A-League refereeing in question again after a fiery Big Blue

MRP are kidding themselves by not penalising Ryall. In doing so they have assumed the following; 1) Ryall had actually clipped his own feet and hence this faciliated his slide. Despite the dive and the outstretched hands indicating he was appealing the MRP decided that it was solely the fault of the referee. 2) That the unsportsman like tap to the back of Finkler's head warranted no action? There was still clear simulation since he was appealing to the referee. Talk about inconsistency! 3) A recent ruling they handed down to Sasa Ogenovski where he "clipped" the back of Saba's head received a one match suspension in the last Sydney derby. What the?

Seb Ryall has tonight been cleared of any wrongdoing by the MRP. No news on Berisha.

Perhaps the most outraged of our football fans should read the most recent piece (about officiating...) by Les Murray (yes...THAT Les Murray, the biggest football fan/promoter in Oz)...a bit of much needed balance. And as he points out...the loudest critics are coaches (ironic that someone like Muscat rails so much if things do not go his way as he was such an 'angel'...) as their careers are results driven. But would Muscat sack Berisha if he missed one penalty...?

Whoa...did Miller not admit making contact with Berisha...? Perhaps you should consider becoming a Referee? Strikers miss 'sitters', defenders score 'own goals' and Theo (the most experienced HAL GK let in a clanger a couple of games ago)...these errors also affect results, yet where is the 'outrage'? Non existent...fans accept them as part and parcel to the game. It is called the 'human element'...

I personally don't think Berisha dived to get a penalty. To his credit he actually continued to try and score after the foul had been committed.

You're a fan. That's different, we're expected to complain and be emotive. Coaches are different. Like commentators too, they have the benefit of time and TV. Muscat and Arnold are serial offenders and need to be called out. Fox Sports commentators are perpetually in their corner and should too, be called out.

Yeah but look at the NRL - like I said, 20 years ago there were three on-field officials without video referees and people complained just about every week. So they made three of the dozen-plus referees (Harrigan, Clark, Mander) full-time professionals. Mistakes were still made by referees, including these blokes. Then they added one video referee. Mistakes were still made. Then they made ALL referees full-time professionals. Mistakes were still made. Then they added a second referee. Mistakes were still made. Then they added a second video referee. Mistakes were still made. Then a few weeks ago they trialled a ten-man team of match officials comprising of two on-field referees, two touch judges, two video referees and a handful of in-goal judges. And in that game, big mistakes were still made. It's not hard to see the point I'm making. The point is, adding more referees or making them professional is well-intended but it will not resolve the problem. In my view you do make some good points - although I disagree with your comparison to the EPL in terms of the criticism - if you look through the EPL and even the Championship there is a complaint about the referees probably once a week at least. There are serial complainers in the EPL management ranks too - and even with full-time professionalism, these mistakes are still being made. There are very few leagues around the world with full-time referees in football - and plenty more leagues more established than ours don't have fulltimers. I just don't think it will help the real problem long-term: that mistaks are going to be made, big and small. I'm not saying we just cop it and don't try and eliminate the clangers as much as possible, but there will always be a risk of them happening and unfortunately professionalism for referees - both in terms of pay pack, time allocation and attitude - will not eliminate this risk. It's impossible. As a referee myself, I'm actually against full-time professionalism because it will have the result that when mistakes are made - as they inevitably will be, professionalism or not - the referees will be subject to even more ridicule - because as professionals, the expectation on them will be even closer to perfection than it is now. As for your last paragraph - will the mistakes still likely happen? As you say, they will, and it's merely "likely" that they will happen less. That in itself sums up what I'm trying to say - you cannot find a conclusive solution to the problem.

