Respect as we know or have often seen is a mutual relationship. One gains respect from others when one shows the same gratitude to others. But this seems to have been blissfully ignored by the Referee’s chief Keith Hackett. Respect as it appears seems to be a one way thing in modern football.
FA tried to come down hard on the highly reputed players such as Terry, Rooney, and Ashley Cole to name a few who keep mouthing off the referees. Chelsea’s attack on the referee when a decision went against them last season spurred the FA into action who then announced that they wouldn’t in future tolerate any kind of a verbal attack on the referees. That following week Mascherano saw red and everyone expected that incident to set a kind of a precedent.
The FA announced recently that referees would in future have to talk to the club captain first before cautioning a player. It is kind of funny to find out that we have seen more yellow cards at this point of the season than last one. Probably referees are finding it very tiring to talk to the club captain every time a player commits a serious foul and they would rather just dish out a yellow card and get done with it.
Mike ‘Crystal Skull’ Riley who officiated the match on the weekend at Stamford Bridge certainly wanted to just offload the yellow card he had in his pocket. He probably must have promised his daughter to show how a red coloured card looks on their TV.Or did he go to a pub the previous night with Graham Poll? Because surely that day he thought three yellow cards make a red. The 8 yellow cards shown in the game was just ridiculous and it was by no means a dirty game. It did not have Liverpool or Boltonplaying. Expecting Riley not to show a yellow card that day was like expecting a stripper not to strip. Does he deserve to be respected by the United players after the atrocious show? Isn’t respect mutual?
Sir Alex Fergusson had the right idea, but chose the wrong time and the wrong tone, when he said referees have to be assessed too. After all the players are assessed and a totally not deserving yellow card for a player might actually lead to his suspension for an important match.
It is very surprising to know that Keith Hackett was an excellent referee in his heydays. He was the youngest to referee in a cup match. It seems like he has different standards for referees now and he certainly has made the Referees association a big joke.
You can read the analysis of the 7 yellow cards dished out to the United players in this forum
http://therepublikofmancunia.com/7-yellow-cards-you-having-a-laugh-riley/
Cheers
Vivek
2 comments:
I think the analysis of all the cards on that forum is a little biased. But yes, ref had a poor game. And then he capped it off with bizarrely blowing for full time after he'd given the foul against Rio Ferdinand and after that listening to Rio scream at him with the top of his voice without any action against dissent.
Since the inception of "respect" campaign, refs seem to have gotten more freedom make more blunders...but hey, you goota respect the ref, even after a decision like the one today at OT. What a shame!
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