WSL- Arsenal vs Chelsea

[Gabriel]

She is, but she's still relatively inexperienced, she was still an assistant referee as recently as 4 years ago. The point I guess I'm making is that referees in the WSL will have refereed a tiny fraction of games compared to referees in the EPL. Think I'm right in saying that Mel mainly referees in the National League on the male side, so it is taking a referee from step 5 and putting them in front of an almost full house at the Emirates for a televised game, it is a whole different level of pressure.

I'm not saying this is wrong by the way, it wouldn't be a good look having make referees officiating womens top level games. But with the move to play a much bigger percentage of games in the main stadiums, along with more and more being televised, it certainly ups the pressure on the referees and they aren't as acclimatised to it as their male SG1 colleagues are. So for all it is the right thing to be doing, the clubs will have to accept that there will be mistakes whilst the officials get more experienced in that environment. If they can't / won't accept that they will need to approach PGMO and ask that the likes of Oliver, Taylor, Kavanagh, etc, take charge of these games, but that obviously stunts the development of female officials.

I agree completely. I hadn’t realised she was an AR as recently as that. But really, shouldn’t they be built up a bit more than being a FIFA referee that quickly after choosing a new specialism?

 

[RustyRef]

Stop making excuses. This was a rather basic decision that they got wrong.

I'm not making excuses, I've already said it was a bad mistake. But every referee who makes a bad mistake should always analyse as to why it happened, that's the only way you get better.

I personally think these WSL referees have pretty much overnight gone from refereeing in front of 2/3 thousand people to 50,000+ people and that is a big ask and huge pressure. And in relation to their male counterparts they are inexperienced, that cannot be argued, it is just fact.

 

[RustyRef]

I agree completely. I hadn’t realised she was an AR as recently as that. But really, shouldn’t they be built up a bit more than being a FIFA referee that quickly after choosing a new specialism?

They don't really have a lot of choice if they are going to take up their FIFA allocations.

 

[DavidObs]

It is abysmal though. The referee is in a stadium that had over 50k people in, and they were the only one who believed they saw a handball. That had to equate to abysmal.

If it’s borderline, fair enough. I’ll take the disallowed Liverpool goal as borderline right/wrong. But this one is abysmal.

They don't really have a lot of choice if they are going to take up their FIFA allocations.

Which they need to accept.

 

[one]

Funny how sometimes only one or two see somethings that many others don't (I admit that in some cases 'others' are right). I am in the I saw it camp. In normal speed I though handball straight away and super slow mo (at 0.25 speed) assured me it. Also the speed of the movement of the hand is more consistent with being propelled after being hit by the ball. Here is the moment the ball was deflected off the hand and into the body. You (I) can see the ball moving in the almost right angle direction after this frame. the movement of the ball is more obvious from the other two angles which doesn't show the hand contact as well as this angle.

 

[CrossRef]

I also watched the video in slow motion many times, it doesn't strike me that the ball has deflected from the hand. Her left hand was positioned above the trajectory of the ball and the retraction of the hand started before the ball has arrived, and the movement of the hand seems to be natural.
There is not best angle that's why disputes occur.