Whistle Unhappy

I’ve just finished reading The Impossible Job by William Rolston. What a brilliant book it is.

It offered insight into what it’s like. And impossible possibly doesn’t do the job justice.

It’s definitely made me have more respect for the man or woman in the middle. And the assistants and fourth officials too, although I’m drawing the line at those in the VAR van.  

What was also evident in the book is the role that fans play. Not just in the way the game is refereed, but in the way that specific decisions are taken. Most refs are influenced one way or another by the fans. The best ones try to keep tensions in the stands in check using their decisions as a way of controlling the stadium’s – and thus the fan’s - temperature.

Like a reformed ex-smoker who goes around telling people how unhealthy they are being, I was once quite happy to referee-bash. I thought the standard was worsening, and that some refs completely ruined games. I’ve booed them, shouted the odd obscenity. I’d like to put it down to peer pressure.

It wasn’t. I was as guilty as anyone of totally underestimating how difficult a job that of a modern-day referee, and assistant referees, is.

There was a really interesting line in the penultimate chapter. Ex-Premier League ref, Jon Moss, said in it: ‘it’s not all about being dead skinny and getting from A to B in six seconds. You’ve got to understand the game, to know what the football fan wants.’

So what do we want?

‘You don’t know what you’re doing’

17 laws that make up the game of football. Plus about two-and-a-half-million by-laws. The main ones (written in December 1863) were changed quite substantially in the years immediately afterwards. The big changes then stopped and have been generally tweaked ever since. Recent changes have tended to help at elite level, and don’t necessarily cascade down, although any change adds pressure and increases the margins for error at all levels.

Think about it. A referee has to keep time, count down how long a throw takes, how long the keeper holds onto the ball, how much time to add for every substitution, listen to chatter in their ear from the assistants AND the VAR. They have to watch for fouls, keep up with play – including blisteringly fast counter attacks – issue and record yellow and red cards and oversee the myriad of other things that take place in a game.

What do fans want? The laws of the game to be applied, but in a way that doesn’t stop the flow. That’s why VAR hasn’t been accepted by many fans; it halts flow far more than was envisaged. But when a ref does it anyway, with continuous stoppages for almost any incident, it has the same impact on the game as a spectacle.

‘You’re not fit to referee’

Quite the opposite. Referees in the modern game have to be almost as fit as the players, despite them also being quite a few years older. Age limits meant – in the old days – that by the time a ref reached the pinnacle, they were too old to enjoy their time at the top for long. Fast tracking has changed that. It also means that some of today’s refs are incredibly young, resembling spotty teenagers fresh from school rather than the authoritarian headmaster-type figures of yesteryear.

What do fans want? Everything. Obviously. Ideally, a young ref who can keep up with play and relate to the players, but who has been in charge of over five hundred games and can lean on that vast experience. What we need is to accept we can’t have both. 

‘Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!’

It’s normal that fans look for a reason why their team lost. One that holds more weight than ‘because they are shit’. A ref, or one of their decisions, is perfect. But research has also shown that referees can be influenced at bigger clubs, and that has to be partly down to the fans as there are more of them in a bigger stadium. Home advantage, for example, was lost in the season that fans missed due to Covid.

But it’s not just fans. Manchester United benefited a lot from ‘Fergie Time’ – the minutes added on until his team scored – where the great man tapped his watch in their general direction. But I’m pretty convinced that no ref goes out to help one team or the other. It just sometimes seems that way.

What do fans want? To feel that everything is equal. But this is tough because we are not neutral and see things through our club-coloured lenses. A assessed a match at Hull where seven fouls were awarded by them in the opening twenty minutes, all pretty clear offences I thought. The fan behind me said – loudly – that not one of them warranted a free-kick. By his definition, the ref was favouring the opposition. He wasn’t really but he also wasn’t ever going to convince the home fans of that.

‘The referee’s a w****r’

It’s worth remembering that there a degree of pantomime villainy about a referee’s performance. Booing them is a convenient and rather easy place for our ire. The trouble is equating pantomime to not being real. Refs are still human, but fans don’t always see this, preferring to think of a ref as something that is brought out every weekend to ruin theirs, then be put back away until the next set of fixtures. They might be faceless but that doesn’t help them either. One referee who incorrectly disallowed a goal for Italy in the Euros hasn’t been able to referee, or even visit, the country since for fear of recognition and retribution.

What do fans want? Probably for refs not to be human. And the more technology they keep adding, the closer we’re getting.

‘F**k VAR’

VAR came about slowly. It was initially resisted by the governing bodies, often only a hot topic at a major tournament after a highly contentious incident. Usually involving England. And often Germany too. Goal line technology – the gateway for VAR at FIFA – was deemed necessary after Frank Lampard’s ‘ghost’ goal against Germany in the 2010 World Cup. The ball crossed the line by at least a foot before bouncing out. Billions had seen it go in, but not the ref or his assistant, and it was enough for Sepp Blatter to finally relent to cameras being allowed inside the goals. Forty-four years earlier, England had been the lucky one when their third goal in the World Cup Final was deemed to have crossed the line in far less obvious circumstances. I guess revenge is a dish best served stone cold.

The ‘Hand of God’ was an incident that shook the world in 1986. Players had always found ways to bend the rules, but punching the ball into the net crossed a line. There was nothing that could be done at the time, but the ‘little rascal’ had started an argument that wouldn’t stop until VAR became a thing. And we loved it. For all of five minutes. Refs thought it was vital. It would protect teams, players and fans from Hand of God moments and that had to be a good thing, right? Not exactly. It turned out that VAR was just as fallible as the people in control of it. Instead of blaming refs, now fans blamed VAR. And refs.

What do fans want? We thought we wanted VAR. Now we’re not so sure. Deep down, we want decisions to be right. But only the really big ones, that can decide games. The smaller stuff we can probably live with.

“VAR is f****k shit”

Some refs see it as a godsend; there to correct any mistakes they make. They still hate making them, but at least any shockers can be rectified, and they won’t have to live with the shame, and blame. Others over-rely on it, keeping their whistle out of their mouth unless absolutely sure because - worst case - VAR can always jump in.

Those in charge of overseeing the refereeing have varying views too. Some want refs to err on the side of caution, others to carry on as if it wasn’t there. This adds quite a lot of confusion and room for inconsistency, especially across various domestic, UEFA and FIFA competitions. A penalty in a recent Nations League game was called a ‘UEFA penalty’; in other words, one that would not be given in the Premier League.

What do fans want? Just three things really. Consistency. Consistency. And consistency.

William Rolston has done a super job at highlighting the job referees do all over the world, whether it’s impossible or not. I’m not suggesting fans stop being fans because that’s a step too far. They will always sing songs and complain about the match officials. I think a lot of them would find it strange if fans didn’t.

I’m merely suggesting that we cut them a bit of slack. Try to imagine sixty thousand people all calling you nasty names all at the same time. While you had shorts on.

It’s not surprising that there is a shortage of refs at grassroots (too much abuse and being punched in the car parks). One in seven refs leave the game each season because of a lack of support.

We always hear people say that football is nothing without fans.

But it’s also pretty difficult to enjoy football without refs too.

In the early days of the game, with fledgling laws that were not yet fully formed enough to be fit for purpose, there were no penalties. Any foul, anywhere, saw a free kick awarded. If you fouled a striker right in front of goal – a DOGSO in today’s money - the keeper could stand directly in front of the ball. No goals were ever scored from them.

Imagine football being played out like that.

The laws, and the referees applying them, are one of the things that make the beautiful game that much more beautiful.  

They help make it better for fans. So maybe fans could help make it easier for them.