Thing is, what he said was infinitely sensible - obviously you don't give a young kid a second yellow for his second foul when the game's almost over and his team's losing by 3 goals. CONTEXT MATTERS.
The gaslighting was officials earlier in the season telling us only 'letter of the law' matters...
The problem is that they’re saying they will only enforce the letter of the law when they have an opportunity to impact the result of the game but not when they don’t.
I'm talking about receiving a second yellow for a 'stopping a counter attack' type infringement (or dare I say something even more minor like, I don't know... delaying the restart...).
Obviously if a player commits an act of violent conduct it's a straight red regardless of the context.
It does - Law 5 states "Decisions will be made to the best of the referee's ability according to the Laws of the Game and the 'spirit of the game' and will be based on the opinion of the referee who has the discretion to take appropriate action within the framework of the Laws of the Game."
Thanks for that. Still think it’s better in the professional game to apply the laws consistently. Thought the spirit was more for the parks level game but maybe Sam Barrett thought the defending was that standard.
Comments
The gaslighting was officials earlier in the season telling us only 'letter of the law' matters...
Obviously if a player commits an act of violent conduct it's a straight red regardless of the context.
He is a man with serious credibility issues, particularly given some of his previous comments.
The issue is refs are human; certain things may annoy one ref and not another.
When I did my ref training, we were always told that the unwritten Law of "common sense" is important.