Bro…

Absolutely not.

As a fellow Arsenal fan that has also officiated 17, years…

You sir need to sign up to be a referee and take a job at PGMOL.

You’re the kind of person that thinks they could make it from grassroots refereeing to the EPL in three years but you’d never get assigned to a match above the U13s thinking that officiating is a simple task for bumbling idiots.

As someone who used to referee football for 17 years week in week out, I am very very tired with the nonstop discourse of officials. In fact, I’d like to see PGMOL officials as a whole go on strike.

Demoting someone to the lower league isn’t that simple. It is a numbers game and an issue of performance for all officials being assigned.

Referees are private contractors, although at EPL level, the officials are given a base salary plus game fees. I am not sure if the referees in the Championship are given a base salary at all. In any case, there are only so many referees and so many games. Sending officials down to the Championship would also mean those referees are losing money.

The worst case scenario is for a referee to not be assigned a game at all. This means that whatever you did was so bad that the assigner doesn’t trust you to be on the pitch at all.

Players are held to a much lower standard than officials when it comes to tolerating mistakes. As an Arsenal fan, there have been plenty of players through the years at Arsenal that somehow play regularly. It is also a fact that given the ludicrous sums of money spent on player transfers and wages, as well as politics behind the scenes, there are a lot of questionable decisions when it comes to players. Willian at Arsenal being a fantastic example.

Game/player management and foul selection were the major issues being addressed when I stopped officiating. Those areas are what referees learn once they’ve demonstrated that they have good foul recognition.

Just this weekend, Wolves won the game because the referee DIDN’T call the foul in an area of the pitch where you’d usually see a foul call given. No fan would have picked up let alone give credit where credit is due on something like that.

In fact, fans almost never give credit to referees for goals being scored from giving advantage or not giving those free kicks. An inexperienced or “fan ref” would always give those calls and cost a team a potential goal.

As someone who officiated for 17 years, every ref knew what they signed up for.

There is very little I haven’t seen, heard, or experienced in those 17 years of experience. I’ve had my share of great games, nightmare games, good moments, and scary moments.

If there’s one thing I know for sure is that anyone who has actually officiated for real won’t see the game the same was they did before.

The other thing I know for sure is that those who have always complained the loudest about referees are usually the ones who get absolutely humbled in the entry level course. Those people are always the ones that say “I thought referees were terrible and that I knew a thing or two about refereeing. Turns out I know fuck all about refereeing.” Happens every time.

As someone that officiated once upon a time, a wise referee once told the class that the difference between football and most other sports is that context matters in football.

Like most professions, there is a big difference between learning the rulebook and actual officiating.

Allow me to share the wildest example that I’ve ever experienced personally.

I was assigned to referee a local derby match and the players were boys aged 14-18. A high school match here in the US. During the warmup, the visiting coach informed me that one of his players is accused of getting a player on the home team arrested over spring break. You’d be a fool to think that off field incident didn’t wildly change how I had to referee this match in order to prevent the players from getting hurt. What wouldn’t be a red card in other games is now a red card in this game because of the off field circumstances.

As someone that refereed once upon a time, I’d say that instead of bitching about refereeing decisions, learn about how referees think.

No amount of me explaining refereeing decisions will make anyone happy. That’s why referees do not communicate with fans. It’s opening a can of worms and a complete waste of a referee’s time.

If refereeing was as simple and as easy as you think it is (call foul plus booking if need be), then there would be a larger pool of good referees to choose from.

As someone that officiated once upon a time, foreign referees make no difference.

1. In other nations, the amount of bitching and moaning about referees is no different. They literally have a referee bribing case going on in Spain. MLS fans moan and groan about the standard of refereeing the same as the PL, Liga MX fans go on and on about corrupt officials. It’s the same nonsense everywhere. Hell I’ve been accused many times of being bribed or biased… Against teams I’ve never seen before in my life.

2. Logistics. Some referees at the top level still work normal jobs so getting referees to travel internationally on a regular basis is not going to be popular with referees.