RateTheRef

We do need to be wary of the two (contrasting but identical) pre-match prejudicial traps of:

i) "This is a great referee, lets see what is good about him and comment on that"

and

ii) "This is a bad referee, lets see what he does wrong."

Perhaps we all need to try harder to watch the game, then comment on the ref's performance?  Its called "Rate The Ref", not "Pre-Judge The Ref".

Quote from: Dumbo on Tue 16 Mar 2021 10:09

Quote from: DublinRef on Mon 15 Mar 2021 15:37

Quote from: nemesis on Mon 15 Mar 2021 15:09

Quote from: Leggy on Mon 15 Mar 2021 09:57

Quote from: Failed Ref on Mon 15 Mar 2021 09:31

I only watched part of the game but the penalty perplexes me. Forward sliced the ball, ball going out of play, then he is fouled. In the middle of the park it would be a free kick. However, here the ball has already been played and is going out. Why a penalty? Contact made as shot attempted? Ball still in play but going out? Another example of where an explanation would help fans. I guess TMO thought there was no clear and obvious error or knew something we didn't.
Spurs were awful, recent wins papered over cracks which appeared again yesterday. So a manager under pressure blames Michael because he was tired. Typical deflection tactics from the Master!
Oliver seemed to have a good game. My final ramble is why do players get away with holding back challenges with their arms raised so high? One day an eye socket will get ****.

"In the middle of the park it would be a free kick".  Why then, in the penalty area is it not a penalty kick?

I'm quite happy for uncertain referees to give a freekick in the centre circle on the balance of probability. For a penalty kick, I'd want them to be completely sure.

Totally agree, the "it would be given anywhere else" argument is idealist and impractical IMO. The impact on the game must be taken into account and therefore as you say extra certainty will naturally be required. Indeed I have heard of referees at the top level speak about giving "soft" free kicks for game control, managing a certain player, calming the game down etc etc. I have no problem with this, I would certainly have a problem if they did similar with penalties! Despite the intense push in recent years for refereeing to be black and white IMO the best referees are very comfortable with grey!

Where is this within the LoTG?

Where in the LoTG does it change the threshold for a foul in the penalty area as opposed to in the centre circle? or one 1 cm outside the penalty area?

I'm curious ...... do you have large ears or are you just being self-deprecatory or perhaps you hail from Brooklyn?

Anyway, where does it say in the Laws what a referee is to do if he genuinely does not know whether a foul has been committed or not? It happens a lot.

What I said was "I'm quite happy for uncertain referees to give a freekick in the centre circle on the balance of probability. For I penalty kick, I'd want them to be completely sure."

Nothing there at odds with the Laws.

I know what you are saying and both understand and accept what you are saying "in real life".

But, as the Laws of the Game are currently written, what you say is at odds with them.  The Laws define offences that result in the award of a direct free-kick or penalty kick; that definition is not location specific in terms of where the offence takes place on the Field of Play.  The Laws then go on to define how play is restarted - that is where the location becomes quite important - direct free-kick or penalty kick.

Quote from: Acme Thunderer on Tue 16 Mar 2021 10:19

I've not seen this one but, re Patricio injury, there seemed to be some criticism on the Beeb website that it resulted from a late flag for offside when the offside was clear for all to see and the flag could have come a lot earlier. I do not think this was a criticism of the ref or relevant AR, more of the current system for calling off-sides when VAR is in operation. A case perhaps of damned if you do and damned if you don't?   

This has been an accident waiting to happen since the instruction not to raise the flag until after the event when VAR is in operation.  Part of my pre-match for a long time has been to instruct assistants to give me a late flag unless the only player who can possibly play the ball is offside and bearing down on a goalkeeper in which case I want the earliest possible flag to avoid an unnecessary collision.  This is not an unusual instruction.  We have it drummed into us that player safety is paramount but the current instruction when VAR is in operation doesn't reflect that.  This was an avoidable injury.

It is an accident waiting to happen, but - looking at the game - I am not sure last night was it.  The time gap was very short and we cannot be certain that Conor Coady would have been able to avoid the collision with his goal-keeper had the AR flagged as soon as the offence occurred.  He might have, he might not.

This is, however, a risk based judgement - one that takes place in many fields of business and government.  One the one hand you have the desire to avoid an incorrect offside, as that cannot be rectified with VAR (unlike an incorrect non-offside).  On the other hand you have the increased risk of injury during the period of the game where - but for VAR - the flag would have been raised and the whistle blown.

How many correct offsides justifies one serious injury?   (If you think this is a daft question to ask, it is exactly the process that local councils undertake when considering the costs of putting in pedestrian crossings, employing school crossing attendants, etc.  There is a cost .v. injury / death formula).

Quote from: nemesis on Mon 15 Mar 2021 15:09

Quote from: Leggy on Mon 15 Mar 2021 09:57

Quote from: Failed Ref on Mon 15 Mar 2021 09:31

I only watched part of the game but the penalty perplexes me. Forward sliced the ball, ball going out of play, then he is fouled. In the middle of the park it would be a free kick. However, here the ball has already been played and is going out. Why a penalty? Contact made as shot attempted? Ball still in play but going out? Another example of where an explanation would help fans. I guess TMO thought there was no clear and obvious error or knew something we didn't.
Spurs were awful, recent wins papered over cracks which appeared again yesterday. So a manager under pressure blames Michael because he was tired. Typical deflection tactics from the Master!
Oliver seemed to have a good game. My final ramble is why do players get away with holding back challenges with their arms raised so high? One day an eye socket will get ****.

