Another weekend in the League of Ireland and we have more poor refereeing decisions. It’s hard to get my head around how inconsistent the officials within the league have become, surely it can’t be that hard to follow a process and deliver consistent results? Can it?
It has become the “normal” within the league to accept the poor decision making of our league officials, even when some of the referees within the league are determined to be center stage in the game and show that they are in charge.
Im not going to dwell on the Bohemians game, it was a penalty but the decision making of the referee around the incident left alot to be desired. Overall the decision making and standard of refereeing in the league is poor and needs to be addressed.
For example, Robert Harvey officiated the Dundalk v Shamrock Rovers game in Oriel Park recently, two incidents occurred that stood out, the penalty decision for Richie Towell and the second was the booking of Cameron Dummigan for showing his outrage at a poor decision.
So let’s look at the impact of those two decisions on the game, firstly, I will admit it was a stonewall penalty and “thankfully” it wasn’t given but it should have been, so why wasnt it?? Why didn’t the linesman call over the referee and tell him to award it?? Why didn’t the referee award it?? This was the process followed in Dalymount, why not the same in Oriel.
If that penalty was given and scored, it would have been a completely different game.
The second incident to book Cameron Dummigan for his objection to a poor refereeing decision meant that the player was suspended for Friday nights game against Bohemians in Dalymount, meaning that Dundalk needed to put Greg Sloggett into the right back position.
My point here is, these poor decisions, decisions that a referee should be consistently getting right, have clear impacts on the outcome of not just one game but multiple games. One poor decision could potentially make or break a season for a team, so, entrusting a person with the power to officiate a football game is something that needs to be taken with the utmost seriousness and professionalism, two things I feel are lacking by the majority of referees within our League.
There seems to be a consensus amoung fans that something has to be done.
Let’s be honest, I don’t care who I upset by writing this because it’s time it is said, the refereeing standard in the League of Ireland is becoming a joke and the FAI need to step in now before it becomes an international laughing stock.
Recently, a European game that was officiated by Rob Hennessy between Hibernians of Malta and Riga ended with the Maltese team lodging an official compliant with UEFA over his poor decision making and conduct during the game, something we have become familiar with in the League of Ireland and something we have accepted as normal.
Maltese Premier League club Hibernians have said: “We have sent a letter of official protest to Uefa following the unacceptable behaviour of the refereeing team in last Thursday’s match against FC Riga. The club has asked for an official investigation into the incidents that characterised the match. – excerpt from Irish Examiner article.
The standard of our officials hasn’t been great within our League since I can remember but it seems to have dropped considerably within the last few years, maybe it’s only something I’ve noticed recently or maybe it’s has been a cancer within our League that has started to grow in recent years to the point were it’s become noticable, now is the time for action to be taken to remove it from our game.
The next thing I need to look at is a solution to this problem, I have always been someone who likes to analyze a problem and find solutions to it, so given that we have a problem with our officials being unable to making consistent decisions during a game, this comes down to a matter of training, or lack thereof, and also the auditing of this training to maintain a high standard. That said, our officials need to be retrained, they need to be sent on official training courses on a regular basis, for example, Yearly or Bi-annually.
For example, an airline pilot needs to undertake extensive regular training to maintain their “wings” to allow them to be entrusted with the control of an aeroplane and the lives of the staff and passengers on board, failure to pass this training means they are withdrawn from active duty and retrained or dismissed. Maybe this example is extreme but the premise is the same, a referee is entrusted with not just officiating a football match, they are entrusted with the welfare of the 22 players on the pitch, the officiating team around them and making concise, professional and consistent decisions in a fair manner which follows the rules of the game setout by the governing body of world football, FIFA. Failure to carrying out these duties should mean they are withdrawn from active duty, retrained or ultimately….. dismissed.
A time will come when the clubs within the league need to stand together and demand better from the FAI and the refereeing committee, until then we will go from weekend to weekend with more and more poor decisions that impact more than just a football game.
End.