The Ref Stop

Goalkeepers Shirt Colour

I am lucky that I'm in a position where I could afford a couple of extra shirts if this came in and we had to buy our own.

However, I would want a guarantee from the FA that colours wouldn't change for at least 3 seasons.
 
The Ref Stop
Monotone Whistle said:
The referee has a choice what to wear. That's the upside.

In my former office job, the management decreed one day that men no longer had to wear ties. Some people chose to continue to wear a tie, others rejoiced in being set free. The upside was that people had the choice and liked having the freedom.
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But in this case, if your choice is to wear only black then that choice is potentially taken away.
 
Monotone Whistle said:
The referee has a choice what to wear. That's the upside.
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If that choice were introduced without allowing teams to wear black, so that referees still had the choice to wear only black if they wanted to (or or if it's all they could afford), then I would be 100% behind it.

But if teams can wear black then that actually removes the option of wearing only black and imposes on somebody the cost of new referee kits.

Is there any realistic chance that we will have the option of wearing other colours without teams be able to wear black?
 
Not likely.

The strong suspicion is that teams will be allowed to wear black (or similar) if the coloured referee kit gets adopted. This is where The FA would need to be very clear on who gets priority. I expect they will say:

* The referee should wear black, but:
* In the event of a team wearing a very dark or black kit that clashes with the referee, then the referee can change to another referee shirt of a different colour provided that it meets the requirements of the competition.
* In the event that the referee does not have an alternative colour shirt, or is unwilling to change, then the team with the dark kit must change

That places the onus on the team with a dodgy kit to provide the referee with a suitable alternative, which the ref can agree to or not. The alternative would need to be a proper referee shirt with correct badging, and not a bib or similar.

I have a friend in the know(genuinely) and this is, to his knowledge, where this is going.
 
Seems to me that the commercial opportunity for the FA for kit suppliers to sell black strips outweighs the 'cost' of disrupting referees.

Would I wear a strip supplied by a club? Given the standard of changing rooms - no.
 
Monotone Whistle said:
Not likely.

The strong suspicion is that teams will be allowed to wear black (or similar) if the coloured referee kit gets adopted. This is where The FA would need to be very clear on who gets priority. I expect they will say:

* The referee should wear black, but:
* In the event of a team wearing a very dark or black kit that clashes with the referee, then the referee can change to another referee shirt of a different colour provided that it meets the requirements of the competition.
* In the event that the referee does not have an alternative colour shirt, or is unwilling to change, then the team with the dark kit must change

That places the onus on the team with a dodgy kit to provide the referee with a suitable alternative, which the ref can agree to or not. The alternative would need to be a proper referee shirt with correct badging, and not a bib or similar.

I have a friend in the know(genuinely) and this is, to his knowledge, where this is going.
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But if that's the case, what's the point in making this change? Teams will start wearing black kits, but referees won't want to change. So Instead of teams being briefly annoyed at the start of the season that they can't pick a black kit, we now get a weekly conflict every time a ref turns up without a second kit and the teams have to change.

And then what if we have a situation where two teams come up against each other that wear black as one kit and red as the other? A prepared referee will still find himself having to change, and a less-prepared referee will have no option but to wear a bib.
 
This does sound like a recipe for conflict. At my level you're already lucky if the players have matching shorts and socks, and there are no duplicate shirt numbers.

I definitely won't be wearing a shirt supplied by a club.

I'd be interested to know what's driving this: referees who want to be able to wear colours or teams that want to wear black. Either answer would surprise me.
 
frankie+ref+shirt.png

Hopefully they'll adopt the new kit approach so I can finally wear this cheeky little number :rolleyes:
 
I have to say that I usually only go to games with a black and a yellow (can check team colours online). Will clash fairly frequently with a keeper in yellow especially but that is yet to cause a problem. Either he changes or I use common sense at corners etc.
 
I honestly never see the issue with keepers the referee should never be a position to actually confuse players so if the keeper wears a similar kit to mine, I just make sure I step a yard further away, common sense! I have to be honest and say I am surprised that the FA are so restrictive and only allow refs at lower levels to wear black when are you allowed to use colours?
 
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I would like to wear a different colour shirt other than black.

I too see know reason why a goalkeeper wears black; if we are in a position where confusion can be caused... something strange has happened.
 
DB said:
I would like to wear a different colour shirt other than black.
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Me too. So long as being able to do so doesn't mean all referees, particularly those less well off than me, have to buy more shirts, or wear shirts provided by the clubs.
 
Just restarting this, with the original topic back as the discussion.
I was at Watford-Palace yesterday and Gomes walked out in all black, as did Team Clatts.

Watford were in yellow, Palace in their red/blue and their keeper in green.

As far as I'm aware, there are 4 colours for officials this season. Black, green, yellow & purple. The green worn by Hennessy was different to the green of the officials whilst he also wore green shorts/socks.

Referee couldn't have worn yellow or purple due to the kit clash, thus ended up guaranteeing a clash between him & one of the keepers (I don't know all the colour options for GK, ours are red & purple, both would clash with Palace).

What I fail to understand is why the decision was made that Clatts should completely clash with Gomes.

I then watch MOTD and the same happened at Utd, with De Gea and Atkinson in full black.

I don't understand!!!!
 
DanCohen17 said:
I don't understand!!!!
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I do. Give them an inch and they take a mile. Despite agreeing which colours would be off limits, the referees still "manage" to clash* with players whose clubs bend the rules. They'll happily take the fine imposed for such breaches because of the offset in income from a load of shirts sold to FKWs.

"manage" to clash* = continue to be undermined
 
Regardless of what the LOTG say, I really can't see a problem with keepers wearing the same colours as the referee. As McTavish pointed out, Russia's Lev Yashin wore all black at International level long before the days of coloured ref kits. Unless you're like the referee in the Sunday League video that was posted on here and some of the old boys I have seen in the Dorset Youth League and like to stand on the goal line by the front post at corners, then referees and keepers should never get confused.

However as I said earlier in the thread, Stoke's keeper wearing an all red kit away at Arsenal & Liverpool was beyond ridiculous and should never have been allowed.
 
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Mooseybaby said:
However as I said earlier in the thread, Stoke's keeper wearing an all red kit away at Arsenal & Liverpool was beyond ridiculous and should never have been allowed.
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I think maybe you need to adjust the colour settings on your TV - if you're referring to the two games played this month, the Stoke keeper was wearing orange in both those games. :)
 
martin avis said:
petr cech black andre mariner black!
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Well yeah, I think that at this point in the thread we'd all be prepared to stipulate that the law on keepers' shirts clashing with the match officials is not being observed at the higher levels (EPL, UEFA competitions etc).
 
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