The Ref Stop

Man City vs Liverpool

Padfoot said:
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Is this you?

I'm not saying referees should decide the length of the ban.......that has already been decided by the FA......it's 3 matches.

What I am saying is that if you truly believe that you shouldn't be concerned over the CFA/FA reducing the STANDARD punishment then you are either incredibly naive, incredibly stupid or a combination of both.

The punishment is the main part of the deterrent, not the red card on the day......why do you think players ask you if you're submitting that card after the game? It's because they are concerned about the ban that they know follows.....so if you start reducing the length of the bans, you reduce the impact that it makes, ergo you reduce the deterrent effect.

Who is at the sharp end and has to deal with the immediate impact of players making dangerous challenges? Not the FA. Not the CFA. YOU. The referee.

If you're happy for the CFA/FA to allow dangerous and violent players back onto a pitch to be managed by you, sooner they should be, just because they go all butter wouldn't melt, then go out and do exactly the same thing again........then I refer to my earlier statement....naive or stupid, you decide.

You, the referee, have done your part on the day, why should you not expect the CFA/FA to theirs and only deviate from STANDARD punishments in exceptional circumstances? "I didn't mean to" is not an exceptional circumstance.
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Any failings within an FA or CFA or similar though is an issue for them to sort out
All you need to do as a referee, is, referee. If you are not unhappy with how panels reduce bans or so on, then, find a sport where you are content that they are
 
The Ref Stop
Padfoot said:
1urrrp.jpg


Is this you?

I'm not saying referees should decide the length of the ban.......that has already been decided by the FA......it's 3 matches.

What I am saying is that if you truly believe that you shouldn't be concerned over the CFA/FA reducing the STANDARD punishment then you are either incredibly naive, incredibly stupid or a combination of both.

The punishment is the main part of the deterrent, not the red card on the day......why do you think players ask you if you're submitting that card after the game? It's because they are concerned about the ban that they know follows.....so if you start reducing the length of the bans, you reduce the impact that it makes, ergo you reduce the deterrent effect.

Who is at the sharp end and has to deal with the immediate impact of players making dangerous challenges? Not the FA. Not the CFA. YOU. The referee.

If you're happy for the CFA/FA to allow dangerous and violent players back onto a pitch to be managed by you, sooner they should be, just because they go all butter wouldn't melt, then go out and do exactly the same thing again........then I refer to my earlier statement....naive or stupid, you decide.

You, the referee, have done your part on the day, why should you not expect the CFA/FA to theirs and only deviate from STANDARD punishments in exceptional circumstances? "I didn't mean to" is not an exceptional circumstance.
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I'm actually not sure anyone anywhere has said what you're arguing against.

From my side I was arguing against the analogy and pointing out where it does happen in that environment.

I suppose the over riding point is that as a referee we are actually powerless to affect what happens afterwards. Yes, it is concerning but what can you do about it? You do your job as prescribed under lotg and hope that the powers at be do theirs. If you want to affect that process then do as @Ciley Myrus suggests and get on the committee.
 
@Padfoot i appreciate you are looking at the bigger picture, but, we have zero control over what the post game punishment will be.
I've never had to go to a hearing, however, i have been told that if there is a conflict between an officials report, and that of the player, you as an official cannot take a witness with you, but the player can. That seems so skewed in favour of the offender its silly. All they want is facts from us and they make the judgement.
From my point of view i'd rather not know what the outcome is, as often it will not be satisfactory.
 
richard ramjane said:
@Padfoot i appreciate you are looking at the bigger picture, but, we have zero control over what the post game punishment will be.
I've never had to go to a hearing, however, i have been told that if there is a conflict between an officials report, and that of the player, you as an official cannot take a witness with you, but the player can. That seems so skewed in favour of the offender its silly. All they want is facts from us and they make the judgement.
From my point of view i'd rather not know what the outcome is, as often it will not be satisfactory.
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A lot of that is again a bigger picture, you have sent off XXX. Goes to appeal/hearing. You go, do your bit, he/they do yours. Guy gets 10 games. You WILL come across that player again that season and least if nothing else, that player should know the ban was down to a panel, and not you. Can only imagine it be at best, difficult to turn up at the relegation crunch/semi final and the said player and you make eye contact and both go "oh no its you" at the same time !
Do whats needed as referee, let committees/panels/hearing do what they are in place to do.
 
But, you as a referee, are a very important part of that bigger picture.......the actions taken by the committees subsequent to the match, WILL have ramifications for you and your colleagues.....whether you like it or not.

If a player/club successfully gets a 3 match SFP ban reduced to 1 match, they will see it as a vindication that you, as the referee, erred in some way. That is the nature of the beast that we ride in being referees. The player will see it as a victory not as a consideration.

