A&H

The Referee Wage Gap

Should National Group referees be professional like the Select Group?

  • Total voters
    25
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IMO any referees officiating in a professional league should be professional themselves. Players are training everyday to improve their game and their fitness so referees should be doing the same. This would however include the Conference which is a mostly professional league.

I don't personally know how much money the FA has available so have no idea whether it would cost to much or not
 
Kieran W said:
An interesting article...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...tml?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

I've also created the poll to see what we all think.

I guess the main thing is where does the money come from to pay all these extra professional referees or is there already sufficient money available from sources like sponsors etc.
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You'd have thought that a league which is awash with TV money and the billions that generates, would have a vested interest in ensuring their current referees and future referees are suitably rewarded and trained to the max of their abilities. However, that may appear to be a conflict of interest and some may view it as breaking down the impartiality of officials.

Undoubtedly, it should come from the FA but the referees will remain poor until Wembley Stadium is paid off. And Specsavers would be the perfect sponsor (but that's a old joke).
 
David Sutton said:
And Specsavers would be the perfect sponsor (but that's a old joke).
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Well it's possible :)

86450-assistant-referee-martin-cryans-is-the-head-of-the-scottish-senior-football-referees-association.jpg
 
You hear some FL managers moan about referees and some weeks it's obvious how some referees are struggling at points in the game, this won't be solved until they are made professional.
 
They already are.................................. (but bear with me)

Before anything else - no there is no corrolation between players and officials wages. Players are employed by the club for whatever they are on, the officials are employed by the FA who under no stretch of the imagination have anywhere near the money available to them, farless to have it all in one invested intereset (club owner only as to think fo the club - FA has the whole game from grass roots to top to pay for).

Well if you think about it, if the PL ref's are on £38k basic plus match fees = £80 - 100k (HW declared £120+ in 2012-13) pa then they are onto a good thing and can afford to do it for a living.

Assistants not quite as much but probs a good £35 - 60 annual income. Either way, with expenses paid, these are good incomes and require no additional earnings to be comfortable.

Moving down..... more refs, more assistants, less of the cut to spend.

I don't know at what level people are paid retainers, or how much these retainers are, but in theory it should be enough that you can concentrate you time to the cause (ie of you got a £15k retainer and £150 a game, doing 30 games a season would bring in £20k.

Now, I'm no expert but if the average wage in the UK is around £26k (average wage = average job) you could argue that for 3 "days" work a week, £20k ain't bad, and ou could certaimly put most of your time and effort to the cause. Something else on the side (consultancy, coaching ya de ya) and we'er all good.

(Caveat = average being the total of all incomed divided by the number of earners. Thus for every person on £35k you would need someone on £17k to keep your average, and that less than 10% earn over £40k.)

But back to the OP - Professionalism is a phycological state, and is not a physical state. "Should National Group referees be professional like the Select Group?" I'd perhaps say that they are already. All because someone is at the top of their game or does something or a full-time job does not make them a professional. Numous cases from accross the busines worls have demonstrated this;

"Should National Group referees be paid, administered and treated like the Select Group, this be incorporated into the FA as full-time employees" - different question, to which my answer would be yes.
 
rugby union already has specsavers nicely tied into sponsorship - one of the most genius bits of advertising ever!

I think professionalism is not necessarily tied to pay and conditions. However, given the commitment FL referees give in time, energy, training, match days, abuse, life (!), time away from family/kids I would say that they should have better conditions. Why not have them on contracts and pay them to ensure they are as fit and able to referee as they could possibly be. Seems a gaping disparity when players are all full time professionals?

Who hasn't done a game after a day in work? It is very tiring. You try and prepare as well as you can - eat and drink as well as you can, have good energy levels etc but it is not easy and I would be lying if I said I wasn't relying on adrenaline to keep me going on a few occasions when all I want to do is go home and have a jaffa cake and a cup of tea! Ramp that up to FL levels with potentially long distance travel, a higher physical and psychological commitment...
 
But back to the OP - Professionalism is a phycological state, and is not a physical state. "Should National Group referees be professional like the Select Group?" I'd perhaps say that they are already. All because someone is at the top of their game or does something or a full-time job does not make them a professional. Numous cases from accross the busines worls have demonstrated this;

"Should National Group referees be paid, administered and treated like the Select Group, this be incorporated into the FA as full-time employees" - different question, to which my answer would be yes.
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Sorry I should have defined 'Professional'. Every referee should be professional in the way they conduct themselves in the role. In this instance, I mean refereeing being a full-time job with annual wage.
 
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HRW said:
They already are.................................. (but bear with me)

Before anything else - no there is no corrolation between players and officials wages. Players are employed by the club for whatever they are on, the officials are employed by the FA who under no stretch of the imagination have anywhere near the money available to them, farless to have it all in one invested intereset (club owner only as to think fo the club - FA has the whole game from grass roots to top to pay for).
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The players are employed by the clubs, but it is the TV deals from the premier league that indirectly pays much of their wages. I don't think it would be unfair if the PL referees' salaries where quadrupled. While 100K is well paid, it is probably less any other person involved in the PL week in and week out (including junior players, assistant managers, physios etc) and the referee's role is more pivotal and under a lot of scrutiny.

Also, , as a side note. As a general principle, to avoid speculation (and temptation) of match fixing, the pay should reflect the amount of money at play. Corruption often occurs when there is a big difference between wages and power (ie much power, low wages).
 
The only way of having all national group refs full-time is to get more sponsorship deals- like EA. Maybe have a sponsor(like EA) for the pre and another for the FL to be worn on shirts when officiating that comp, but most potential sponsors would be interested in teams, rather than the officials who are always moaned at for even the tiniest of mistakes- it took them long enough to get EA as the sponsor this season.
 
100k a year to make decisions that could cost a team £60M (in relegation or ECL qualification) is taking the p**s.
Every EPL club should vote on how much to pay refs the next season, it is then averaged, divided by 20, then comes from their wallet (like local football). I honestly think clubs would have no problem paying £200k each to improve refereeing standards
 
The only problem, is that no matter how much you pay somebody, they will make mistakes! They are humans. Wayne Rooney on his £300,000 a week wage, will still make mistakes! The solution lies not with the referees, but with educating the clubs. The number of offside appeals that managers have shouted from the touchlines - which have been proven correct post match, are crazy! With the latest data from the PGMOL stating that offside decisions are correct 99.1% (from memory) of the time, would it not make sense for the managers to see the decision from the optimum angle before lodging their vocal appeal with the 4th official?

Also, should the clubs decide how much to pay the referees and then actually have to fork the money out of their own pocket, then they would simultaneously feel that they can dictate which referees should and shouldn't be on the panel. Surely this would lead to more problems than it would solve?
 
Greeny said:
The only way of having all national group refs full-time is to get more sponsorship deals- like EA. Maybe have a sponsor(like EA) for the pre and another for the FL to be worn on shirts when officiating that comp, but most potential sponsors would be interested in teams, rather than the officials who are always moaned at for even the tiniest of mistakes- it took them long enough to get EA as the sponsor this season.
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Or, just give the refs more from the TV-revenue. The money is there, the refs are as important as the players. The PGMOL etc could get a tiny percentage of the TV-revenue, the clubs wouldn't even notice and it would be enough to pay a lot of referees.
 
Just something I have been wondering. Are select group assistant referees also full time or are they part time like national group?
 
Liam Cleary said:
Just something I have been wondering. Are select group assistant referees also full time or are they part time like national group?
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They are part time with the exception of Darren Cann and Mike Mullarkey, who don't receive a salary!
 
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