Our football referees need an Asian vacation

liam, no doubting the top Euro referees are generally better than Asian referees. We are now a part of the Asian Football Confederation, so the idea was to rotate the Asian referees over different countries and leagues, which should improve the standard and increase the consistency of decisions - which is what the players want. If the refereeing is consistent they know what to expect, don't get as frustrated and lash out. Most of the Socceroos and ACL games will be officiated by other Asian countries, not European and we need to adapt to their standards and peculiarities, no matter how bad or good, to succeed.

if we want to improve the ref's actually send them to a country where the officiating is better, ie europe.

Rotating referees and the different standards involve cultural changes as well as technical improvements and while I would be interested to see the scheme introduced, I think the difficulties will be in the different cultures and interpretations of using foreign referees, rather than the logistics of setting it all up. The European Champions League is a shining example of how it works well. Teams always get a foreign referee within Europe and the standard of play and refereeing for that matter is generally very good. You very rarely get controversial refereeing decisions in the ECL because they are the top referees from the top European footballing nations. We could do that with the top Asian referees and some of them I’ve seen are very good. I too believe that allowing more diving and time wasting to be more consistent with Asian refereeing is a negative. We could clean up our game with less emphasis on the physical, give out tougher penalties for foul play and improve the skill levels, but also try and influence the rest of Asia, in some areas, to be more professional and play in the true spirit of the game instead of wasting time and acting. This is still a problem in Europe and South America as well. Its funny that the last 2 times the Aussies played Japan, the head of the Japanese football association came out in the press and told the referees to watch out for the Socceroos dirty, physical style. They tried to use this as a tactic to influence the referee before the game. Are we that bad? I think not and it was some sort of gamesmanship from the Japanese and I wouldn't be surprised if they do it again in our upcoming WC qualifiers. However, the Asian culture makes it easy to believe the Socceroos dirty, physical player stereotype. If they had refereed a few A-League games beforehand, the Asian referees would probably be less likely to swallow a line like that any more.

you must be a lateral thinker jimbo. Your idea is out of left field & certainly worth considering although I suspect the various governing bodies would collectively be too conservative to adopt it. One hopes that enough resources are commited to raising & standardising the quality of refereeing globally.

Yes sir. Great idea. I'm going to put comment of refereeing standard aside and go to another topic which is the style and culture between countries and the role of referees in that. In Europe, one can very clearly see that the players waltz to a different tune in the UCL and UEFA Cup than they do in their domestic leagues - with the differences being most stark for EPL and Scottish clubs. To me that's not a good thing and I don't see why a universally applied standard of decision-making cannot be promoted throughout all European competitions. Switching to Asia, I see jimbo's idea as having exactly this outcome. Referees will know a number of country's leagues, players and standards. The room for mis-interpretation will be lowered. And a big step will be taken towards a 'common' Asian view on the type of play that is acceptable and to be encouraged. Good plan.

Its interesting that AFC are actually impress by Australian Referees and believing that Australia is raising the standard on referee. Even though referee get a lot of stick in Australia they are still highly regarded in the rest of Asia To clamp down on physical play would be assisted if commentators at fox will stop complaining that a decision is harsh for clear red cards,yellow card and fouls. Its like they want the league to descend into violence. One of the thing I like about Shield initially that he was willing to clamp down on physical play but when he was getting complaints from fans and commentators he stop doing that. The turning point was that clear red card to corica in Sydney vs Wellington. were he booed of the pitch with fans throwing rubbish at him. Now how on earth can you get referee to clamp down on physical play when you get rubbish like that for a correct decision. I think a Tim Vickery said that brazillian referees have different ways of refereeing in matches in Brazil and matches in continental matches and I think the same applies to Australia watching how Shield referee matches. I'm afraid Rome wasn't build in one day and this change will take some time. Watching some Soccerroos match. Some referee has been lenient on divers adn time wasting but some referee were quite harsh on time wasters and divers. I think one of the match against Iraq or Qatar (i'm afraid i can't remember the exact match) I was impress how the referee dealt with that and really I wouldn't want Australian to be lenient in those sorts of things and I want the referee from Asia to learn from us in how we deal with divers. Remember that cultural exchange work both ways, they can learn from us as well as we can learn from them.

90 minutes 90 stuff ups Mathew Breeze Sorry could not help myself, assuming rules allow the exchange of ref's is a good idea and anything to improve the quality would help so the new guy you spoke about the Dutch referee Mario Van der Ende to conduct a review of Australian football refereeing is good. As I said cannot help myself maybe ------ “hit em again Danny"

Overall, not a bad idea at all. I'm not sure what the regulations are though, knowing FIFA they probably wouldn't allow it. But our standards definitely need improving. We need enough professional referees so that when Matthew Breeze and Mark Shield make mistakes it is like England, they can be dropped for the round. At the moment there's no one to replace them so no matter how many shockers they make they'll always get a gig the next week, and more than likely the most important matches too. I'm not trying to be overly critical of those two guys, not today anyway, but it simply isn't fair IMO that they can't be touched (no pun intended) even if they make colossal errors. It's like saying to a goalkeeper that even if he just stands still for the whole game he'll still keep his spot the next week. "Conversely, should our referees start cracking down more on the physical play and less on the simulation and play-acting that is more common in Asia, so that our refereeing standards are more closely comparable?" Yes, our referees should be clamping down on the overly-physical play in the A-League. This would I think encourage more free-flowing football like we see in Asia (and Europe) and I think this is what fans would prefer to see instead of seeing forwards get lumps kicked out of them by defenders. On the side of play acting, no! I think right around the globe we need a tougher stance on simulation. From my point of view it'd be hypocritical to whinge for two years about Grosso and then start encouraging diving in our league. Same as it'd be hypocritical to complain about the behvaiour of Asian teams and then have our guys start rolling around on the ground as soon as we go 1-0 up. I think Asian referees, in fact all referees, need to lift their game in that department.

Jimbo, truly an excellent idea; an exchange program of referees to officiate matches right through Asia, that would bring the standard, understanding and interpretations of the rules so much closer ... GOOD IDEA lad... ~~~~~~~~ KB