Refrees
Loading
8th December, 2011
Where Do Team Officials Seek Redress For Poor Officiating?
Christian Abbew
A FORTNIGHT ago, the CEO of New Edubiase FC, Abdul Salam Mumuni was reported to have hinted that bad officiating was making him consider quitting football.
A week later supporters of Mighty Jets bemoaned the issue of what they described as bias officiating against them.
Last Monday, Berekum Arsenal lodged a complaint against referee Sylvester Dozorsu in their 10th week match against Tema Youth.
These three reactions and other pronouncements against match officials are likely to be interpreted by some as one way to stampede the Referees Review Panel (RRP) into taking harsh decisions on what could be described as border-line cases--split decisions that a referee may have take but either because of distance to the incident or the number of persons involved, he or she may err.
For instance, who decides whether a mistake on the part of a match official is a human and therefore an inadvertent error or a deliberate oversight in an incident involving a goal-mouth scramble?
Should the panel agree that a match official could not have failed to notice an infringement in a situation where his direct view of an incident is obscured,and therefore indicts him, how does he defend himself?
In other words, if a match official is dissatisfied with a decision of the panel, where and how does he seek redress?
Take a more specific case involving one Mr. Richard Kotey, an assistant referee in the Hearts versus Edubiase match on week five.
His situation could be similar to his counterpart who was on the lines in the match between Germany and England in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The only difference between the two is Kotey, from his position, may have believed the goal did cross the line and therefore assisted the referee to award a goal – a play back may have revealed he was wrong.
On the other hand, a play back of the footage of the England “goal” against Germany did show that the ball did indeed cross the goal-line yet because both the assistant referee and referee did not see it as such, it was not accepted as a goal -- and they were not punished.
So why should Kotey therefore be sanctioned by the RRP, given the similarity in the two incidents?
In the same vein, in last weeks’ English Premier League match between Sunderland and Wolverhampton Wanderers (Wolves), referee Phil Doud did not see a Wolves armed ball because of a crowded goal-mouth action which could have given Sunderland a free-kick instead of the goal against them – Doud was not sanctioned for his decision.
It is such border-line cases that had made some argue that the formation of the Referees Review Panel could lead to a situation where in its genuine bid to rid the Premier League off incompetent match officials, it may end up depleting the ranks of match officials to handle matches.
Of course, the response to this had been that it was better to forfeit a league fixture without any incompetent match officials than to have a fixture riddled with incompetent officials.
However the fact still remains that in its bid to be seen to be responding to complaints against bad match officiating, the RRP may turn a blind eye on such border-line cases and go ahead to sanction match officials unfairly.
Another issue relating to the RRP is the time-lapse between the match in which a match official may not have performed and the date a sanction is decided on and takes effect.
For instance, the week 5 fixture involving Mighty Jets-Dwarfs and Hearts-Edubiase took place on November 6, 2011, yet it took more than three weeks for the RRP to come out with its findings and recommendations.
Juxtapose the time-lapse between offence and sanction, then consider the average rate of sanctions a week and the effective date sanction takes place, and one may realise some truth in the argument of the possibility of depleting the league off match officials.
Of course, the RRP means well, and the deterrence its decision would have on incompetent match officials would definitely impact positively on our league.
But let us not in our effort to get our match officials to improve end up driving them into making mistakes that arise more out of nervousness than sheer incompetency or bias.
As one way of disabusing the minds of match officials that they would be subjected to weekly witch-hunting, we should let them appreciate regularly the decisive role they play in a teams’ fate and therefore the need to try and make as few errors as possible.
However, it is when drawing the line between certain errors and the subsequent process of sanctioning that could prove challenging to the RRP.
At the end of the day, one would prefer to have a situation where a coach or club official would be magnanimous in defeat and be forthright enough to admit that human error aside on the part of match officials, the club really lost to a better side and not because of bad officiating.
Demonizing match officials in times of defeat undermines their role and it would be for the good of the game not to come out in public against them at the least error given the situation they find themselves.
