Referees - If it looks like it, and smells like it

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jimbob
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Referees - If it looks like it, and smells like it

Postby jimbob » Fri Feb 12, 2010 8:38 pm

Another series of games, another odd decision goes the way of Rangers in the title race. Once more, the Celtic websites are up in arms, and footage of a single moment is studied like the Zapruder Film, frame by frame with no clear justification for the decision emerging no matter how many times the thing is watched. The calls have gone up already – the paranoids are on the march. The pundits are wailing, bracing themselves for the certainty that this decision will create an outpouring of anger.

In some quarters, it has merited no more than a resigned shrug. Things are at the point now where our own manager does not want to complain; like too many people in the game he has bought into all this “these things even themselves out over the season” nonsense, and appears to believe that we should “take it on the chin” and move on.

Tony Mowbray, you’re dead wrong.

Back in the days when I still listened to Radio Clyde, I once heard a debate between Hugh Keevins and some of the other pundits, on the issue of our referees and their conduct on the pitch. I was gravely concerned by what I heard that day. As ever, there was no willingness on the part of anyone on the show to accept that refs were biased, putting each bad decision down to simple “human error”, but this was not what gave me cause for concern. What worried me enormously were the appalling comments by Keevins with which he closed off the argument.

He said in plain language that those who were calling for investigations to be launched were crazy. He went on to say that not only did he believe – totally – in the integrity of the officials but that we would be opening too big a can of worms if we did investigate and found to our horror that the suspicions had some basis in fact. “That,” he said, “would be the end of the game in Scotland.” Therefore, we should never do it.

Of all the arguments which have been offered against the possibility of taking a closer look at the workings of the game here, that has to be the most yellow-bellied and cowardly of the lot. For someone who calls himself a journalist to make such a statement – we better not look cause we might not like what we find – is scandalous. I have never paid a blind bit of notice to what that man has said since. I found the notion to be offensive. Ignorance, says Keevins, is bliss, and I disagree.

Hugh Keevins, you are dead wrong.

Numerous national newspapers have hired referees over time, to give their impressions on those decisions which don’t go the proper way. You’ve seen the columns, no doubt. To me, they are akin to letting politicians comment about the behaviour of their colleagues in relation to the expenses scandal, or to letting senior police officers investigate other senior police officers. We all know about the institutional mentality and how it works. Individuals who belong to certain professions – or certain organisations – cover for each other as a matter of course, which is why reading Hugh Dallas talking about Craig Thomson is a waste of time.

Former referees, when asked to talk about the integrity of those presently in the profession, always say the same thing; the game is clean, it’s always been clean, and it always will be. And the pundits, and the SFA officials, all of whom know each other, all of who socialise and spend time in each others company, all say the folk who say otherwise are paranoid.

They too are dead, dead wrong.

Over on Celtic Quick News, some of the boys have done sterling work in putting together the records on the decisions which have gone against our club in the course of the season so far. They’ve also put together the record of those decisions which have gone in favour of Rangers. I am always happy to see such marvellous efforts from our fans – indeed, from football fans in general – as they embarrass our friends in the press who, if they were doing their own jobs, would have printed this stuff instead, but I am not going to reprint those articles verbatim. All that information is out there, for anyone who wants to find it, and I’ll leave each of you to do your own digging or head over to CQN to scout it out.

This article is about the same thing, but different.

As anyone who reads my work regularly knows, I have some issues with the Scottish sports media, most of which are due to their incompetence. Some, however, are due simply to their bizarre habits, which I defy anyone to try and understand. On the subject of referees they are completely steadfast in defence of their integrity. Yet, these are the same people who have no issue with calling players cheats, accusing managers and clubs of telling lies, of interpreting every single comment from a fan with which they take umbrage of being proof of paranoia or some other such disease of the heart or of the mind. Referees, it seems, are the new priesthood. They make mistakes but are never fundamentally dishonest.

I cannot understand how this can be the case.