If you want to go through your refereeing experience with head firmly planted up your in the sand and pretending that it doesn't matter what happens further down the disciplinary process, then you will be proceeding with a massive pair of blinkers on.

How many referees do you think quit each year because they don't feel supported by their CFA's? How many do you think stop bothering to send in, or even worse, show, cards because the punishments are too lenient?

The CFA's don't care if Johnny Troglodyte comes back 2 games sooner then he has any right to expect to, and commits further misconduct, injuring players or officials.......just more money for their coffers.
 
@Padfoot i do understand that i am now a part of a very large Venn diagram, but my part doesnt allow me to make those judgements once ive done what i need to do on the FOP. I dont see any avenue to even contest these decisions made by the FA, and thats not saying i wouldnt want to have a say in it if i could. It does highlight though countless references from yourself (and others) that we are to keep doing the right thing when we are on the job and use the tools available to us.
 
Duncan Francis said:
I used to like Mark Halsey but he now does my head in criticising fellow professionals along with Keith Hackett.
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Hackett was full of praise for Moss (this weekend anyway). Hackett also praises Swarbrick, Taylor, Dean on a regular basis, whilst being critical of Jones and East.....he might be onto something !
 
Padfoot said:
But, you as a referee, are a very important part of that bigger picture.......the actions taken by the committees subsequent to the match, WILL have ramifications for you and your colleagues.....whether you like it or not.

If a player/club successfully gets a 3 match SFP ban reduced to 1 match, they will see it as a vindication that you, as the referee, erred in some way. That is the nature of the beast that we ride in being referees. The player will see it as a victory not as a consideration.

If you want to go through your refereeing experience with head firmly planted up your in the sand and pretending that it doesn't matter what happens further down the disciplinary process, then you will be proceeding with a massive pair of blinkers on.

How many referees do you think quit each year because they don't feel supported by their CFA's? How many do you think stop bothering to send in, or even worse, show, cards because the punishments are too lenient?

The CFA's don't care if Johnny Troglodyte comes back 2 games sooner then he has any right to expect to, and commits further misconduct, injuring players or officials.......just more money for their coffers.
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Just because you insist on repeatedly drawing this false correlation, doesn't make it either correct, or likely to be considered correct by the majority. The "standard punishment" can be argued to include an element of intent, due to the fact that the majority of times, SFP is committed with some intent. This upcoming case will decide that fact, all we're doing at the moment is speculating.

And also, you can't make the same argument for grassroots and PL football here, for the simple fact that the disciplinary committee deciding this case will have access to TV replays that your average grassroots match won't. Intent can be considered here, where in most matches you or I referee, it's almost impossible to judge from one full-speed viewing, so the worst has to be assumed.
 
GraemeS said:
Just because you insist on repeatedly drawing this false correlation, doesn't make it either correct, or likely to be considered correct by the majority. The "standard punishment" can be argued to include an element of intent, due to the fact that the majority of times, SFP is committed with some intent. This upcoming case will decide that fact, all we're doing at the moment is speculating.

And also, you can't make the same argument for grassroots and PL football here, for the simple fact that the disciplinary committee deciding this case will have access to TV replays that your average grassroots match won't. Intent can be considered here, where in most matches you or I referee, it's almost impossible to judge from one full-speed viewing, so the worst has to be assumed.
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You have offered absolutely nothing to substantiate your, incorrect, claim of a false correlation.......maybe if you had something to base that supposition on it would be more worthy of consideration?
 
Padfoot said:
You have offered absolutely nothing to substantiate your, incorrect, claim of a false correlation.......maybe if you had something to base that supposition on it would be more worthy of consideration?
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No, I haven't, because I've been busy. But, since it's clearly not obvious for some reason:

The false correlation is your suggestion that reducing the punishment would be undermine the referee. There's a very straightforward thing that would happen if the FA thought the referee was wrong - the ban would be eliminated completely. The length of the ban, as others have said many times, is nothing to do with how correct or incorrect the referee was to show a red card on the day. It's really straightforward, why overcomplicate it?
 
As a referee you shouldn't have any concern about what the punishment might or will be. You just do your job and hope that the CFA do theirs.

I've been to lots of hearings, and had one spell where I'm surprised the CFA didn't give me a staff pass to use at their hearing venue (4 hearings as a referee in 12 months ..!). On all of them the clubs and or player told a pack of lies, and despite this I know that they got off on at least 50% of them.

As a complete aside, I went to a hearing at Wembley representing the league against for a club appeal. One of the panel, who must have been an octogenarian if not older, fell asleep within 5 minutes of it starting. I pointed this out and was just told that he always does that, then five minutes later he woke up and just walked out, seemingly needing the toilet. I was incredulous, especially as the case was found in favour of the club and costs of over £500 were attributed to the league.
 
