- Do Arsenal need to get rid of their tactical straightjacket?
- The overwhelming majority of league clubs are loss-making. Does it matter?
by Tony Attwood
An article in The Athletic reports that an Italian referee, Gianluca Rocchi, has been told to attend a hearing so that he can be questioned for an alleged violation of VAR protocol and the allegation that referees have been selected according to Inter Milan’s wishes. The implication is that Inter know certain referees will always help them along by giving 50/50 calls their way.
It is also being reported that the referee has removed himself from the referees’ roster and won’t be overseeing any more matches until the issue is resolved. A similar situation has entangled referee Andrea Gervasoni, who has also suspended himself (as it were).
The situation in Italy is of course, different from in England, for the issue of poor performances by referees is openly discussed in the Italian media, whereas it hardly ever gets a mention in England’s media at all. Given that a very large number of people who watch Premier League football are now suspicious about the way games are handled, this does nothing to support the image of Premier League refereeing as being balanced.
Now, what is interesting in the Italian case is that there is no suspicion being levied against the clubs involved – and thus no suggestion of bribery or corruption. But nonetheless, five games in last season and this season are now “under scrutiny”. Do we ever have PGMO putting a match under scrutiny because of weird ref decisions? No, of course not.
In fact the English refereeing association (Professional Game Match Officials Ltd) never ever makes any public comment, and doesn’t even have a website. Following this lead, English newspapers slavishly refuse to comment on what might be perceived as wrong decisions by referees. But in Italy, things are handled very differently.
In Italy, a statement has now immediately been put out by one of the affected referees saying that, “In agreement with the Italian Referees’ Association and the National Referees’ Committee… I have decided to suspend myself, with immediate effect, from the role of Head of the CAN.”
And the question that is raised, of course, is, can we imagine such a thing happening in England, where everything to do with refereeing is secretive and hidden away. Indeed, we would have to wonder exactly how the PGMO might make such an announcement if it were ever thinking of doing so, because it doesn’t even have a website!!!
That one fact alone tells us a lot about the difference between refereeing in England and refereeing in most of the rest of Europe. In Europe, referees wish to be open and to be seen as above suspicion at every moment in their careers. In England, however, referees always wish everything to be secret, leaving us wondering what they are trying to hide. I’ve no evidence of referee corruption of course, but I just wonder why, if there is nothing to hide, the PGMO can’t be more open.
Thus, there is no PGMOL website! The nearest you can get to one is a single page on the Premier League’s website about refereeing and the Premier League.
So why do we have total openness about refereeing in most of Europe and absolute, total and complete secrecy about refereeing in the Premier League and Football League?
Of course, I can’t answer that because, as I say, the PGMO doesn’t have a website or even a publicly announced email address that I can email in order to ask my question. Referees don’t appear in public and don’t make statements to the media. We know nothing about them, and most certainly, we have never heard of any of them offering to step aside because a decision or two of theirs has been challenged.
And that is an issue, because due to this policy of utter secrecy and absolute silence among PGMO and its referee employees, we can’t ask any questions about why refereeing in England is run in certain ways.
For example, we can’t ask why in Premier League matches refereed by John Brooks there are, on average 5.38 yellow cards per game this season, while for matches refereed by Michael Salisbury, there are on average, 2.85 yellow cards per Premier League game.
Now both referees are working this season in the PL, and both are getting a game most weekends, so it is not as if one referee has just handled a few games, and the other is working every matchday.
Or why is it that Darren Bond and Michael Salisbury have both been used as refs regularly by the PL this season, and yet Bond has awarded twice as many penalties as Salisbury? Is it really because Bond gets matches where defenders are careless?
Or why does Brooks see two-thirds of his games as home wins in the PL while Taylor sees only a quarter of his games as home wins?
And perhaps here’s the biggest question of all. Why does the media never pick up on this?
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