this week’s column - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

jonathanliew.bsky.social • 29 days ago

this week’s column

I demand as little referee in my daily existence as physically possible | Jonathan Liew

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The double standards of players, managers and pundits is nausiating. The normalising of 'going down' in the area and the acceptance of the yellow card for the team, only makes the refs job even harder. It was a harsh decision but I have zero sympathy for the player and his manager.

kenstephenson.bsky.social•28 days ago

Spot on. I 100% agree.

praebiti.bsky.social•28 days ago

Spot on 😂

johndumbleton.bsky.social•29 days ago

OK Computer, but for referees.

adjwilson.bsky.social•29 days ago

Some lovely lines in that, particularly the rugby union bit.

I think you've been too lenient on your own industry though. Long before social media, it was the journalists and radio phone-in hosts who created the obsession with referees (which, in turn, led to VAR)

mcpben.bsky.social•29 days ago

spot on.

jonathanliew.bsky.social•29 days ago

yeah - historically speaking, it's a very fair point. equally i think that if all newspapers and tv ceased to exist tomorrow, the fixation on referees would actually get worse

adjwilson.bsky.social•29 days ago

It's the flipslide of the same approach that means the Michael Coxes of the world were radical and had to emerge through blogs.

In football (almost uniquely), there's little media interest in the actual *game*, just the noise and controversies around it. We're fed lowest common denominator slop

gpilk.bsky.social•28 days ago

Great stuff, as usual. Read it and then wondered if you were in BlueSky - and here we are!

deanjones.bsky.social•29 days ago

The people demand "consistency" (which there never was before TV, how could there have been?) "Consistency" requires guidelines, not judgement. According to said guidelines, the unfortunate Lewis-Skelly is shown a red card. "More consistency" demand the people!

tweekysenior.bsky.social•29 days ago

Exactly this. The laws are open to interpretation. And as long as they are (always), then consistency is impossible. Players, managers, and pundits frequently disagree about a contentious moment in a game, so why do we expect referees to all think the same?

darlobun.bsky.social•29 days ago

People demand “consistency” until they demand “common sense” and then flip flop back again

mcpben.bsky.social•29 days ago

Brilliant column Jonathan. Some great lines, especially the "Referees are the sign reading 'no drinks outside after 9.30pm' ". Saying we are going to end up with rugby union is exactly right. We're almost there. We are killing the fun in the sport. And the worst thing is we'll never go back...

onebigholiday31.bsky.social•28 days ago

Referees don’t put referees on TV… referees don’t make programmes highlighting every mistake, be that minuscule, big or on the hopefully rare occasions paid for. Maybe we should video pundits for 100 minutes of their day and see how many times they were rude to colleagues, and so on..

onebigholiday31.bsky.social•28 days ago

Referees or should that be ex referees have been given a platform, which enables them to earn more, a small degree of celebrity and so on.. a career after refereeing. A platform given to them be TV executives. They fund the game, they want their piece of ass.

onebigholiday31.bsky.social•28 days ago

Stop showing contentious decisions, stop analysing everything to the nth degree, looking for errors and talking points. Anyone worth their salt will defend their like, goalkeepers u ion etc.

onebigholiday31.bsky.social•28 days ago

Webb and his boys have something to lose now, aside from their professional reputation (a potential career in TV). They deserve all the flak that comes their way.. physical harm/death threats aside. TV is the problem, referees are the convenient shield.

jonathanliew.bsky.social•28 days ago

some really good points here. i would only add: TV doesn't exist in a sealed vacuum. it needs people to watch it.

onebigholiday31.bsky.social•28 days ago

Of course, they know this.. it’s content and revenue streams, it’s essentially clickbait TV disguised as discussion/tactics etc.. feeding into people’s passions & emotions, even more so now, in somewhat trying times for many. Radio too.

donnabowater.com•29 days ago

Or maybe the answer is MORE referees, like AFL, which has four on the field. Dilute the vitriol.

jonathanliew.bsky.social•29 days ago

haha. surely this is also because an AFL field is the size of a city park

mattbh.com•29 days ago

The NHL has two referees and two assistants on the rink on a far smaller area.

The NBA has three.

Football needs to look at 3 on pitch refs and at least 2 more linesmen. The answer can’t only be technology.

mulletrider.bsky.social•29 days ago

More referees so they get rotated and, ideally, we don't remember their names

donnabowater.com•29 days ago

Well, I don't know - the sport doesn't really have any rules so there's not much for them to do anyway.

jonathanliew.bsky.social•29 days ago

do people still make the joke about, you know, when they do the goal signal

dohnjaly.bsky.social•29 days ago

I had thought that was maybe the answer until the refereeing in the Bills v Chiefs game on Sunday, where the pro-Chiefs bias was evident irrespective of the number of refs on the field.

bosco81.bsky.social•28 days ago

At least this season we’ve managed to hound out officials who eat sandwiches in front of managers, next season will be the refs who think players making no attempt at the ball might be a yellow, might be a red.

