The referee thread: discuss referees and their decisions

Rantboy said:
I officially give up on the Champions League :LOL:

I've never seen someone slip up and fall and have someone trip over their head only to have a penalty awarded against them.
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Neymar made a meal of it (as always), but falling over and tripping someone is a penalty even if it is accidental.
 
Godotelli said:
Tired of talking about them. Bring in technology and reset the clock
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Technology will not help for the Meunier penalty.
If you look at the replay you see that Meunier makes a movement with his left arm whil falling, this catches Neymar...is it deliberate? Who knows. But in the new rule this doesn't matter.
Same with the second penalty, the PSG player does touch Suarez, i'm all for giving an advantage to the attacker...to me this is a penalty...
If i remember well PSG should have got a penalty in the first half.

It's time to discuss about the rules concerning penalties and hand balls.

But let's be fair, PSG have only to blame themselves for being out, they were dreadfull yesterday...and this against a Barcelona that wasn't even good. That sixth goal was something very special, quite a finish by Sergi Roberto.
 
In my opinion, that Suarez penalty was a joke.
I didn't see the first penalty to judge.
 
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gerd said:
Technology will not help for the Meunier penalty.
If you look at the replay you see that Meunier makes a movement with his left arm whil falling, this catches Neymar...is it deliberate? Who knows. But in the new rule this doesn't matter.
Same with the second penalty, the PSG player does touch Suarez, i'm all for giving an advantage to the attacker...to me this is a penalty...
If i remember well PSG should have got a penalty in the first half.

It's time to discuss about the rules concerning penalties and hand balls.

But let's be fair, PSG have only to blame themselves for being out, they were dreadfull yesterday...and this against a Barcelona that wasn't even good. That sixth goal was something very special, quite a finish by Sergi Roberto.
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Di Maria was denied the most blatant pen (and red for Mascharano) I've seen in years. Tie over.

There's no way the 2nd one is a pen. Blatant, blatant dive by Suarez. No pen. Tie over.

The amount of unpunished dives too... It's just depressing.

Technology might not help definitively in every single case but it's a huge improvement over what we saw tonight (and other games).
 
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There was contact, the PSG player pushed Suarez.
I'm watching football for over 40 years.
There was a time that every contact in the box was an automatic penalty.
This might be harsh but it is very clear and transparant.

Nowadays one often hears say that "there was not enough contact to give a penalty". In the case of the second penalty there was not enough? From wich degree of contact on can one talk about a penalty? Video refs will not solve this problem? It always remains open to interpretation and thus subjective...

Best solution: every contact in the box is a penalty...they will learn soon. Oh and divers should face bans.

Yesterday the PSG player pushed Suarez and yes Suarez dived. Ideal outcome: penalty and a yellow card for Suarez.
 
If we watch at the plays in detail:

- Handballs: there were 4 of them inside the areas (2 for each team), and I think that if we stick to the rules, it's totally subjective to the ref. At least he was coherent and none was called. Would have been even worse if one was called and not the other ones. In my oppinion, we should return to objective rules: if it touches the arm/hand and is not sticked to the body, it's a hand. That would be much easier than all this "voluntary act" thing which makes it chaotic and depends on the criteria of each referee.

- In my oppinion, the penalty to Neymar is as blatant as the one to Di Maria, both are clear penalties. The PSG defenders tries to obstruct Neymar as he falls, without a chance to play the ball. Neymar is smart enough to change his direction and force contact. This is a classic for attackers. Some people say "Neymar could have changed his direction to avoid contact". Yes, of course, loosing the advantage to play the ball, but that's precisely the point: in football, you can't obstruct someone's path if you're not going to play the ball. Was the PSG defender going to play the ball? No. Did he extend his fall to obstruct Neymar? Totally. Was he avoiding that Neymar took advantage of the situation without the chance of playing the ball? Totally. Did Neymar take advantage of it? Sure. That's what's football about. So Definitely a pen to me. If someone slips and falls on another player, it's also a penalty, so this is the same scenario.

- Di Maria penalty was very clear, but I say that after watching it on tv. I was at the stadium guys, and watching it live, just in front of me, I couldn't tell exactly what happened, because Di Maria shot the ball and the contact was difficult to assess at first. It's a big mistake by the referee, though, one that would have totally changed the game at that point. But I can understand why he didn't see it, because neither I thought of it as a penalty until I watched it on tv. There should be a way to avoid this mistakes, and the use of technology would have been easy in this case. It is much needed.

