Three red cards and some issues of racial awareness

Games 40-41, 2016-17

Some days, this seems like time
better spent than refereeing. 

Sometimes I get assigned to a game out of town, and when I look at the laughably christened Fair Play Table, my heart sinks a little and I think I know why I'm being given the treat of a longer trip. Yesterday I was sent to officiate between teams who, in the disciplinary rankings, were third bottom (the home team) and bottom (away). This is in a league of very few angels, where you have to be almost conscientiously deviant to hit last place.

I presume that the idea is to ship an unknown ref in for a potentially explosive game, then let him flee the scene never to be heard of again in that neck of the woods. It's true there are some players you encounter on a weekend afternoon you'd might not want to meet on the street late on a week day night. I've retained a clear image in my head of the player who threatened to break my neck last autumn. You know, just in case.

I talk with the referee who's just officiated the game before me, between the reserve teams of the same two clubs. How was it, I ask. He shrugs. "Well," he says of the away team. "They're..." And he names their nationality, like it's understood...

Dealing with a "fucked up" groundsman

Game 39, 2016-17

Beach football, anyone?

Grey, gruff and prone to complaining at the slightest provocation - that's your average groundsman. It's advisable, nonetheless, to stay on his good side. He has the key to your changing room and can, say, adjust both the heating and the water temperature. It's best to keep in with him by lending a sympathetic ear to his low grumblings about the mud and mess that teams always leave behind, and about why the government hasn't yet sent in elite armed unites to tackle and annihilate the city's mole population.

Sometimes, though, it's hard to stay calm in the face of their cussedness, idleness and all-round inefficiency. Yesterday's game was scheduled for the grass field, but when I arrive I find that the grass field has been cordoned off in favour of the cinder pitch. The lines are badly marked, and the cinder hasn't been levelled out since the last game. It's just about playable, but it's in a lumpy, shitty state. On the way back to the club house I inspect the closed-off grass pitch. It's in perfect condition.

A referee's rational response to criticism

Games 36-38, 2016-17

More cards than the
Queen's bloody birthday

City Cup, semi-final - what's at stake? The City Cup winner goes into next season's State Cup, and the winner of the State Cup goes into the first round of this country's FA Cup. Win that, and you're in the Europa League. Win the Europa League and... well, let's say that tonight I'm reffing two potential Champions League participants. Though probably not.

What I'm reffing tonight are two quick but very physical teams. I raise the yellow card so often that my left arm's soon aching like a castaway's knob. At the end of 90 minutes, the central defender of the losing team shakes my hand, then kindly adds, "I haven't seen such a bad referee for a long, long time..."

Trying hard to avoid a straight red card

Game 35, 2016-17

Get the message,
get the t-shirt

First clash for points after the winter break, and it's Third v First in a boys' U17 league. As always, I check the disciplinary records of both teams. The first-placed team have only accrued eight cautions all season. The home team have been far less shy at disturbing the referee.

In the refs' changing room, I talk to the lad who's just finished whistling the U13 game before me. By coincidence, he plays for the second-placed team in the U17 league. When they played today's hosts, he tells me, "they tried to kick us off the park".

Does that mean I go into the game expecting trouble from the home team? Not at all - just as the game starts at 0-0, so does the punishment card. It does no harm, though, to be aware of a team's reputation...

Three-nil to the referee!

Games 33-34, 2016-17

It's half-time, and I'm already 3-0 up. I'm only the referee and I've scored a hat-trick! Such are my phenomenal football skills. At least, that's how it seems to the away team, whom we'll name here as Moaning FC (whereby FC does not denote 'Football Club').

When all is quiet on a weekend night, while Moaning
FC hatches its cunning plan to spring the offside trap.

It's a thankless game - part of a winter break tournament that both mens' teams of decent footballing pedigree are taking very seriously - because Moaning FC is playing the offside trap on a short turf field, and that always means trouble for the referee. Each one of the three goals scored by the home team, maintains Moaning, was clearly offside. From the bench to their followers right through all of its playing staff, the club's protests are not meek, and their opinions are loud and clear.

Seven yellow cards - must be a 'friendly'

Games 30-32, 2016-17

Three friendlies in four days to warm us up for the second half of the season. The first two games pass as you would hope - with very little bother, and just one card in 180 minutes. I'm grateful for this, as it helps me get back into the rhythm of refereeing. For the opening 20 minutes of my first game for two months, my mind was wandering until I could wrestle hold of my concentration.

On Saturday evening, I was mentally composing a column along the following lines: friendlies are the ideal in terms of player behaviour, but only the incentive of an arbitrary number of points for winning injects the game with enough needle to make football worth playing and watching over the long term. Not a massively profound theory, it's true, but I was hoping to raise a sporting-philosophical conundrum. Is it better to play in harmony and safety for the joy of the game and the exercise? Or is it better to play for points in a perpetually competitive atmosphere with the ever-present possibility that things will turn sour and maybe violent?