nonrenormalizable.bsky.social•28 days ago

Great piece, and especially agree about the anger at officials being a displacement of fury at other parts of society. To me what is what is most maddening about it all is the forensic analysis of "who goes to Dubai", the comparison of clips, the accumulated lists of "suspicious decisions" ...

nonrenormalizable.bsky.social•28 days ago

by an individual ref that are posted on cue -- I wonder if this energy and diligence could be put to say, holding water companies accountable for sewage leaks, or asking if there's any progress on sorting out cladding or crumbling schools. The same people who want politics out of football ...

nonrenormalizable.bsky.social•28 days ago

have turned football into the most intense hive of pseudo-political activity. They're talking about Sky Sports "manufacturing consent" for Howard Webb, doing Kremlinology on Carragher and Neville's comments to see what the Party/PGMOL have allowed them to say ... what are we doing here, folks?

nonrenormalizable.bsky.social•28 days ago

Maybe, given how they conduct themselves, it's best that these people are left to dabble in the soft-play version of media criticism and state capture.

notoriusafc.bsky.social•28 days ago

#Spursy

jonathanliew.bsky.social•28 days ago

believe it or not, this was from 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/feb/25/rather-than-ranting-about-var-why-not-focus-on-tackling-games-real-problems

nonrenormalizable.bsky.social•28 days ago

Haha, I should have known that you would have already made this point (in a much more coherent manner than me)! The only thing that's changed since is the "sophistication" of the ranting and the accumulation of conspiratorial "evidence". Maybe this rage-bubble will pop some day.

emptymindz.bsky.social•28 days ago

I like the Squid Game idea. Would give us a whole new slant to the "who's the wanker in the black?!" chant.

whistlingspy.bsky.social•29 days ago

Should use VAR like cricket and have referrals. One per team per half. Retained if successful.

whistlingspy.bsky.social•29 days ago

In the MLS instance over the weekend Arsenal could appeal for the VAR to review it.

drheadgear.bsky.social•29 days ago

VAR did review it. That's part of the problem.

kenstephenson.bsky.social•28 days ago

VAR did review it.

1989afc.bsky.social•29 days ago

I understand the concept. But it would still be the referees' mate in the VAR box. Would we really expect them to overturn a decision when they don't now.

fritiofnilsson.bsky.social•29 days ago

This is it: less refereeing

aeroplaneblue.bsky.social•29 days ago

Good work in the column. Referees get it in the neck because they are visible and unlike much of modern football make decisions in public.

I will wait a long time before a manager comes on post match and says last week we got one in our favour this week we didn't. These things happen.

hamatsa50.bsky.social•28 days ago

Enjoyed the column -- for me, the main issue is the *consistency* with which these aspects of Laws are applied within games. Oliver is a great example here over a number of 'tactical' punishments.

jonathanliew.bsky.social•28 days ago

yeah I’ve always regarded the idea of “consistency” as a total mirage - ie, it can’t exist because every situation is by definition unique, and even if it did exist, most fans would still identify it as bias because that’s just the nature of fandom. (and thanks!)

kingclovis.bsky.social•28 days ago

Calling the idea of consistency a total mirage goes a bit too far. A referee rightly has discretion in the enforcement of rules (which lays waste to the notion that "he had no choice"). However, if a pattern appears which might indicate that there is selective enforcement, it should be investigated.

jonathanliew.bsky.social•28 days ago

you could make a compilation tape of *any* referee giving decisions against *any* team. that's a pattern, but unless it's backed up by corresponding data of decisions given in favour, it doesn't tell you anything. and incidents are rarely directly comparable in any case!

kingclovis.bsky.social•28 days ago

In support of your point, I do believe that European games are generally refereed less.
Under Arteta PL Played:
195 games Red cards: 19 (1 every 10 games)
EL/CL Played: 41 games Red cards: 1 (1 every 41 games)

Not saying that anything is proven here, but should spark some curiosity.

kingclovis.bsky.social•28 days ago

I do think being overly reliant on anecdotal would be a concern.
Here are some numbers to consider (not independently verified):
Some Michael Oliver red card stats
Man. City - 50 games - 0 red cards received
Liverpool - 57 games - 1 red card received
Arsenal - 55 games - 8 red cards received

jonathanliew.bsky.social•28 days ago

yeah seen this. five of these (coquelin, vieira, xhaka, koscielny, martinelli) are basically good calls. (martinelli weird, but correct under the rules.) one is harsh (maitland-niles). two (trossard and lewis-skelly) are objectively bad. does it indicate anything? not without lots more data!

colinowl.bsky.social•29 days ago

Excellent article. Thank you

nealraff.bsky.social•29 days ago

Bravo - agree with every word.

atulharia.bsky.social•28 days ago

What do you have against flower boxes instead of roads.
Come on dude...

jonathanliew.bsky.social•28 days ago

just trying to characterise the scattergun, sublimated quality of referee rage. personally speaking, would replace all roads with flower boxes, up to and including the M25

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