Scottish Referee strike

[zizou]

Football fans always see refereeing decisions through supporters eyes, very hard to take a unbiased and unpassionate view on them and the same goes for managers views too. So a bit of moaning and criticism is to be expect (although IMO some managers overstep the mark a bit - Lennon being one of them, he comes across as a bit too aggressive towards officials too often).

Can someone explain why Rangers get a penalty, usually for the strangest of reasons, and get an opposition player sent off, again for the most scurrilous of reasons, usually when they are behind/struggling. See last Saturday's game between Rangers and Kilmarnock. They got a penalty, when they were behind. That's one reason.

Secondly, the standard of refereeing in the last 2 Aberdeen games has been dreadful. They had no idea what to do and it did cost us those 2 games and forget all about getting fair and balanced refereeing if your team plays the Old Firm, it won't happen.

The highlights were on TV last night and the reason Rangers got two penalties looked pretty obvious - two blatent fouls were committed, one a mistimed slide tackle that took out Miller and the other an obvious jersey pull (not on Miller but on some other player)

Statistically the old firm dont win signficantly more penalties than alot of other teams. Since the SPL started the team with the most penalties awarded in their favour at home (this taken as a measure of how a home crowd can perhaps influence a referee) has been....Aberdeen

It's happening to often recently to such an extent that myself, and a few of my friends, do not go to games between Aberdeen and any of the Old Firm because we will lose due to refereeing decisions.

Two of the biggest 'result changing' (wrong decisions that happened so late nothing else could have altered the result) i can remember over the last couple of years involved Aberdeen and injury time goals - the injury time 'handball' goal from Diamond that was never a handball and would have got Aberdeen a draw at Celtic park and the same season an offside goal by Beasley that was about a metre onside and would have meant Aberdeen would have lost rather than got a point against Rangers.

Refs make mistakes but often football fans are too quick to ignore the ones that benefit their team.

 

[Noodley]

All professional referees have to declare any team preference very early in their careers to the relevant Football Association. They are never given matches involving teams they support.

Not in Scotland.

..and I detect BJB is a Rangers supporter!

 

[HLaB]

All professional referees have to declare any team preference very early in their careers to the relevant Football Association. They are never given matches involving teams they support.

Not in Scotland, which is one of the talking points in this larger debate.

Noodley beat me to it, I was too busy looking for an 'unbiased' link ;-)

 

[HLaB]

The highlights were on TV last night and the reason Rangers got two penalties looked pretty obvious

There's your flaw, I wasn't at the game either so I can't really comment but I wouldn't believe everything I see in highlights ;-)

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Not in Scotland.

Really? I'm amazed, I've refereed in England only up to a semi pro level (the players, not the ref!) and I had to declare what team I supported. I would have never made it up to a level where it mattered (I support a premiership team) but it does go on record because it's quite do-able to find yourself in the football league.

Pierluigi Collina mentions in his autobiography "The Rules of The Game" that the Italian FA do the same... Pierluigi was (believe it or not) an avid basketball fan and so never had to worry about a love or a bias for any one football team.

 

[zizou]

Really? I'm amazed, I've refereed in England only up to a semi pro level (the players, not the ref!) and I had to declare what team I supported. I would have never made it up to a level where it mattered (I support a premiership team) but it does go on record because it's quite do-able to find yourself in the football league.

Pierluigi Collina mentions in his autobiography "The Rules of The Game" that the Italian FA do the same... Pierluigi was (believe it or not) an avid basketball fan and so never had to worry about a love or a bias for any one football team.

The problem in Scotland is that because 2 clubs dominate nearly all the media attention refs would get the "but who do you really support" question after declaring allegiance to any of the non-old firm teams. Im not joking with this either

 

[Fnaar]

I thought this was going to be a thread about flying Scottish referees accidentally sucked into aeroplane engines! How silly of me!

 

[Renard]

I thought this was going to be a thread about flying Scottish referees accidentally sucked into aeroplane engines! How silly of me!

That would've been much better

 

[kettle]

Srike till one of these is in place

1. full backing for refs without question and come down hard on club officials that are causing the problem.

2. the introduction of video replays for the ref team.