From time to time I have accused the press of collusion with Rangers, and it bears on this debate too. For a long time I have argued that the financial problems of that club were being ignored by a media which otherwise was either too lazy to find them out, or too stupid or ignorant to see what was right in front of their faces. I puzzled over that one for a long time, before Graham Speirs provided the answer not so long ago, when he said that Rangers had asked the press not to write these stories and the press, incredibly, had agreed to follow that line.

Because Speirs broke ranks, it is now known to be fact that a matter of gigantic, epochal significance for the whole of the game in this nation has been kept under wraps by those with a direct responsibility for bringing it to light. It is incredible, yet true. It goes to the heart of their credibility on every other issue, and in any other field of journalism would automatically beg the question; what else are these people hiding?

Can any of you think of a bigger issue for them to sink their teeth into in the last few years than the truth about Rangers? Only one other football related subject I can think of would have wider-ranging implications for the game here than the imminent collapse of one of the top two clubs, and that would be if there was evidence of the game itself being corrupt. With so many odd decisions in the last few months, is it not perhaps worth a couple of hours of someone’s time to do some digging? After all, this would be the exclusive to end all exclusives. This would wipe the SPL title race off the back pages in a heartbeat, and more, it would catapult a mere sports journo onto the front pages, making him, or her, a national figure.

This is career advancement baby; this is fame.

But it’s only fame if the paper prints it, if the rest of the media picks it up and runs with it and if the journalist his or herself has the guts to actually hand in the copy and demand its publication or shop the story elsewhere. I say again, journalists who have already sat on a mind-blowing story like the Rangers debt cannot be trusted with anything which would burst the safe little bubble in which they operate or rock their chances of networking their way into cushier jobs – and a cushier job than a sports journalist would be hard to find; an MP maybe – or cosier perks. Source: [URL:4b916363]http://www.MonTheHoops.co.uk[/URL:4b916363] The Only Member Moderated Celtic Forum
Ignore the “good of the game” talk with which Keevins tries to justify this lack of scrutiny. How could it be for the good of the game to let something like this go on for years without uncovering it? Try and operate the same attitude as regards your health, and see how long it lasts. Do you think cancer would recede if you ignored it? We know the answer; it would spread. Do you think an untreated illness would vanish? Of course not, it would worsen until you dropped dead.

This is the moment where, if I was obsessed with conspiracy, I would launch into a rant about how the decisions which go against Celtic as well as those which benefit Rangers mean this whole thing comes down to bias. I allege no such thing here, although there are reams of circumstantial evidence with which to support the assertion, going back years. This is the mistake many people make when they examine this issue however, that they ascribe such a motive to it. It allows the press to put their usual slant on it, and accuse us of paranoia, which we’re certainly not.

We’re realists. Referees are only human; they are football fans like we are, they support teams of their own, and this influences their decision making. We know big crowds and big games can influence refs; we’ve seen it happen, and if we accept such human responses do have a marked and significant effect on results then surely we need to acknowledge that inherent biases can also make a difference in close calls.

Outsiders do research these things. Harvard University’s Department of Psychology recent did one on the English Premier League. They studied 50 refs over 5244 games, and found that there are certain officials who tend to favour home teams, for a variety of deep rooted reasons and recommended the English FA conduct further studies.

In short, it’s an accepted fact that refs can be influenced by elements other than the rule-book. It’s accepted everywhere but in Scotland.

The history of the game tells of other reasons why referees sometimes give bent decisions, and it’s in this context I want to frame my argument, which essentially is that we need to investigate the possibility of corruption as a matter of the highest priority. Note the use of that word; I am not saying this is down to home team advantage – last night Rangers got that shocker of a decision in an away match – but that something is rotten to the core in the game here, or seems to be.

