MONDAY MORNING AND WE ARE SECOND IN THE LEAUGE.

How good does it feel?

Very.

I took in the Chelsea vs Spurs game.

Topline:

Chelsea will be good this season.

Spurs are exactly the same as they were last season, dependent on two players.

The refereeing is going to be a nightmare AGAIN.

I don’t want to defend anything Chelsea do, but the two goals they conceded yesterday were a product of bad refereeing. The first one was a horrendous foul that was missed, followed by a Spurs player blocking the view of the keeper from an offside position.

The second was just incredible from Anthony Taylor and Mike Dean in the VAR room. Romero, a very dirty player, pulled Cucurella over by pulling his hair. A big bitch move, no doubt, but the ref passed on it, VAR said it wasn’t violent enough, there wasn’t even a freekick given… Spurs scored form the following corner.

Tuchel summed it up perfectly: ‘When have you ever been able to pull hair in football, ever?’

We have become so accustomed to bad decisions, they barely register with commentators, and newspaper columns seem to ignore the problem. It’s like Trump’s America. The world became so numb to the batshit crazy, they only really paid attention if the incident was the equivalent of a Martinell double booking > red in the passage of play type move.

What really grinds my gears are the self-appointed newspaper intelligentsia who think the peasants complaining about refereeing or suggesting there may be some inherent bias in the system are idiots. I had to pull one of them on it yesterday because the smug tone of ‘the foul peasants are daring to think’ rankled me.

The take is: Refs don’t hate your club.

Now, I’m not silly enough to think there is one reason that refereeing in England is poor, nor that every ref is the same. There are many, many issues. But the idea that because you have a job in a profession that demands neutrality, you will, in fact, be neutral, is fucking mental. There are corporate training courses dedicated to weeding out bias in recruitment, scientists have battled against the biases in their research throughout history, tech coders can’t even program neutral algorithms without creating bias in the outcomes.

Why is it so hard? Because homo sapiens are hardwired for bias. It is a survival mechanism. It helps us make quicker decisions. It would tell you who to side with in a ruck back in the cave times. It’d tell you who to hate, so you could justify stealing their berries or murdering their village. We are inherently biased because it consumes less energy and it is easier.

When English people introduce you to someone new, they will say things like, ‘This is Darren. Darren is a Spurs fan.’ Why? It tells me who he is, what he represents, and why I should be suspicious of his football views and general taste levels.

Now, don’t take this next point as me making out England is unique, but I’ve only been raised in one country. The UK & Ireland raise their children using sport as an anchor in an incredibly tribalistic way.  You aren’t asked who you will support at 3 years old, you are told. You don’t get to work out who you hate by making a slow, methodical, rational decision. You are simply told you hate Spurs and that is how it goes. School playgrounds divide on fandom, conversation is framed around rivalries, your world is planned around who you love and who you hate. That isn’t a me thing, that is an everyone thing. If it wasn’t for you, you’d have been the weird one.

England fills its stadiums to a higher capacity level than any other country in the world. We have 92 professional clubs, which is mental. Our second division is the most attended second division in the world and one of the most watched in Europe by TV numbers. We are fucking nuts about football because everything about it is seared into our brains from the moment we gain consciousness.

You don’t get into football because you were raised in a referee household. You get into it because of the above paragraph and you want a way into the game. Refs, believe it or not, love the game as much as we do. Maybe even more, because who would put themselves through what they do for the game?

So… my longwinded way of landing on this conclusion:

If you think English referees are above bias, you do not understand human nature. If you are writing off the idea that some refs might hate your club, again, you don’t understand UK & Ireland football culture.

Now let’s get into some more facts: Our referees are amongst the worst in world football.

How do we know? Not one English ref went to the World Cup in Russia. That is a non-partisan fact that is damning. I think Wenger flagged it.

Now let’s dig in a little deeper.

Nearly all of our referees are white. I know some people get really offended by the idea that this is a problem, but look, at a base level, if you think about tribes, the referee tribe all share the same skin colour and they aren’t good at what they do. It’s not like whiteness is leading to excellence here. There is simply no excuse for the blatant homogenisation.

They also share something else:

You see that North West cluster? There are 6 London clubs in the Premier League right now, not one ref from London? A football mad city of 9 million people, and we can’t churn out one elite referee? Really?

Again, sorry if I’m repeating something you already know, but we’re quite regionalist in England as well. Disdain from the north to the south and the south to the north has a storied history. Just look at some of the commentators of the past decade.

‘Arsenal, southern softies, don’t like it up ’em’

The idea that decadent Londoners can’t fight is a thing.

So our refs are all white. Mostly clustered in the North West. They are all English. But we are totally sure they don’t have any bias when officiating matches?

There is also no accountability. Refs don’t get fired. They don’t speak to the media about their decision-making. They in fact reward ineptitude. Mike Riley, an absolute disgrace of a referee from back in the day is running the current head of EPL Referees. Again, how much more ‘old boys’ club do you want to get when you celebrate low standards by putting oversight with someone terrible? What is the problem with famous old boy clubs? They are NEVER going to investigate themselves. No one will ever have asked the question: is this ref making decisions based on bias. Why? Because they don’t have to. It’s jobs for life.