Problem solved? Very shortsighted approach. Look at the NRL. They have a squad of 20 full-time refs, many earning much more than $100k per year, and look at the mistakes that are made and the criticism that is levelled at them week-in week-out. Not to mention they have six officials per game (two refs, two touch judges and two video refs) and the amount of criticism and the so-called poor performance of them is criticised as much as it was 20 years ago when there were three on-field officials, no video refs and none of them were fulltime. Throwing money at them and saying "go appoint ten full-timers" is not going to solve the problem. It's not just the referees - you will need to make the assistant refs fulltime as well because they could make a decision (such as a potentially game-changing offside call) as critical to the final result as the referee in the middle so unless you make ARs fulltime you won't solve the problem just by making the refs fulltime. Fulltime referees will not make them perfect, and although it will help with their training, preparation and education, they will still be subject to mistakes in the heat of the game. See my comments above about the NRL referees. Everybody seems to be complaining about referees - supporters of the A-League, the NRL, the EPL, Super Rugby and even the cricket umpires. Every year people seem to say that the standard of officiating is worse than ever. Could it just be that they are making mistakes like they always have but because they're so recent they seem to be worse, because they're the ones happening now? Another thing - both Arnold and Muscat said words to the effect of "the referees aren't accountable for their performancs". Disagree. This is a time-honoured straw-grab. The referees are accountable just like the players are. Strebre Delovski won't be refereeing a game this weekend. Not defending his decisions at all - I think he made some clangers on the weekend that did affect the result - but people ought to think things through before coming up with so-called problem-solvers or wailing that the refs aren't accountable, because they are.

Gareth,although I agree that refereeing needs to be at the highest level,I certainly don't think you can use AFL Umpiring as a standard to aim for. Any AFL supporter can list a number of "horror decisions" made by Umps in the AFL.

No, wasn't a penalty. I should have said favourable treatment rather than a penalty. There was play going down the left sideline towards Perth's goal and the ball went out but the referees missed it and the specific players I have forgotten but one or two passes later and the ball was in the net - Victory goal. I'm sure Perth wasn't happy. Recall Smeltz missing his penalty now that you mention it.

Some coaches complain. Some keep quiet. Alex Ferguson was also serial complainer. Wenger and Mourinho are serial complainers. Pellegrini & van Gaal tend to stay quiet on the sidelines. When I watch a match, I ride every tackle and pass & yell out when I'm displeased. Others prefer to watch in silence.

Muscat and Arnold are serial complainants (or complainers if you like). Every time, every time, things don't go their way, they complain And for sure, every time, the team on Fox Sports backs them up, always agreeing and making their own complaints. It's the pitch (it's a disgrace), the conditions (they should not make us play in these conditions), the scheduling (it's just not fair), injuiries (oh poor us) and their most popular is the referee (should be sacked, we're the victims). Every club suffers these issues week in, week out, and not just in the A League. But it only ever becomes an issue when Muscat and Arnold troup it out as their excuse, because things didn't go their way. It's time these two coaches pulled their heads in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksSPZTZES0

Would love to see a way of actually quantifying referees performance. My gut feel is Williams and Strebe are way over rated by the league officials but what criteria are they assessed on and what feedback are they given? You also have to question what instructions the refs are being given in relations to how to ref. A penalty call should be clear cut, it makes such a big impact on a match that if any doubt that defending team should get the benefit of the doubt. Now this might have made no difference with the Ryall call as we cannot read Delovski’s mind but I just cannot see how he could have been 'certain' that Ryall was tripped. Compare that to the first penalty call of the match which was a clear cut penalty. I would much prefer a contentious penalty was not given and play waved on than given. Handballs in the box are a classic example of this. The ref must be certain that use of the hand was deliberate, too many people call for handball when its a 50/50 call. Should always be play on unless its obvious. In general terms the best refs know when to NOT make a decision and allow play to continue (always better to miss a penalty than to give one incorrectly), only imposing themselves when needed to calm a situation down. Strebe a few years ago was very good at this. His whistle only came out of his pocket when he felt is absolutely nessecary, now he seems whistle happy in the box, what has changed? The worst referees are those that feel they must control the match. Ben Williams is a classic example of this, he constantly wants to stop play for little fouls and brings back play when advantage would be better suited. This is where strebe gets a lot of praise as he has a good feel for allowing play to continue. In the second half Varleri was given a yellow for a incident a good 30secs beforehand but Strebe allow the play to go on rather than book him (it confused the hell out of the commentators at the time). I think this is the main reason we need the refs full time, it would allow more time for them to review the matches, understand better where they went wrong and train/educate them to be less influential on the match.

Officiating in the HAL has always been contentious! With the growth of the sport in recent years and more media coverage, you are perhaps correct in saying that it has become more scrutinised and hence more noticeable. Recently in the Asian Cup, Ben Williams was under scrutiny by Iran for some of his decisions and now Stebre (our supposed "top shelf" referee) gets it all wrong. When you see coaches (Graham Arnold and Kevin Muscat) complaining about the level of officiating, often risking and receiving heavy fines for doing as much, then one knows it is time that something is done about it. And yes, the penalty (what penalty?) decision against Finkler was just nonsense and in a tight game such as this one was, it decided the outcome!