Frisking Mourinho
UEFA must think its time to make an example of someone.
What Jose Mourinho did in complaining about referee Anders Frisk in their recent Champions League match has even sparked suggestions of Chelsea’s expulsion from the competition. Thats, um, mildly overblown with the word 'disrepute'.
It’s tragic to see a referee end his career because of threats and its sad fans see anything happening on the pitch with a reflection into their real lives. A game was a game until the fans and now UEFA have started to play more games.
Why not fix what is broken?
It’s been a difficult year for the match officials in general. I’ve gotten rather tired of hearing about bad calls. It’s strange that this form of complaining has become so fashionable as to blindly ignore that maybe something should be done to eliminate the controversial calls.
Eliminate the controversy over calls and you eliminate the gateway to threatening referees. Add technology and another match official and the game (ehm, and fan behavior) will improve.
While Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is certainly getting an undeserved ‘pat down’, he is no saint in this situation. Mourinho had no need to blow off press conferences, in fact it might have been better there to address the issue in a nice way. Chelsea made a formalized bungle by all the press releases and interviews.
By attacking coaches UEFA continue to ignore their problems. Mourinho is not their problem.
What Jose Mourinho did in complaining about referee Anders Frisk in their recent Champions League match has even sparked suggestions of Chelsea’s expulsion from the competition. Thats, um, mildly overblown with the word 'disrepute'.
It’s tragic to see a referee end his career because of threats and its sad fans see anything happening on the pitch with a reflection into their real lives. A game was a game until the fans and now UEFA have started to play more games.
Why not fix what is broken?
It’s been a difficult year for the match officials in general. I’ve gotten rather tired of hearing about bad calls. It’s strange that this form of complaining has become so fashionable as to blindly ignore that maybe something should be done to eliminate the controversial calls.
Eliminate the controversy over calls and you eliminate the gateway to threatening referees. Add technology and another match official and the game (ehm, and fan behavior) will improve.
While Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is certainly getting an undeserved ‘pat down’, he is no saint in this situation. Mourinho had no need to blow off press conferences, in fact it might have been better there to address the issue in a nice way. Chelsea made a formalized bungle by all the press releases and interviews.
By attacking coaches UEFA continue to ignore their problems. Mourinho is not their problem.
by Football Commentator at 3/23/2005 04:52:00 PM
5 Comments:
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"Eliminate the controversy over calls and you eliminate the gateway to threatening referees."
1). Can't be done. You will never change the fact that no matter what you do to try and eliminate controversial or bad decisions, eventually, somebody somewhere will disagree with a decision made by an official, from a range of reasons from having a different angle on the incident, to ignorance of the LOAF, to plain bias, and even that maybe the official just got it wrong that time. You're never going to eliminate this even if you delegate decision-making to a panel of a hundred experts. They will be wrong eventually. They will be catastrophically, hopelessly and irredeemably wrong. Show me someone who's never made a mistake and I'll show you someone who's never done anything.
2). There is, however, something you *can* change. It's the fundamental perception among players and managers that when a match official makes a decision you don't like, you shout at him. From there springs all dissent, from "Come on, ref" to United chasing Andy D'Urso round the pitch for daring to give a penalty against them, to Rooney's rapid-fire swearing, to the venting that takes place after matches, which sometimes provokes fans into doing stupid things.
"Add technology and another match official and the game (ehm, and fan behavior) will improve."
Just out of interest: what technology, and what would this extra official do?
I disagree. Apart from an occasional nut that makes a threat, changes that make the game more accurately refereed are fairer and dont have any controversy.
Take away a percentage of the noise you hear today about refereeing mistakes and you are left with more space to focus on what is positive about football.
I've advocated for goal post cameras (like in F1 cars) and another referee on the pitch, one on each half becauase the game is moving so much faster today.
Ah yes, now I remember what you said about goalpost cameras, so we'll ignore them for the moment. I'm also not going to bother discussing a referee for each half for the moment: my gut feeling is against it, but I'd like the chance to at least see games in which it's being tested, if not have a go at it myself before making my mind up.
I'm having a problem expressing why I think the root cause of Frisk being forced out is the attitude that if I do something you don't like, you shout at me without it turning into a mile-long diatribe. I shall try and condense.
"Take away a percentage of the noise you hear today about refereeing mistakes and you are left with more space to focus on what is positive about football."
Right. Rugby gets very little noise about refereeing mistakes. The culture is that you do not complain if a decision goes against you, you just get on with it. This attitude is present because all dissent gets punished, usually by the application of the ten-metre rule. Football's got no equivalent, therefore a culture of criticising the referee in any terms you feel like springs up, and it is this that leads to Wayne Rooney's rapid-fire swearing record, and because this culture exists around football, people close to it who aren't players, like managers and members of the media, feel that they can join in with it too. This leads to comments like what Mourinho made about Frisk, which incites fans to do what they did.
I can't see where the problem with this logic is. If you change the culture of shouting at the ref, all else follows. Rugby managed it.
I'm not saying that having ten yards is going to *improve* refereeing, mind. It's all about how players and managers *react* to what they percieve to be bad refereeing. In rugby, they get on with it (most of the time). In football, they moan.
Final point. I think that increasing the standard of refereeing goes hand-in-hand with changing the culture of dissent. You get rid of the dissent, you make refereeing a much more attractive proposition, and more people will get involved. You get more people involved, and the more people who are involved, the more likely you are to find people with the talent and aptitude to referee at the top level. Standards improve, everyone's happy.
And also, as you're increasing the referee pool, you're increasing the likelihood that one day, there'll be no objection to using a two-referee system on the very relevant grounds that there currently aren't enough referees to do it and not damage the grass roots, and the debate can shift fully to questions about how the system would work and what the responsibilities of each official would be, etc.
Sorry for the late reply. My work again.
You've made some interesting points, especially the one about increasing the referee pool.
Whatever the cause and effect of fan behavior, one thing is certain. The pool of quality referees is going to dwindle, if it isnt already.
The dissent is sick. Where are the days of Clough? Coaches that insisted their players leave the referee alone. Player dissent lowers the respect the referee needs. Its his eyes out of a stadium of 50 thousand, tv audience of missions that count. He needs to be in a commanding position.
The one point we agree on is that dissent is out of control. FIFA needs to address this.
Sorry for the late reply. My work again.
You've made some interesting points, especially the one about increasing the referee pool.
Whatever the cause and effect of fan behavior, one thing is certain. The pool of quality referees is going to dwindle, if it isnt already.
The dissent is sick. Where are the days of Clough? Coaches that insisted their players leave the referee alone. Player dissent lowers the respect the referee needs. Its his eyes out of a stadium of 50 thousand, tv audience of missions that count. He needs to be in a commanding position.
The one point we agree on is that dissent is out of control. FIFA needs to address this.
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