- To me the Suarez penalty shouldn't be called, mainly because he exagerates the contact and contrary to the Neymar play, in no way it affects the play. Live at the stadium, again, I couldn't tell if it was or it wasn't. But being Suarez, who has a shameful tradition of playacting, I would think it was nothing, as it was. Big mistake.

- Clearly those 2 mistakes favoured us a lot (and 100% probable we were out). But I would like to point out other things that people tends to consider irrelevant. In the first half there were 2 plays in which Neymar and Messi were left on dangerous 2 vs 2 on two counters, and the ref cut the play due to a previous foul, not giving the advantage rule. I know it's not as important or as spectacular as a penalty play, but Messi and Neymar 2 vs 2 with open space ahead...

People ignore those things, but those are also blatant mistakes of the referee. I say this because in my oppinion the ref took wrong decisions again and agian for both teams during the whole game, it's only at the end that 2 of those mistakes are seen as more relevant, but Meunier did 5 harsh tackles to Neymar in the first half without seeing a yellow. Those things also impact the game, but are not regarded as critical, but who knows what could have happened.

At the end of the day, I think the result was unfair for PSG, but at the same time they digged their own grave by acting cowardly and playing stupidly deffensive against the poorest Barcelona in a decade.

At the end of the day the ref was terrible and favoured us, but a lot of times they favour the other team. It's a pitty that we don't use technology to soften this.

PS: I agree with Gerd about giving a penalty and also a yellow for the attacker on some instances, it's coherent with what happens sometimes. And I'm totally in favour of banning divers harshly, the same way that violent tackles should be banned harshly as well, even after the match. All those diving and all those stupidly violent tackles would stop quickly.
 
Will have to agree to disagree on the Suarez one.

Regardless, amazing spirit from Barca. Neymar been under criticism for some lacklustre performances this season, dunno how valid they've been but he defo turned up for this game.
 
Strange decision about Tyrone Mings.
I've seen the incident quite a few times now and i've changed my mind.
I am fairly sure that stepping on Zlatan's head was accidental.

But it doens't mind what i think about it.

Either Mings did it accidental and then he should get no ban or otherwise he did it on purpose and then he should get a huge ban and not 5 matches (a benchmark: Dembele got 6 days for poking his finger in Diego Costa's eye, deliberately stepping om someone's head is much, much worse).

The FA are cowards. They absolutely wanted to give mings a longer ban because Zlatan (rightly so) got 3 days.

IMO the FA can never prove that Mings did this on purpose and thus he should not get a ban.

I wonder what would have happened if Mings elbowed and Zlatan stepper or stumbled on Mings' head, i'm pretty sure Mings would have had 3 days and Zlatan nothing at all...

Always the same: class justice.
 
Isslander said:
Just make a rule where you can ban a player after a match for an obvious dive, based on video.
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Yeah. If the FA can ban players for even more games later on after a game with a red card then they should ban the divers too if they find it diving. That would make the players think twice if they dive or not.
 
I'm in for everything against diving, I also agree with the suggestion of giving a yellow card to a player who dives even when there's a penalty given due to a contact.
That way the diver will think twice before seeking the penalty.

Yesterday in African CL qualification tour, I admired what the striker of Houria Conakry did against Esperance de Tunis, the player was struggling with the ball with the last defender, he got pushed and I saw him holding himself not to fall, he kept running trying to reach the goal, I'm sure if he fell he would get a rightful penalty with the defender sent off. But he was a real man and tried to continue chasing the ball and trying to score.
 
Yes, Oliver is an awful ref. And Hazard is a snide little cheat

edit:
Rojo escapes another red card. Awful ref Oliver says he say it so no retrospective punishment
Beggars belief, esp after other stamps this last week
 
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All I know is that if they are going to use replays let them use slow motion only to see if the ball hit x or y last. Anything contact related looks way different in slow motion. Suarez penalty is a huge example, on real speed does not look as absurd as the slow motion one, even though I still believe is not a penalty. But that replay in slow is hilarious how bad Suarez look.
 
i'm not sure that video refs are a good solution, Bobby.
They are ideal for things that a ref can't see, but then they should be able to interrupt matches themselves. I'm not sure that is possible.
Otherwise most things that they will look at will be matters of interpretatio. I don't necessarily see added value in video refs for interpretation (for example lots of penalty's).

And a s a fan: discussion about referee is an integral part of being a football fan.
 
