Game
45, 2016-17
Last season I refereed a game where the home
team’s captain was a hypnotist. The first few times I gave decisions against
his team he walked up to me and commanded, “Look into my eyes, referee. Look
into my eyes.” I resisted this invitation on the grounds that if he really was
a hypnotist, I might spend the rest of the game ceding to his will every time
he said, “Mister Referee, you will now award my team another penalty kick. And
the score is already 67-0.”
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| How to control a referee who will not see reason |
Of course the captain didn’t want to
hypnotise me. He wanted to talk. There’s a certain type of player who just
loves to talk. Not about the weather, or what you had for dinner last night, or
the worrying rise of right-wing populism across the European Union. No, they
want to talk about your decisions. These players are not necessarily the
moaners and dissenters. Rather they think that, through a calm and rational
discussion, they can persuade you that the foul you just awarded against their
team was, in fact, not a foul at all.
It’s nice to imagine calling a halt in play
while league officials rush on to the field with a table, two chairs, two
glasses and a jug of water. The player and I sit down to review my decision at
length. First, I give my point of view. The home team’s number 6, due to a
combination of slowness, ineptitude and stupidity, had hacked down the
opposition’s speedy, nimble winger. My garrulous friend sees it differently.
His heavy, hulking, dead-eyed number 6 would never do such a thing. The winger
clearly dived.