A FORTNIGHT ago, the CEO of New Edubiase FC, Abdul Salam Mumuni was reported to have hinted that bad officiating was making him consider quitting football.
A week later supporters of Mighty Jets bemoaned the issue of what they described as bias officiating against them.
Last Monday, Berekum Arsenal lodged a complaint against referee Sylvester Dozorsu in their 10th week match against Tema Youth.
These three reactions and other pronouncements against match officials are likely to be interpreted by some as one way to stampede the Referees Review Panel (RRP) into taking harsh decisions on what could be described as border-line cases--split decisions that a referee may have take but either because of distance to the incident or the number of persons involved, he or she may err.
For instance, who decides whether a mistake on the part of a match official is a human and therefore an inadvertent error or a deliberate oversight in an incident involving a goal-mouth scramble?
Should the panel agree that a match official could not have failed to notice an infringement in a situation where his direct view of an incident is obscured,and therefore indicts him, how does he defend himself?
In other words, if a match official is dissatisfied with a decision of the panel, where and how does he seek redress?
Take a more specific case involving one Mr. Richard Kotey, an assistant referee in the Hearts versus Edubiase match on week five.
His situation could be similar to his counterpart who was on the lines in the match between Germany and England in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The only difference between the two is Kotey, from his position, may have believed the goal did cross the line and therefore assisted the referee to award a goal – a play back may have revealed he was wrong.
On the other hand, a play back of the footage of the England “goal” against Germany did show that the ball did indeed cross the goal-line yet because both the assistant referee and referee did not see it as such, it was not accepted as a goal -- and they were not punished.
So why should Kotey therefore be sanctioned by the RRP, given the similarity in the two incidents?
In the same vein, in last weeks’ English Premier League match between Sunderland and Wolverhampton Wanderers (Wolves), referee Phil Doud did not see a Wolves armed ball because of a crowded goal-mouth action which could have given Sunderland a free-kick instead of the goal against them – Doud was not sanctioned for his decision.
It is such border-line cases that had made some argue that the formation of the Referees Review Panel could lead to a situation where in its genuine bid to rid the Premier League off incompetent match officials, it may end up depleting the ranks of match officials to handle matches.
Of course, the response to this had been that it was better to forfeit a league fixture without any incompetent match officials than to have a fixture riddled with incompetent officials.
However the fact still remains that in its bid to be seen to be responding to complaints against bad match officiating, the RRP may turn a blind eye on such border-line cases and go ahead to sanction match officials unfairly.
Another issue relating to the RRP is the time-lapse between the match in which a match official may not have performed and the date a sanction is decided on and takes effect.
For instance, the week 5 fixture involving Mighty Jets-Dwarfs and Hearts-Edubiase took place on November 6, 2011, yet it took more than three weeks for the RRP to come out with its findings and recommendations.
Juxtapose the time-lapse between offence and sanction, then consider the average rate of sanctions a week and the effective date sanction takes place, and one may realise some truth in the argument of the possibility of depleting the league off match officials.
Of course, the RRP means well, and the deterrence its decision would have on incompetent match officials would definitely impact positively on our league.
But let us not in our effort to get our match officials to improve end up driving them into making mistakes that arise more out of nervousness than sheer incompetency or bias.
As one way of disabusing the minds of match officials that they would be subjected to weekly witch-hunting, we should let them appreciate regularly the decisive role they play in a teams’ fate and therefore the need to try and make as few errors as possible.
However, it is when drawing the line between certain errors and the subsequent process of sanctioning that could prove challenging to the RRP.
At the end of the day, one would prefer to have a situation where a coach or club official would be magnanimous in defeat and be forthright enough to admit that human error aside on the part of match officials, the club really lost to a better side and not because of bad officiating.
Demonizing match officials in times of defeat undermines their role and it would be for the good of the game not to come out in public against them at the least error given the situation they find themselves.
Popular stories from Sports
