A-League referees are only human

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By Mike Tuckerman, 30 Sep 2009 Mike Tuckerman is a Roar Expert

Tagged:: A-League, football, Shane Smeltz

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The referee holds up a red card to send Christiano of Adelaide United from the field at the Grand Final of the A League Soccer at the Telstradome in Melbourne, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009. AAP Image/Martin Philbey

What to make of another tumultuous round of A-League action? There’ll be plenty of column inches devoted to dwindling attendance figures, while the thorny of issue of refereeing has once again hit the headlines.

It seems we can’t go long in the A-League without refereeing standards coming into question.

Last season’s Grand Final was marred by an early dismissal, and the cards are flowing freely once again as we settle into the new campaign.

We recently saw Shane Smeltz handed an early bath for giving the assistant referee “a Marcel Marceau” – as Fox commentator Andy Harper labelled it – in Gold Coast’s shock Round 7 defeat to the Central Coast Mariners.

Now referee Peter Green has assumed the spotlight following his controversial decision to allow Melbourne Victory to retake a penalty for encroachment in last weekend’s 3-2 win over the Gold Coast.

Kevin Muscat skied his first effort, as we all know, but stepped up to slot home at the second attempt.

That prompted a predictable outburst from Gold Coast’s bullish benefactor Clive Palmer – who, strangely enough, responded by paying United players a win bonus.

I’m not sure Palmer would pay his resident yacht builder a bonus should his latest schooner sink like a stone to the bottom of the Gold Coast Seaway, but you can nevertheless understand his frustration.

After all, it’s Palmer who puts his money on the line, and he will have been as irate as anyone after seeing United battle for over an hour with ten men following the dismissal of Steve Fitzsimmons, only to come away empty-handed.

As much as I can empathise with Palmer, at least in this instance, and as much as Green’s decision to allow Muscat to re-take the spot-kick looked harsh, I don’t think our man in the middle deserves public condemnation.

After all, it’s the remit of A-League referees to apply the letter of the law – something Green clearly felt he was doing.

That said, it’s true that our refereeing standards could be improved.

However, having spent considerable time in Japan – where inexplicable decision-making seems to be somewhat of an art form – I personally think things could be a lot worse.

Former English Premier League referee Alan Wilkie’s recent assessment of J. League whistle-blowers was measured compared to some of the terrace antics that accompany poor officiating.

I’ll never forget referee Minoru Tojo trudging stoically from the field, police protection in tow, as furious Shimizu fans rained down beer cans on the hapless official following another diabolical refereeing display in a 1-1 draw with Omiya.

But while Japanese referees struggle with the relationship between deference to authority and the need to communicate with players, they are at least employed in a full-time capacity.

That’s not something that A-League referees can claim, and it’s an issue that should be high on the FFA’s agenda.

Considered by many to be the country’s top referee, Ben Williams recently revealed that he is forced to sacrifice potential earnings just to officiate in the A-League.

It’s easy enough for players and coaches to snipe at A-League referees, but they do so on the back of generous pay packets commanded in a relatively secure job market.

If A-League referees were allowed to concentrate on the job full-time, it might be the first step towards improving standards of officiating in this country.

Otherwise, we may just have to accept the fact that the age-old adage is true: referees are only human.

Like tax collectors and ticket inspectors, they may be easy to dislike.

But without them we wouldn’t have a game – or at least one judged in a fair and impartial manner – and for that reason I’ll take the odd error of judgement over any potential for a football-free weekend.

Follow Mike on twitter @Mike_Tuckerman

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The Crowd Says (12) | Page 1 of Comments

Freud of Football said | September 30th 2009 @ 7:13am | Report comment

I too sympathise with referees as they are expected to do a very tough job amongst thousands of fans screaming derogatory remarks at them and all they are there to do is enforce the rules, which, are generally outdated and problematic for football.

However having just watched the Fiorentina – Liverpool CL match I must again praise the German officials. I watched the game with the only Fiorentina Supporter I know who’d invited a few others over for the game, as their coverage was in Italian I didn’t understand a great deal but I noticed two things.

Firstly, young Stevan Jovetic. Wow is all I can say, he fell away a bit in the second half but looks to have bags of talent.

Secondly, the German referees were fantastic. I could only recall two incorrect decisions, one was not allowing advantage to Fiorentina after a defender had stumbled, the ref blew too early but no big deal and the second was an offside against Fiorentina that wasn’t.

There was one half shout from a very angry Torres for a penalty but all in all they were excellent, Brych controlled the game really well and could have produced some cards (Lucas was a bit rash in his tackling, Torres protested a lot and kicked the ball away once, Kuyt also took a shot well after the whistle) but he didn’t, he only blew the fouls that needed to be blown and didn’t hold up play for “injured” players to break up the flow.

The A-League should really look at how the Germans do it as they truly are excellent.

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CraigB said | September 30th 2009 @ 7:54am | Report comment

no referee is human

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Ben said | September 30th 2009 @ 8:26am | Report comment

Generally speaking, I actually think the standard of officiating in Oz is pretty good, but in no way is Ben Williams the best referee. I recently watched live a game in which he officiated, and I must say that it was the most pedantic display I’ve ever seen. Every free kick and every throw-in had to be taken from precisely the right spot, even it were deep in defence and offered no advantage. The best referees are the ones who let the game flow and who nobody notices. A few too many referees like to be the centre of attention, and Ben Williams is one of them.

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Hammer said | September 30th 2009 @ 8:36am | Report comment

As pointed out it’s not just a A league problem – the officiating WH / Man City game was very poor – but what we see in the A league is schoolboy error stuff – the very bad off side decision in the Phoenix game a few weeks back is a classic example …

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Pippinu said | September 30th 2009 @ 10:01am | Report comment

It’s very strange that a ref would be pilloried for making a correct call.

I agree with Hammer – the biggest problem (the world over), is that every game, without exception, is absolutely littered with incorrect offside calls – it’s bad enough to put you off the game at times.

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thinker said | September 30th 2009 @ 10:39am | Report comment

we need roborefs now

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md said | September 30th 2009 @ 11:37am | Report comment

I’d be happy for a $0.50 per ticket levy to fund full time referees. My guess is that would be roughly $20K per round minimum, which should go towards funding full time refs for the A-league, plus a full time and transparent ref’s review panel.

Except that Brisbane Roar would use it as an excuse to charge a $5 per ticket levy and then only engage one linesman per match to save money, but stuff them, their club is a disgrace off the field.

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Ben of Phnom Penh said | September 30th 2009 @ 12:50pm | Report comment

It is odd that with all the people employed in the game referees are always the last ones to be made fully professional.

That said Japanese referees are amazing. Nishimura allegedly telling Uemoto to ‘drop dead’ was amusing however nothing we’ve ever seen in Australia can compare to the horror show that is Masaaki Iemoto.

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Simone` said | September 30th 2009 @ 1:11pm | Report comment

Thier all frustrated men who were never good enough to play, so now must officiate. That or their wife abuses them at home, thier too slow for any real job and this is the only place they can have any power. Poor poor standard

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cab711 said | September 30th 2009 @ 5:41pm | Report comment

Hell, everyone must remember Graham Poll, what a nimrod! You can still royally ‘F’ it up even at the world stage.

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