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General Discussion / Re: K A FRIEND - Palace v Liverpool
« on: Sat 05 Feb 2022 13:29 »What's the Daily Mail got to do with a thread about a Times article?According to the Times today, Kevin Friend has been stood down for the next round of PL matches because of the penalty award and Craig Pawson has been stood down from VAR duties.
Yet he has 2 premier league middles?
i think if Kevin is punished, Craig Pawson should also not be in the middle but thats just my opinion
Yes, seems strange but Pawson is being penalised by being dropped from VAR duties not refereeing duties. I cannot imagine he will lose too much sleep over this!
Perhaps, although I guess there is some logic to using him less on VAR after some recent poor VAR decisions. There's 10 PL games to cover with referees and VARs, plus EFL games, so it's a bit restrictive if you're not using Pawson as either referee or VAR.
I'm not clear if The Times have a source for saying Friend/Pawson have been dropped or if they're just stating the appointments for the coming week. If the latter, then I'd guess Friend is used less as a PL ref and Pawson less as a VAR than some, and Friend did two PL games very recently, so it might just be the natural cycle anyway.
Nothing to see here. I doubt very much whether this is based on an authenticated source. Somebody has noticed a fact about appointments and has started indulging in supposition. I had hoped the Times might have been better than that. After all, the Championship match which Friend has been given is hardly a stroll in the park.
At least you said hoped rather than expected.
I have just looked at the Times piece again. It is titled " Penalty referee stood down ". Using Boris Johnsonian word play I suppose one could just about make a case that Friend has been "stood down" from being in the position of receiving a Premiership appointment. However in my view that just won't wash. The term "stood down" clearly suggests a removal from an appointment once made or an activity already undertaken. There is absolutely no evidence given that Friend has received any sanction at all, merely he is fulfilling the contractual arrangement that some Championship matches are required to be refereed by SG1 officials.
I like many of the Times football writers, particularly Henry Winter and Janes Gheerbrant. I do not particularly rate Martyn Ziegler who is the author of this piece about Kevin Friend.
In days of yore I often took the Guardian on a Monday because of the very fine reports on football matches. I don't know what it's like now but I intend to find out.
I have not got the relevant article to hand now but I recall mention of source as 'PGMOL', so presumably authenticated. I have serious doubts whether this story would have been surfaced had it merely resulted from a hack's glance at the forthcoming PL appointments.
This wouldn't be the the first time. It's not even the first time this month for mainstream UK media. The Daily Record reported similar re Kevin Clancy this week, whilst failing to realise that the matchday fixtures in question has been released prior to the Aberdeen match that had reportedly resulted in his appointment changes.
I have near-zero time for the Daily Mail at the best of times, and there's little reported here to validate the journalist's claim.
