How should referees be sanctioned?
In very recent times, there has been an outcry against the kind of sanctions imposed on some of our erring referees. Most of these agitations emanate from the ranks of the referees themselves, although they are retired.
Advertisement
They contend that the length of periods that sanctioned referees spend off the field of play are such that they are likely to get rusty and become less effective on their return. I beg to disagree.
It must be said that our referees themselves have invited the regime of sanctions into the management of the game, and the nature of the sanctions are largely dictated by the quality of performance of the sanctioned referees.
Just two examples. An elite referee who admits before a sanctioning panel that “I saw clearly that infringement, but I did not whistle for it because I was afraid. Indeed, I would not have been alive sitting in front of this panel if I had given that penalty award”.
The obvious question is whether a referee, who is not a class three, two and, indeed, among the elites should have been AFRAID to take decisions. And if such an erring referee is handed an eight-match ban to go and rethink and self-assess himself, it doesn’t appear to me to be too much. Another question is, what is the real effect of an eight-match ban. How many matches, in practice, would such a banned referee have handled if he had not been sanctioned?
The sure answer is not more than three matches. It means that in actual fact, that referee had missed handling three matches.
Example number two. A Division One referee has recently been sanctioned to be off GFA official matches for the rest of this season. What did he do? He forced and handled a league match on a waterlogged playing field. The field had no markings and the ball could not bounce on the field. And such a field could cause injury to the players and even the match officials. In the same match, the referee denied the away team a clear penalty award.
The same away team players suffered two red cards, one of which was under very dubious circumstances. And to cap it all, the referee insisted that the match must end at all costs and so when visibility became very poor, four cars were commanded to provide ‘floodlights’ so that the home team which were leading in the scores could win that match that day, perhaps to the glory and happiness of the match officials too.
All these pieces of evidence were on the video clip. The referees saw them and only had to apologise. But the cheated team had lost three points.
Indeed, it was a dirty and annoying spectacle to anybody with any football and refereeing sense. Pure bias, incompetence and corruption. Perhaps, we should ask ourselves ‘what are sanctions for’. Among other reasons they are to check on the misuse of the powers and authority of match officials. They are also to alert referees that they are being watched and assessed. To my mind, the sanctions are in the interest of the referees themselves since it has reduced and nearly eliminated assault on referees.
The belief is that the system would take care of the bad ones among them. And that clubs can send protests for redress to the GFA.
Perhaps, it is important to reveal that scientific data during the sanction regime has established that there has been a significant reduction in referees’ misperformance since the introduction of review of matches of the Premier and Division One Leagues. A lot of referees have been investigated and many of them have been absolved of any bad performance.
Indeed, some of the referees end up being commended for their good performances. The review has proved to be a good medium for developing and growing our referees.
It must be revealed that no referee is sanctioned without being given the chance to observe his own match and performance on a video clip. And in almost all cases, they agree that the decisions they took during their matches were wrong and that, given another chance, they would not take the same decisions.
It should be pointed out that giving a sanction of two or three matches is no sanction or punishment since no referee goes out for matches every other week. There are 30 matches in the Premier League. Most referees who have not been sanctioned do not handle more than 10 matches throughout the whole season.
The authority and role of a match official is key and crucial in any football match. He stands in between two different teams to enforce the Laws of the Game and ensure fairness, competence and professionalism. If and when he takes the position of being part of one team, he immediately brings the game into disrepute.
The Laws of the Game are such that the referee’s decision on the points of the law are final. Perhaps, those who are crying for the sanctioned referees should consider the ‘Ewe’ adage which loosely translates that ‘those who cry for the hawk should consider the plight of the chicken’. That is, they should consider the pain and anguish of those clubs that lose vital points when they are cheated through biased decisions of referees.
Although the clubs equally stand accused when they encourage some referees to cheat for them, they need referee managers to bring some form of sanity into the game. And the only way to do this is to punish bad match officials.
We all need to unite in taking drastic measures to stamp out and eliminate referees with bad values and morality. It is, therefore, sad to observe that some referee managers would criticise the current disciplinary measures applied against those few referees who may not want to, as it were, have the result of matches in their pockets.
Just like last season, the 2016/2017 league matches would be very competitive, tough and uncompromising. At least, the ongoing first round matches have shown that we expect a very entertaining and unpredictable competition throughout the second round.
The gains being made by WAFA and the strong agitations in Kotoko, Hearts and Aduana Stars are clear signals of tougher matches ahead. We, therefore, require very committed and competent match officials to handle and control our matches.
We should, therefore, stop crying for the few bad lots within the ranks of our match officials. Majority of our referees are performing well. We should all turn our eyes on the few bad and incorrigible ones.
Our country is bedevilled with a lot of rot and underhand dealings on a daily basis. Our football games should not be part of it. We should all unite in the crusade to root out the few who want to bring the game into disrepute. Amen.