How to fix the referee problem in just one very simple move

 

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By Tony Attwood

Hour after hour, day after day, there are complaints about the inconsistency of referees.   But it is very rare to find anyone suggesting a solution.   

Of course, the implication in many of these commentaries is that this one individual referee, who is the highlight of the latest scandalised article, should be sent for retraining, or dropped totally.  But nothing happens.

And in one sense, it is rather good that nothing happens, because if the Premier League started to withdraw (even if just for a game or two) each referee of whom a criticism was made, then in a month or so, all the experienced regular referees working in the Premier League would be on leave of absence.

So the tale goes on and on and on with announcements of the latest scandal of inconsistency or downright incompetence…. and still nothing happens.

Now to be fair, it should also be said that very few commentators include in their commentary any sort of suggestion as to what should happen, other than the thought that this referee should be banned because he is incompetent or biased or both.

And yet there is actually a very, very simple solution at hand. 

And the fact that this solution is not mentioned by commentators and is not implemented by the authorities does make me wonder about what is going on.

To reach a solution, all we need to do is this: when there is what players or managers consider to be an error, there should be a simple and easy mechanism for a complaint to be made after the game.   This complaint should then be heard by a panel of referees and ex-players in the days immediately after the game. 

Third is a referee gets three or more complaints against him in a season, he should be suspended for three games.    Six or more complaints in a season and he should be removed from the roster.

Indeed, we should also recognise that referees do acknowledge mistakes – and in fact there is a website that lists the mistakes that referees have acknowledged.   The PGMO should advertise this widely so all fans know about it.

But this doesn’t solve the problem of allegations against referees being incompetent or biased against certain teams or players, so we have to go further.  And it is here that ng we have to recognise that in this case of referee errors, PGMOL is judge, jury and employer.   And that is interesting since I can’t think of any other situation in life in Britain where one organisation is indeed judge, jury and employer.

But there is worse to come, for PGMOL hide this situation by having no website and no engagement at all with fans, and indeed no engagement that we can observe, with the media.  Yet for many fans, the behaviour and ability of referees is a matter of prime importance.

Now, it could be argued that engagement with the media by referees is the last thing that is needed to fix the current crisis, so there is actually another solution available which could help.  It might not reduce the problem to zero, but it most certainly could help reassure fans that something is being done.

The solution is one we have mentioned many times before: increase the number of referees, so that no referee oversees any club more than twice in a season, once at home and once away.   As things stand, there is no restriction on the number of times clubs can have games overseen by one referee – four games in a season by January is not at all uncommon in the PL, and goodness knows how the totals will get by the end of this season.

Yet we also know that the media is very reluctant to comment on this issue, so reluctant to comment in fact, that the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the PGMO has ordered them not to mention the issue of how many times each referee sees each club.   Indeed, there was one BBC Radio 5 commentator who regularly did point out referee errors, and some years ago he was dismissed.

So that’s one change that could happen quickly.   The second is that newspapers and related media could be more ready to comment upon the referee’s performances by being aware of the new processes noted above, and reporting them day by day.

Which leads to the final questions: why does the media not pick up on this issue, and why does PGMO itself not adopt these changes or suggest others? 

But now here’s something very odd.   Refcom oversees refereeing in Europe.  It is the Soccer Referees Association to give its full titlte.   It has a website here.   On that site is a list of local referees associations across Europe, but more to the point for our enquiries is the first entry on that list

1. UEFA Referees – https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/football-development/refereeing/

Click on that link and (at least today 9 February 2026 when I wrote this article) you get the message “Sorry that page does not exist”.  It does suggest another page but that page doesn’t mention referees.

You may draw your own conclusions.  As for how to fix it… stop the broadcasters, the FA, Premier League, Uefa and Fifa from pretending there is no problem, and open up the debate.