It was a success too. Two crucial calls were overturned, when in normal conditions Spain would have had been ripped off badly. Just imagine that in a World Cup knockout, or even a final?

The delay for the decision to be taken was no more than 30 seconds. It is a rather small price to pay in order to make the right decision. I hope they perfect and implement it in time for the world cup in 2018.

Sporting results at the highest level shouldn't be affected by human mistakes, when they have all the means at their disposal. It happens in every sport as it is: tennis, basketball, NFL, you name it. And the decision is made in a matter of seconds. I think it should be used to review all goals and penalty situations at the very least, with no exceptions.

Not using VAR from now on will only turn football into more of a travesty in comparison to all other top level sports.
 
I know you can't take much from one game. But the two major decisions were spot in this case.

From what would have been a 1-1 result to a 2-0 is huge.

I think it should be used for major instances like goals and un-clear penalty calls

and apart from that give each team 2 calls per game that they can ask the video ref to review. (In cases of bad fouls etc)

refs make lots of mistakes, that are completely acceptable considering the pace of the game etc, I think it will actually help the ref and take some of the pressure off of the ref also.

Personally I can only see the positives and I can live with the the 20-30seconds of review time.
 
The 2 calls per game are a good idea.
In the current system, i don't know who takes the decision to ask a second opinion of the video refs? That is not clear from me.
Take as an example the Barcelona-PSG match and Suarez' dive that resulted in a penalty.
Obviously video refs would have seen that Suarez dived. Could they have overturned the refs' decision to give a penalty? Or is it only the ref who can ask a second opinion. In this last case i'm not sure of the added value. I presume that in the case of Suarez' dive the ref was certain about his decision...

Hope you get my point.

 
In the case of this France vs Spain friendly, I think the video ref was proactive in immediately telling the main ref there was something wrong. I think this video ref would be analysing key incidents behind the scenes throughout a match without the need for request, and the moment when there's a bad call, they would come to the fore.

A while ago I suggested these separate calls, a limited number of them for each manager. This would be very much like in tennis, when players have 3 challenges per set, and I think it wouldn't hurt either. Like I said, 30 second reviews is a very small price to pay when you're assuring everyone the sporting result will be fair.

Also, that would reduce the incidents of players crowding the ref in a disrespectful way. It does take a LOT of the pressure off refs. Just take a moment to compare how players used to react to controversial goal line incidents, as opposed to now that goal line technology is used in the Premiership. Players don't say a word anymore and there's no arguing with technology.
 
Chelsea-Spurs: semi-final of the FA Cup.
Defending is also an art and thus i think Chelsea deserved to win this match. Scoring 4 goals against this Spurs defense is no mean feat.
And of course as a Spurs fan i'm biased...

But.

Was it a penalty?
Of course it was a stupid tackle from Son (a player i like a lot, who is great this season, so i feel for him).

And yes there would certainly haverr been contact if Moses hadn't dived beforte the contact (or am i blind?). But (unless i'm blind) there was no actual contact.

It is perhaps a moral penalty and imo this does not take anything away from Chelsea's win...but what do you people think, was it really a penalty?
 
gerd said:
Chelsea-Spurs: semi-final of the FA Cup.
Defending is also an art and thus i think Chelsea deserved to win this match. Scoring 4 goals against this Spurs defense is no mean feat.
And of course as a Spurs fan i'm biased...

But.

Was it a penalty?
Of course it was a stupid tackle from Son (a player i like a lot, who is great this season, so i feel for him).

And yes there would certainly haverr been contact if Moses hadn't dived beforte the contact (or am i blind?). But (unless i'm blind) there was no actual contact.

It is perhaps a moral penalty and imo this does not take anything away from Chelsea's win...but what do you people think, was it really a penalty?
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IMO I thought Moses should of been booked.

Yes Son was incredibly stupid for what he did, but Moses just fell over and IMO dived, if that was given against my team I would of been really angry with the player clearly diving to win a penalty.
 
It was a dive, but if he hadn't dived, he would certainly have fallen...this is a hard decision for a referee.
Perhaps the best solution would have been to give both a penalty and a yellow card...
 
The Bundesliga is using Video Technology next season.

Hopefully it goes well. Been mixed over the results we've seen so far in other leagues/internationals. I worry about how long these decisions will take and how it will effect refs/linesman - will they not blow up/flag things so that they aren't criticised for false-positives?

I want VAR desperately (not least b/c we'd probably be in an FA Cup final right now) but the flow of football is much more important than in other sports.
 
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