Louis Spence's Premier League Preview || The Fiddler And The Football Fans

FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION - GUTLESS AND CLUELESS 1-4-08
Louis Spence

I packed in playing local league football fourteen years ago.

It was unusual, but not unheard of, to have no referee to officiate games in those days. It was only low level league stuff, nevertheless we were properly supervised about ninety-five percent of the time.

There was nothing worse than turning up to play to find that there was no registered official to supervise the game.

Nowadays I learn that at roughly the same standard I was playing at, there is a chronic shortage of referees and that around forty-five percent of matches are thus affected.

Games now take place with a supporter (who is usually allied to one of the sides) being sworn in as whistler for the day. I actually forecast this would happen as the standards of player discipline declined and referees became the game's whipping boys. Listen up, numbskulls: No ref = no game. So stop abusing them!

How have we come to this ludicrous situation with our beloved national sport?

Let me ask you, reader, would you want to be a referee at any level in today's game?

There is a massive shortage of people prepared to take up the whistle and so football at its grass roots suffers. At the lower levels officials are harangued, spat at and all too frequently assaulted. This is by players and spectators alike.

What are the Football Association doing to remedy the situation?

Week in, week out, we see players effing and blinding at officials, querying every decision and hounding those in charge of the game.

One of the worst miscreants in this is the idiotic Wayne Rooney who it seems cannot start a tirade without resorting to the F word. Meanwhile the club stewards are being told to crack down on swearing from supporters. Er, run that past me again.

Laughably his boss Sir Alex Ferguson, who is one of the worst serial offenders for harassing refs, is now calling for more understanding of the referees' authority. Well he would say that now that they are firm favourites to take the league again. What a hypocrite he is!

Last week Roy Keane, yes THAT Roy Keane, called for more obedience from footballers. Evidently he has excused himself from the Andy d'Urso incident where he claimed that if the ref had stopped running away, he would have stopped running after him. You couldn't make it up. How dumb are these guys?

The recent instance when the cretinous Ashley Cole turned his back on the ref should have been dealt with by an immediate red card.

Recent attempts by some leagues to ban swearing at officials have been rescinded by our gutless and clueless FA who are apparently looking at their own ideas to augment the power of the officials. Good God, how difficult can it be?!

The kids of today follow their heroes in all aspects. Thus if it's okay for the game's leading lights to act like petulant bullies as regards discipline, then the kids do the same.

And there are fewer and fewer people thick-skinned or brave enough to come into refereeing. So I ask again, would you?

The situation where defenders grab hold of attackers at set pieces, especially corners, has now reached epic proportions.

This automatic 'hands up' pose of defenders who have committed a blatant foul is also spoiling the beautiful game, as is the inevitable penalty box diving.

Duplicity rules. If the letter of the law was administered every time an attacker was manhandled in the box, there would be twenty penalties per match.

All it takes is for a new set of disciplines to be introduced. Clubs should be given plenty of notice that such incidents will be severely dealt with from here on in.

Kick out this holding practice, backchat and swearing at officials. Believe me, if the powers that be would back their dwindling band of officials for once and stick to a no-nonsense policy, the game would improve dramatically and so would the stock of referees.

With this shower of time servers in the FA's hallowed halls, the likelihood of that happening is less than me snogging Keira Knightley. They do not have the will to put this wonderful game to rights. They are cowardly and quite frankly, useless.

They are killing the game because they are frightened of the power of the clubs and the bullies that run and manage them.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum, the tail is wagging the dog and our feeble FA meekly looks on, resplendent in their jobsworths' blazers. What a pathetic state of affairs it really is.

The malaise gets worse and more and more fair minded people are being put off the sport owing to the utter inadequacy of those elected to administer the game.

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