Are too many managers are using referees as an excuse?
It’s the business end of the season and managers across the UK are understandably feeling tense. But are too many of them using perceived injustices from referees as an easy way of deflecting blame?
In virtually every match of football played, there are decisions which you feel go against your team. It’s part of the game. Now if the score is 0-0, and a dubious penalty is given against you in the very last minute (and is subsequently converted) then clearly a manager will feel wronged, and there will understandably be a touch of anger.
Yet I’m unconvinced about how often it happens in this way. More frequently, I see managers complaining about borderline free-kicks 40 yards out which end up in a goal because their team hasn’t defended properly. And this happens in the 15th minute, but is still cited as the primary reason for defeat. I acknowledge that managers are under huge pressure, but it’s weak and lazy to blame defeats over 90-plus minutes on such trivial incidents. Even if a penalty is wrongly given against your side in the first 30 minutes, there is still two thirds of the game left to rectify the situation.
Refereeing decisions not going your way will always happen. Consistently using them as an excuse is simply masking your own team’s inadequacies. And it’s certainly starting to grate with me, as I hear the usual suspects regularly blaming officials for their inability to win matches.
This also brings me onto a final observation – what exactly is the role of the fourth official? Because it appears that their primary function is to soak up abuse from managers. How many times do we see them berating the fourth official, who has to stand there meekly and accept the diatribe. More pertinently, why does the FA allow this? Players are punished for dissent (not very severely it must be added) so why aren’t managers? I can’t comprehend how this sort of behaviour is deemed acceptable. Similarly, why are managers allowed to wait on the pitch for the referee at half time so they can deliver a tirade about some decision or other? We’re constantly told that players should set an example to youngsters… Perhaps managers should too.
I agree, I can’t stand it when managers and players fail to take responsibility for their own actions. Constantly blaming referee's for their own teams inadequacies is just completely passing the buck. As you say, if it’s a legitimately game changing incident then you can understand people’s frustrations but then I guess this just plays into the blame culture we now live in, where nothing is our fault and always the fault of others.
ReplyDeleteIf managers/players want to constantly criticise officials when they feel they’ve made mistakes then I would suggest a couple of things; 1. Learn the rules. It’s amazing how many players/managers/pundits and indeed fans criticise a ref’s decision when he’s actually applied the laws correctly 2. Don’t moan on the one hand about ref’s failing to ‘show any common sense’ and then that they ‘aren’t consistent’. If you want consistency then ref’s need to apply the rules in all situations, yet when they do this they’re criticised as being ‘jobsworths’ and ‘failing to understand the game’ 3. Finally, if managers and players do want to consistently criticises officials for making mistakes as the reason for any defeats then that’s fine. They should however be able to take it as well. Why shouldn’t referee’s be able to come out and say that a manager got his tactics wrong/made the wrong substitutions and that’s why the team lost? Furthermore why should they not be able to come out and criticise a player for diving or cheating, after all if a player con’s a ref into making a decision then that player is deliberately impacting on the standards and job that the official is trying to do. It works both ways.