith finished top of the pile in SG2 this season and thus his performances merit a chance for promotion. If any other employer treated you in this way, you’d be looking for somewhere else to work. As we know the PGMOL hold all the aces with referees and if you challenge them or the FA in any way, there are ways and means of them weeding you out. This is not the way an organisation should be treating an employee.
Of course.
Presumably PGMOL want their best performing referees to be promoted, it's in their interest as well as his. Why would they not be exploring ways to get him through the fitness process rather than putting unnecessary, and possibly unjust, obstacles in his way.