Where's the Respect?

The UEFA campaign for referee respect took yet another battering on Wednesday at the hands of Chelsea. You’ve probably read countless reports and seen the Drogba / Ballack episode yourself – and like many others are disgusted at the attitude they showed towards the referee, regardless of his decision-making inadequacies at Stamford Bridge.

Amongst this turmoil an image of Manchester United players surrounding the referee or Martin Keown throwing a wobbly may stick out in your mind as similar past experiences, but with the ‘RESPECT’ campaign being released in light of that then you wouldn’t have expected that response from Chelsea players – would you?

Unfortunately as footballer’s wages are increased, they start to believe their own hype – that they are untouchable, above the law. Due to their status in the game, they feel that they can question refereeing decisions more so than others – the measures that UEFA are attempting to impose simply miss out on this level of footballer – these players struggle to respect their opponents at times, how are they ever going to respect the referee?

Although physical violence on referees is kept to a minimum (except some leagues in Europe and South America), the verbal tirade of abuse thrown towards referees is simply too much – they’re going to be pushed out the game. We think we have bad referees now but imagine the next tier of referees if these ones quit; the likelihood is we’d be in trouble.

All in all the players are responsible for this – it is them who berate referees and cause major talking points, but they’re only human and frustration is an emotion that people deal with very differently.

The one-way nature of the refereeing of the game must also be a factor in this frustration; players cannot change decisions, nor must they question them – they are even punished, as Jermaine Jenas recently found, when they speak out against them. But rarely do we see or hear the referee’s side of the story.

It is of some people’s opinion that the referee should explain important decisions but refereeing is not solely based on facts and rules, it’s based on the view they have on the pitch and interpretation. This results in differences of opinion from one referee to another and if referee’s start to question others this brings their level of judgment into further questioning – something that UEFA or FA simply don’t want the hassle of defending.

The lack of retrospective action is also another frustrating element of the game. Penalties that are wrongly given must be marked against a referee – and red and yellow cards must be rescinded more often. It’s the lack of flexibility of the system that is causing the problems, because in the blink of an eye a decision may be missed, but add that to the injustice that is carried out throughout the season then frustration runs to an even higher level. Tennis, Rugby and Cricket have seen video replays introduced in the last ten years but with the frantic pace of football as well as the flowing nature that referees are told to enforce this is becoming something of a pickle for the top men at FIFA and UEFA.

Then there’s the punishment. Each time an FA hands out a punishment they must consider all consequences, not those just linked with the incident. The opportunity is there for a player to sue if he feels the punishment is too harsh so the FA must be cautious – this is why the punishment hardly ever fits the crime.

In saying that though the FA must start to hurt these players who bring the game into disrepute – a deterrent to make sure no others follow. In the event of the Chelsea game last night – why not ban them for the group stage of the Champions League qualifiers next season? They then may not qualify for the knockout stages – and surely lesson learnt? The ban does not mean Chelsea can’t compete, it just means the people who intimidated the referee are excluded.

As we await the verdict, which will no doubt come after a long process, lets hope UEFA make an example of the Chelsea fiasco – the more examples we have the more lessons can be learnt and the less chance we have of repeat incidents. As for the referees well maybe they need to be given a higher status in the game but for starters at least somebody could say sorry to them so we still have some for next season.

What actions would you like to see FIFA/UEFA take? Please leave your views in the comments below….