The Head Man at Manchester United, Gary Neville, had what I would call a “well-intentioned” idea about officiating in the Premier League that has a snowball’s-chance-in-hell of happening. Neville wants the Premier League to come up with a “pool” of good officials to officiate the most important and biggest Premier League matches.
As wonderful as that sounds…it isn’t going to happen!
Listen, when you start talking about officiating and you want to get the officiating to a higher level of professionalism you aren’t going to get anywhere when you’re asking the League to admit that it is wrong.
You see, asking the Premier League to have a “pool” of good officials: a) Sounds really conceited, like, “I play for ManU so our matches are more important than the piddly crap you people at Fulham or Everton do”, b) will inevitably tick off a whole bunch of officials who will be deemed “not good enough” for the “important” matches, and c) will require the Premier League to admit that it has sucky officials and therefore say “We were wrong and these guys suck so they won’t be doing the “important” matches anymore.
If you really want to affect change you need to come at this from a “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” scenario. If you’ve ever seen the movie you know that Nia Vardalos’ character wants to go to school and get out into the world and when she talks it over with her Mother she is reminded that in order to get her Father to agree it has to sound like his idea.
Well, how do you get the League to think it’s their idea? Simple, instead of banging your fist on the lecturn and shooting at the top of your lungs about the injustice of the poor officiating in the Premier League simply play better. Think about the consequences of better play across the league. No cute and fancy little ideas. No “pools” of referees. No jockeying for the first spot in the “We hate the officials” line. Nope, just encourage your fellow teams in the league to play better.
“Well, that’s really stupid! Somebody’s got to lose!” I know that! BUT, the League would be a whole lot healthier if everyone sort encouraged everyone else to put a better product on the field.
Where is this coming from? You know what I don’t see in Premier League matches between the two teams? Respect. If you watch an NFL game or an NBA game or a Boxing match those guys will pummel each other until they’re both battered and bloodied and then hug each other when it’s over or give each other a handshake and say “Man, you really got me” or “Good game bro.” SOMETHING!
However, since the level of conceit is so much higher in Soccer the officials do spend a great deal of time dealing with stupid behavior and NOT dealing with actual “soccer related” matters.
So, you want better officiating? Ok, grow up first…
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