At least four footballing countries in the last ten years have admitted what the authorities in Scotland don’t wish to acknowledge might exist, far less investigate as to whether or not it does. Germany, Italy, Brazil and Poland have seen major investigations into corruption involving referees, and none of it was related to bias. They were, instead, related to something which is perhaps even more sinister; they were related to match-fixing. The issue is said to be widespread in the game; at the time of writing this article, UEFA itself is involved in a far-reaching probe, with massive implications, alleging match-fixing in its top competitions. This is how seriously the leading power in the global game takes the issue.

Right now, 40 games, spread between the UEFA Cup and the Champions League, are under investigation by the authorities. The allegations mostly involve teams from Eastern Europe, and they don’t appear to involve refs, but the Italian, German, Brazilian and Polish cases were all directly related to referees materially influencing games.

Just two years ago, referees in Scotland were up in arms about their pay, and threatening to go on strike. They were furious at the published account of English refs earning big salaries, and they wanted a piece of the action. It is all too easy – we are dealing with human beings here – to image some top player in a crime syndicate reading those reports and thinking “Wait just a second here ......” It has happened in other countries, and only a fool can write off the possibility of it happening here.

Of all the people on a football pitch, referees and linesman have easily the greatest chance of adversely affecting an outcome for one side or another. A sending off at the correct time in a match, a penalty kick late in the game, the early, or late, raising of a flag ...... these things transform matches, and they can transform league tables, as has manifestly been the case this season when one considers the appalling series of decisions we have had to endure, and which have impacted on results.

It doesn’t have to be a product of bias favouring one side or another to be destructive, and to warrant investigation at the highest levels of the game. The spectre of corruption is the same whether motivated by the supporting of a team or the increasing of a bank balance, and we don’t necessarily need to be talking about fortunes here; the crime syndicates are at the extreme end of the scale. Much more likely – and harder to tumble to – is a scenario where a group of guys place a couple of bets on a game or series of games having pre-determined key decisions beforehand.

Sceptics will say there is no way for a referee to have total influence on how a game goes – and they are right, as far as it goes – but you tell me a series of yellow cards early in a match can’t influence how the side which gets them approaches every tackle thereafter, or that a penalty kick just before half-time doesn’t change the flow of a game, and I will call you a liar to your face. Games can be pushed in a certain direction by the man in the middle, and give a gambler better odds on the right result than relying on footballing ability alone ever could or will.

This season has been characterised by some of the most astonishing “errors” by officials we’ve seen in many, many years. In a number of cases they have had a material and fundamental influence on the direction of games, and even the most ardent defender of our referees will admit to this, with the old caveat that these decisions even themselves out over the course. This is just nonsense. Bias doesn’t even out. Corruption does not balance itself. These things need to be rooted out and removed.

A mistimed tackle can result in a player being red-carded and fined by his team. Clubs have, on occasion, refused to pay players after especially bad results. In any profession, falling below a certain standard usually results in action being taken against you. One way to stamp out the recent rash of bad decisions is to punish the more severe of them by withholding money from the officials involved, or in the most serious cases dismissing them outright. This might seem extreme, but when one considers the vast sums of money at stake for league winners and such, surely this would improve the chances of us getting correct decisions; at the very worst, it would certainly eliminate many of the bent ones we see week in, week out.

What we need most of all, from the media and from the authorities, is for them to come out from under the bed, or better, to stop sleeping in the same bed, and do your goddamned jobs. One can only look at an ever growing list of bizarre decisions before starting to wonder if something funny is going on. Incompetence and cheating are different things, and when you are looking closely you can tell the difference.

When a flag goes up early just once it can be put down to a genuine error. When it goes up every time a team breaks up the park there might just be more to it than mere human error. See Robbie Keane for Celtic v Hearts for a sterling example of the latter.

When a flag doesn’t go up at all during a move and then pops up as if by magic, like a Jack-in-the-Box holding a Rangers pennant, when the ball is in the net, then that needs to be looked at because it is so blatantly wrong it begs the question as to whether it is deliberate.

Once you accept the premise that these decisions could be more than just honest mistakes, there’s a responsibility to check them out and find out what’s really going on. Whether biased or motivated by something else, a bent decision is a bent decision, and pretending it’s not going on won’t make things better, but will destroy the game.