Ask yourself this: If you were setting up a dream process for referee selection to reduce bias in the system, would the Premier League approach be the best practice you landed on?

No, it wouldn’t. Not even close. In fact, your conclusions on how it is run would be very alarming.

So, let’s talk about some solutionization. You get to better referees a few ways. So let’s talk about how a top level organization might look at it (remember, I’m writing this before work here, so be gentle).

ELITE RECRUITMENT

I simply cannot have it that the refs we have in place are the best available in England. There are a few things I’d look to do here, firstly, there should be 4 bodies set up in the four corners of the country that elect the best refs of the region. 6 refs from each corner. I simply refuse to believe that it is an accident that our elite refs mostly come from the North West. Mike Riley is in charge right now, he’s from Leeds. Howard Webb is next in line, he’s from Rotherham. If you were an HR person at a major company, and someone complained that the boss predominantly hires white guys from the north, do you think the conclusion to that investigation would be ‘it’s a coincidence.’

Secondly, why do referees have to be English? We are the Premier League. Richest in the world. We should be hunting down referees like our clubs hunt down top players. Create a new refereeing body and call it the SUPER MEGA REFEREEING ASSOCIATION and make sure the refs hired reflect the Premier League like the players do. Hire based on ability to do the job, go to all 4 continents, make the salary £500k a year, make sure people know the job is a high performance one, and if they dip, they’ll lose the role.

CONTINUOUS TRAINING

I don’t know what Pierluigi Colina is doing right now, but I would pay him £1m a year to set up a University of Refereeing that has courses for every level of refereeing. I would set up Universities in every town in England and fund better education for refs at the lower levels and make sure these people knew there was a path to the top if they showed excellence. I cannot abide by the fact our refs are trained by other bad refs. If you want to bring through top refs, make sure the training is the best it can be.

GOOD TECH

I am unconvinced that our referees have good enough technology or appropriate data and briefings before games. I was told by a certain journalist yesterday, in a conversation about bias not existing, that Granit Xhaka doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt compared to Scot McT because he is reckless. Firstly, ‘benefit of the doubt’ is bias in a game that should be objective. Secondly, the statement is untrue, Scott McT is extremely reckless. Thirdly, real basic data from last season has Scott as the 6th most prolific fouler in the league, and Granit in as the 74th. One gets worse treatment than the other. Refs need to be made aware of their own biases. If they have that data and they are challenged, it will make them better at their job.

‘Guys, the 6th worst tackler in the league nearly broke an ankle at the weekend, yet again he was not given a red card, even with the help of VAR, what is going on?’

‘Guys, we spoke about Granit Xhaka being treated differently last season. Against Palace, Eze dived, play was waved on, Xhaka dives. Xhaka got a yellow, the other did not. Eze dived in the second half, no yellow card. Please explain.’

Refs should be briefed before each game on what to expect.

‘Sadio Mane consistently leaves feet and elbows in and we know what he is doing. When a player goes down under a bad challenge, please check with VAR, because we cannot keep palming these things off as an accident when there are consistent patterns of behavior. It is dangerous.’

We cannot continue to be accepting of grudges against certain players, we should not tolerate favouritism because someone is plucky and British, and our refs cannot continue to play dumb to consistent patterns of bad behaviour that impact the outcome of games.

TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY

I read Clive from Arsenal Vision talk about humanising refs. I was going to write back, but I thought a blog would serve the point better because I agree with the point.

Football fans do NOT want to be talking about referees. They should very rarely be the talking point. But they are because decisions aren’t marginal, they are just shocking, and it’s every week.

Part of the dehumanisation of refs – which is bad – stems from a lack of accountability on their part.

No one ever loses their job. No one talks to the media after the game. Decisions are cloaked in secrecy. When something bad happens, PGMOL just sends an apology letter (or makes a call) in private. It is like The Daily Mail slandering on the front page, apologising on page 19 in font size 2 next to a viagra advert.

You know how Arteta turned the Arsenal fans around? Accountability and transparency. Players that were mailing it in were jettisoned. He signed talent with a better mentality. He was very transparent about where he was taking the club. He set standards. Now the most toxic fanbase in London is one of the best in the Premier League. It took 18 months. No one wants to hate referees and they won’t if they are good at what they do, like they are in most sports.

Fans all around the world want accountability from refs. We cannot tolerate the same people making cataclysmic cock-ups every other week. If refs fall below a certain level, they need to be exited from the elite-level roles they have.

Maybe refs get scored by managers and coaches / reviewed by a proper oversight body. Maybe that leads to increased pay if they demonstrate they are the best in the league. Pay them better, make them want to deliver good decisions, hold them accountable to performance metrics.

Make them speak to the media. Wire their headsets up to Sky so we can hear what they are all talking about. Take a leaf out of rugby.

These are real basics, but give me one good reason we can’t do all of them?

The whole approach to refereeing needs an upgrade, if you are a journalist decrying fans asking questions, it’s you that has the problem. The worst people in business that I spend time with are the intelligent folk that drown in bad processes and when asked why, they say, ‘because we’ve always done it that way.’

If it doesn’t work, rip it up, try something new, and keep on doing the same until you get to a place you can be proud of.

Right, that’s my ref rant over, check out the podcast, sign up to the Patreon, see you tomorrow. x

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