EURO 24 Belarus vs Israel

[RustyRef]

Let's not downplay the fact he was one of the top officials in Scotland before he left and was the go-to official for at least one of the Glasgow derbies every season - he probably wasn't spending a huge amount of time with the bottom of the SPL! So if we accept your premise that bottom of SPL = top of league 1, then yes, he was under-levelled given his experience with the top of the SPL.

The claim is that he struggled to stay motivated, which I do get - feeling like you're being forced to accept a demotion will have that effect. He's still only 44. It's not unreasonable for him to hope he'd get put in the Championship, get promoted in a year or two and then get a good number of matches under his belt in the PL before his natural retirement point in his mid-50s. Adding 2 years of slog at the start of that at a level clearly below what you think you're capable of and used to is going to have an effect on your motivation.

He also talks in the interview I posted about the long travel times from Carlisle. As someone who's done long travel for work, that's something you put up with for as long as you think it helps you get where you want in your career, and quickly becomes intolerable as soon as it seems like the end goal is out of reach. It's all just lots of little bits and pieces that add up to a sense that he's not being taken seriously and made to do busy work and jump through hoops that wouldn't be put in the way of an English referee with similar experience.

He didn't transfer to England and then get told he would be in Leagues 1 and 2, he would have known this well before he transferred. And if you are a Football League referee living in Carlisle you are going to have long journeys, just the same as those living in other extremities like Cornwall, or indeed if you were a Scottish referee living on the North of the mainland. What did he expect, that he'd be refereeing Carlisle and Barrow every game? And yes, he did referee the Glasgow derbies a lot, but he also refereed lots of Scottish Championship games, and the standard there is probably below League 1, so it wasn't as if he had no exposure to poor standard football.

He does make some valid points, for example about club marks counting for 40% of the total. If that is correct, and I'm not convinced it is, then it is ridiculous with an observer at every game and a panel reviewing the match footage, the clubs should have zero say on a referee's performance. But the rest sounds like what I hear a lot when referees don't get the promotion they think they deserve, it is everyone's fault but their own.