The average fan knows this is happening. Managers and players also know something isn’t right, and on occasion one of them pops his head above the parapet and says so. When it looks like, and smells like it, you surely don’t need to taste it to know what it is.

Some of our officials are just not up to the job. They give incompetence a bad name. Others are one hundred percent bent. I have no trouble saying it, because it is patently true.

It’s time something was done about that.

irish eyes
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Re: Referees - If it looks like it, and smells like it

Postby irish eyes » Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:55 pm

jimbob what a very interesting post. I must admit in particular I have to quote
"From time to time I have accused the press of collusion with Rangers, and it bears on this debate too. For a long time I have argued that the financial problems of that club were being ignored by a media which otherwise was either too lazy to find them out, or too stupid or ignorant to see what was right in front of their faces. I puzzled over that one for a long time, before Graham Speirs provided the answer not so long ago, when he said that Rangers had asked the press not to write these stories and the press, incredibly, had agreed to follow that line."
and
"This season has been characterised by some of the most astonishing “errors” by officials we’ve seen in many, many years. In a number of cases they have had a material and fundamental influence on the direction of games, and even the most ardent defender of our referees will admit to this, with the old caveat that these decisions even themselves out over the course. This is just nonsense. Bias doesn’t even out. Corruption does not balance itself. These things need to be rooted out and removed."

Some of the decisions I see week in and week out I just cannot believe. The number of "offside" decisions and goals chalked off, it would take me all night to list them so I won't even try. However, some of the "bookings" handed out to Aiden McGeady, which we all know when the tally mounts up he will miss important games for us.

Indeed jimbob something should be done. Let me also state that I am not and have never been paranoid. Paranoia is when something is imagined - sorry folks anytime I comment on such matters I speak of facts - not something that I imagine, I am not stupid enough to comment on "imagined" events.

I would dearly love someone in the CELTIC family or perhaps some totally independent body, to "employ" [B:c545dd75]Pierluigi Collina[/B:c545dd75] the Italian ref to sit in front of replays of some of the incidents in question and stop the tape at the crucial moment and then as him "what happened next". I for one would find his views and comments very interesting indeed.

max
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Re: Referees - If it looks like it, and smells like it

Postby max » Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:08 pm

Paranoia???
Jim Farry proved that's not the case in a Scottish court of law!!!

darkduff
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Re: Referees - If it looks like it, and smells like it

Postby darkduff » Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:10 pm

let us be realistic here bhoys and ghirls there will be no inqury, if there was it would be a white wash, all is hunky dory in scottish football as long as the blue half of glasgow is happy.

Smith and his cronies have neither the will or the motivation to do it! the media is dancing to their tune so there is no need for them to change...

only a harsh boycott of ALL media will work, none of us buy a paper, none of us phone the radio. under the current financial condition how long will the record/sunday mail or sun/news of the world last... lets be honest with ourselfs would any of us miss either reading or listen to keevin et al baiting the faithul? eh, i kno i wont...

irish eyes
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Re: Referees - If it looks like it, and smells like it

Postby irish eyes » Tue Feb 23, 2010 2:58 pm

darkduff i agree with your comments
Quote - "only a harsh boycott of ALL media will work, none of us buy a paper, none of us phone the radio. under the current financial condition how long will the record/sunday mail or sun/news of the world last... lets be honest with ourselfs would any of us miss either reading or listen to keevin et al baiting the faithul? eh, i kno i wont..."

I must admit I have done just that - I don't buy any of them now. If I want any info on CELTIC I visit their webpages and check out other CELTIC sites. I would dearly love fellow CELTIC fans to do likewise and watch these papers etc go to the wall - they'd be lost without us imho. I haven't bought a record since the "thieves" headlines years and years back. It's time we wakened up and made a stand instead of allowing things to carry on regardless - hit them where it hurts in the pocket.


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