"In the middle of the park it would be a free kick".  Why then, in the penalty area is it not a penalty kick?

I'm quite happy for uncertain referees to give a freekick in the centre circle on the balance of probability. For I penalty kick, I'd want them to be completely sure.

Totally agree, the "it would be given anywhere else" argument is idealist and impractical IMO. The impact on the game must be taken into account and therefore as you say extra certainty will naturally be required. Indeed I have heard of referees at the top level speak about giving "soft" free kicks for game control, managing a certain player, calming the game down etc etc. I have no problem with this, I would certainly have a problem if they did similar with penalties! Despite the intense push in recent years for refereeing to be black and white IMO the best referees are very comfortable with grey!

So I get the "grey" argument and have refereed enough games to have operated under that principle, but then perhaps we need to re-write the Laws as such?  The offence is the same, it is just the sanction that differs.

So this is now a matter of what did Alan Judge say (or not say) as he and Darren Drysdale have very different versions of events and both cannot be 100% telling the truth.

In the dim and distant past, when completing a misconduct report for either verbal dissent or OFFINABUS we were required to use the "actual words stated" in the report.  In the event of a hearing it was not unusual for the player to bring witnesses to state with 100% certainty that player X did not say the words that got him into trouble.  The referee usually had to stand by their report and the integrity that they were telling the truth as even if a could be produced to corroborate the referee's side of the story, said referee was not able to "call" the witness.

In this case a further hearing should be convened and Alan Judge, Darren Drysdale, should attend.  In addition, witness statements should be taken from the ARs and 4th Official and players in the vicinity who could have reasonably heard what was actually said.  The Ipswich Town media team's evidence that the words were not said (can you prove a negative?) should be produced.

If Alan Judge is found to have not been telling the truth, then the mitigation that this week's FA Commission took into account when suspending Darren Drysdale should remain.  Any sanction against Alan Judge is for others to determine.  If Darren Drysdale is found not to have been telling the truth, then his suspension should be revisited and almost certainly increased.  And his reputation will have been further damaged.

Statement on a backdated suspension for Drysdale

‘
An independent Regulatory Commission has given Darren Drysdale a back-dated suspension and warning as to his future conduct for a breach of FA Rule E3.
The match official admitted that his behaviour during the 90th minute of an EFL League One tie between Ipswich Town FC and Northampton Town FC on Tuesday 16 February 2021 amounted to improper conduct.
The suspension, which ran from 19 February 2021 to 10 March 2021, and warning were imposed by the independent Regulatory Commission during a subsequent hearing and its written reasons are available below.


Written Reasons: Here’s the link as it’s a 10 page document https://www.thefa.com/-/media/files/thefaportal/governance-docs/discipline-cases/2021/the-fa-v-darren-drysdale---8-march-2021.ashx


from:  https://www.thefa.com/news/2021/mar/11/darren-drysdale-written-reasons-published-110321

The written reasons are well worth a read.  They are astonishing for two reasons:

1. The words used by Alan Judge.  If that does not warrant a red card for OFFINABUS then nothing does.
2. The FA's role in the case is amateurish - and that is being kind.

Darren Drysdale should not have done what he did, but if our referees have been so emaciated that they simply cannot issue a red card for such direct, personal and virulent abuse then the only surprise is that this has not happened sooner, and more often.

Debatable doesn’t come into it. This was a clear and obvious error which VAR is supposed to be there to correct and quite frankly failed.
You can blame Moss - and let’s face it he gets more than his fair share of criticism on here, some of it unjustified in my opinion - but the real culprit undoubtedly is Andy Madley who had access to umpteen camera angles and still didn’t see anything wrong. I find it staggering that he came to this conclusion and as others have said it makes a mockery of VAR, especially when less obvious pens are given and we spend hours watching borderline decisions about offside. This could not have been more clear cut.
I await an explanation from the PGMOL - whoops, me sees a flying pig!
Full marks to Foden, a rarity among his peers, in trying to keep on his feet and not go down; honesty didn’t do him any good sadly but morally he cannot be faulted. There are others who are serial offenders - and we all know who they are - who would have gone down whether touched or not to con the ref. In fact I could name a couple who would probably be still flying through the air or collapsing in a heap even now!

I can offer two possible explanations, neither of which are justified, but here goes:

1. Andy Madley, as a "junior" Premier League referee is extremely unwilling to publicly say to a "senior" colleague that a mistake may have taken place?  Such deference to seniority has been identified as a major contributory cause in more than one serious plane crash.  The junior pilot saw something wrong but was afraid to "challenge" the captain - with disastrous results.  Fortunately, this was only a football match.

2. This is an example of a referee who can follow a protocol but fails to have a genuine "feel" for the game.  This is a version of the saying that if something looks like a pig, smells like a pig and eats like a pig, then calling it a sheep does not give it a woolly coat.  In this case, if it looks like a penalty of the first camera angle, still looks like it on the second camera angle and still looks like it on the third camera angle ....... you get my point.