My error: 32 minutes was too late for the first caution

On Sunday, this poser was blown out the water by the third 'friendly', between two young, fit teams from levels 7 and 8 of the national tier, both of them doing well in their respective divisions. Ironically, one of the team's names translates as 'Friends of Sport'. Previous visits to this club have included a father throwing the key to the referee's changing room at me at the end of the game because I hadn't awarded his son's team a corner kick ten minutes earlier (they'd just lost to a last-minute goal), and a youth team coach who spent the entire game barking at his players and loudly contesting every last decision made against his team. Their crowd always has an opinion, at high volume...

Letter to IFAB, Part Four - The 35-yard-line

I'm including parts four to six of my Letter to the International Football Association Board as they all involve the (re-)introduction of the 35-yard-line. No, don't close the page - there is plenty to discuss here. It is certainly worth experimenting with a 35-yard line because it has the potential to radically improve the game in the following areas: offside, corner kicks, penalty kicks, and as a game-decider in cup ties.

How to end blatant encroachment
like this - use a 35-yard line.

FIFA technical director Marco van Basten's recently suggested law changes included using 35-yard line shootouts rather than spot-kicks to settle drawn cup ties. Unfortunately, it was dismissed without thought by most commentators simply because it was lumped in with van Basten's wacky idea to abolish offside.

Penalty shootout deciders are retained solely on the grounds that there's "no better alternative", yet actually testing out another method is barely considered. It's a shame, because penalties are more a test of nerve than skill, while the 35-yard shootout demands dribbling, shooting and technical abilities, and gives the goalkeeper a 50% chance of making a save. 

Letter to IFAB, Part Three - Allow one foot off the ground at throw-ins

Throw-ins are a thorough pain in the arse for referees. Players get annoyed if you call them, thinking you're being petty. Opposing players get annoyed if you don't call them, thinking that you are either lax, biased or don't know the laws. In the back of your mind you're always thinking, "This is one of those stupid laws that doesn't really affect the game either way - why not just let them hurl, punt or use a giant catapult to put the ball back into play?"

Getting away with foul throws at least since
 1963 (pic: unknown, via Sulgrave FC)

It's amazing how many players don't know the throw-in law. "What did I do wrong?" they whine after dropping the ball in, spiking the ball, standing half a foot inside the touchline, or lifting one or both legs half a yard off the floor as they throw. With very young players, I usually show them how to throw properly then let them take it again (note to coaches - you're welcome, though a five-minute session at training should put this right). At around the U13-U15 level, I tell them what they did wrong and allow a re-take. From that age level upwards I shout a quick critique, then the throw goes the other way, as per the laws.

Letter to IFAB, Part Two - Allow a subbed player to re-enter the game

My letter to IFAB made the following proposal on substitutions. More flexibility in this area seems a logical progression given current squad sizes, the increased number of players allowed on the bench, and the physical demands of the modern game.

Demonstration by numbers -
liberalise the substitution laws now! 

The rule already exists in amateur games at the lower levels of the German amateur game (where all substituted players may return to the game), and in the US college game - any subbed player may return to the game once in each half. That's a little over the top because it can make for too many stoppages, but most coaches don't use it excessively for the obvious reason that it's too disruptive to a team's rhythm.

The German FA recently made another move in this direction, with immediate effect, stipulating that in all men's and women's FA cup games teams may use a fourth substitute during extra-time. This will
almost certainly become the international standard in coming years, because there's nothing to speak against it.

2. SUBSTITUTIONS

Proposal: A player who has been substituted may return to the game once if all substitutes have been exhausted. Limit: one player per team.

Reason: Why should a team that suffers an injury after using all its substitutes be penalised by playing a man short?

How it will work: A single player on each team will be allowed to return to the field once during the course of the game to replace a team-mate, if that team has already used its allocation of three substitutes.

Consequences: Fairness and tactical flexibility. To avoid exploiting this new law for time-wasting, a period of one minute will be automatically added to the game for any such substitution.

Discuss, reject, ignore, tear apart etc. Suggestions 3-6 will follow in due course.

Click here to order Reffing Hell: Stuck In The Middle Of A Game Gone Wrong by Ian Plenderleith (Halcyon Publishing), published on August 8, 2022. 

Letter to IFAB, Part One - Abolish the yellow-red card

Last year in the course of a Twitter exchange, the International Football Association Board - Fifa's sub-committee that every year examines and then tweaks the Laws of the Game - invited anyone who was interested enough to send them suggestions for amending the way that football is arbitrated. I could have written a book, but instead I focused on a handful of my more radical notions.

The dynamic IFAB Committee, possibly
 looking unimpressed with my proposals

IFAB's Technical Director David Elleray courteously wrote back to say, "Thank you for your comprehensive list of suggestions – The IFAB Technical Sub-Committee is currently reviewing the Laws of the Game and we will bear in mind your suggestions. They will also be potentially discussed in our future revision of the Laws of the Game strategy."

I'm not holding my breath, so before my revolutionary manifesto ends up in a Zürich waste-paper basket I'll present my ideas here for discussion. Please bear in mind that these are ideas to kick-start a dialogue, not a blueprint that I would impose on football if I was suddenly elected Fifa president.