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Kyle Sandilands should have been an A-League referee

29th November, 2011
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Does football need to bring in a post-match referral system for blatant referee errors? AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Roar Guru
29th November, 2011
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2191 Reads

When A-League referee Gerard Parsons blew his whistle, pointed to the penalty spot and gifted the Central Coast Mariners the decisive goal in their match against Melbourne Heart last Saturday, a wave of indignation course through my potato couched body.

I was angry.

Yet again, an A-League match was being decided or marred by an inexcusable error from the referee. In this instance, Parsons mistook Jonatan Germano for an octopus as he expertly controlled the ball with his shoulder in the penalty box.

After the match, a despondent Melbourne Heart manager, John Van’t Schip, wryly observed that the only way the referee could have got this decision wrong was by getting hair in his eyes.

Gerard Parsons would need to spend twelve months in Nimbin before he could use his hair as an excuse for his bloopers.

“Sometimes you need luck,” Mariners manager Graham Arnold said after the game.

Melbourne Heart wouldn’t know what luck is if it hit them square in the face at the moment. When it comes to referees influencing games they are feeling doubly aggrieved as they have seen vital points disappear to the sound of an ill judged whistle.

“Season seven of the A-League with season one referees,” the exasperated Australian football community groans with every passing round of matches.

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Surely, an important issue like sub-standard officiating in the A-League should be focusing the minds of Australia’s opinion makers and dominating our media space.

But, then again, I am being too unrealistic.

The Australian mainstream media have a more important issue to deal with. A matter of such national importance that issues like our asylum seeker policy or our troops in Afghanistan pale into insignificance.

Yes, we’re talking about Kyle Sandilands.

What chance do the errant whistles of A-League referees have against the rancid ravings of a pusillanimous d-grade show biz personality.

And, sure enough the mainstream media kicked into gear with wall to wall coverage not seen since the previous Kyle Sandilands controversy.

As one of the greatest thinkers of the last century, Bill Hicks, sagely observed. “The righteous indignation dollar, that’s a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation.”

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All that “righteous indignation” got me thinking.

If only Kyle Sandilands was an A-League referee.

We would then see the media using up acres of column space dumping on Kyle and his cohorts for making poor decisions and giving dodgy penalties.

And amongst all the hoopla from the opinion makers in this media storm, you can expect some serious questions to be directed at the FFA, the director of referees, Mark Shield, and the state federations.
Questions like:

How is it that almost every referee on the A-League panel hails from NSW?

How is it that, more than likely, not one A-League match will not be refereed by a Victorian this season?

It’s time for petty factionalism and politics to be put aside and a panel of the best referees this country has to offer be assembled and developed into referees that do A-League proud.

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If Kyle Sandilands was an A-League referee we would probably be getting somewhere.

*Today is the last day of Movember. Bill Shankly said, ”Football is a matter of life and death, except more important.” Well, not quite Bill. If you have not made a donation to this great cause, please do so today.

Athas Zafiris is on Twitter @ArtSapphire

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