Padfoot said:
You have offered absolutely nothing to substantiate your, incorrect, claim of a false correlation.......maybe if you had something to base that supposition on it would be more worthy of consideration?
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Padders, just don't get your knickers in a twist over something you have no power over. We do our job, dismiss when we need to, the punishment is out of our hands. You are of course correct about the effect of reduced bans but that's just the way the cookie crumbles!
 
GraemeS said:
No, I haven't, because I've been busy. But, since it's clearly not obvious for some reason:

The false correlation is your suggestion that reducing the punishment would be undermine the referee. There's a very straightforward thing that would happen if the FA thought the referee was wrong - the ban would be eliminated completely. The length of the ban, as others have said many times, is nothing to do with how correct or incorrect the referee was to show a red card on the day. It's really straightforward, why overcomplicate it?
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Again, a position of immense naivety or stupidty....if you truly cannot understand how, to a player/club, the discipline panel reducing the standard punishment isn't seen as a vindication of their feeling that the referee was wrong......

It's not about whether or not the panel thinks the referee was wrong.....the facts actually matter little.....it's the perceived message that is sent out to the clubs/players, certainly at grassroots level.
Let me relate some personal experience.....I dismissed a player for VC, he had just won a FK after being fouled, picked the ball up, slammed down on the ground and blasted it full bore at the back of the opponent who had fouled him. The club immediately (Monday morning) complained to the CFA that their player "didn't mean to do it", "isn't that sort of player" etc etc. Went to non personal hearing, player's ban reduced to 1 match........now, do you think the club/player felt vindicated in their complaints that the dismissal was too harsh? I know for a fact that they did, because they went around telling others that the CFA agreed with them, that I got it wrong on the day and it shouldn't have been a red card.
Now, we all know that isn't the case, because otherwise the card would have been overturned....but the perception is very different. And because of that perception the deterrent factor has been greatly diluted.

Can we, as referees, do anything about it? Of course we can......we can ignore it, and say it's none of our business, despite knowing that it's just made the job that little bit harder next time.....and of course that position is encouraged by RDO's, tutors etc because they know that if referees actually started thinking about how much their decisions are perceptionally undermined by the creaking fossils on most disciplinary panels, they might decide that actually, they have better things to do with their Sunday mornings, then put up with the antics of 22 pissed up troglodytes, especially when making those difficult decisions, inviting yet more abuse and potential assault, the players go all doe eyed at the panels and get away with reduced sanctions.

Will we ever change it? Doubt it very much.....but that's still no excuse for walking around in denial and pretending nothing is wrong with the system.
 
Can't we all just agree that it's a topical issue that's relevant to referees? The issue of punishment is strongly connected to the original debate and at the very least is interesting to us all. Does it have to be any more complicated than that?
 
Have to say read most of the comments here and tbh couldn't careless what the punishment is for any player, I fill the same report in for them all and when it leaves my email I am done, unless appealed. Even on appeal I rarely check to see what was applied as I don't influence the decision of the committee, nor do I care as there is no logical rationale for some of the lengths of ban.

Whether Liverpool's appeal was futile or not is irrelevant to us as referee's we don't issue disciplinary sanctions the Associations/Leagues do based on the evidence we provide. So build that bridge and get over it, it doesn't affect how we referee or rather it shouldn't!
 
I am on the fence, I agree with Padfoot as panels reducing a ban because the player goes all soppy and cries about how sorry they are (of course they're sorry, they're sorry they got caught) is no deterrent, they'll get a lie in for a week and then be out fouling people the week after.

But, I also agree that I have no input, aside from my report, and the decision to reduce a ban lies with the panel, and as I don't work for the FA discipline department I can't effect this.

I've only been to one hearing for a player assaulting a ref, as AR2, and the player got off.

The lies from the player and his witness were outrageous, along with their sob story that he'd never heard of a sine die ban etc.

Still, it is what it is.
 
Padfoot said:
the antics of 22 pissed up troglodytes
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I think you make some very vaild points about the message that clubs / players will 'hear' if bans are reduced. Whilst anything that confirms a Red card in fact supports the referee's decision, that's not the message that those involved will choose to take from a reduced ban. Unfortuately you are right that Perception equals Reality.

However, I really struggle with your constant characterisation of players in the manner above. This crude and unhelpful generalisation does us no favours and undermines the prospect of a cordial working relationship between players and officials. In exactly the same way as players generalising about referees being authoritarian, officious, blind etc etc would do likewise. Are there (too many) hugely irritating players and less than perfect referees? Of course there are. But to lump all players into the same offensive and unhelpful bucket gets us nowhere ...
 
I have made reference to above before. If said gentleman refers to players of the sport he officiates in as he does, it seems unsurprising that only the death penalty will suffice rather than any punishment a governing body set as standard.
 
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