'Referees lack consistency'

Yes they do. Or at least they will always appear to.

As with most aspects of refereeing there is a good deal more to it than that and, dare I say it, players, fans and, yes, even commentators don’t seem to have thought it all through. In particular, they don’t seem to realise that the understandable clamour for referees ‘to use common sense’ and ‘to follow the spirit of the Laws’ actually increases the differences amongst referees and therefore some of the apparent inconsistency.

Examine what consistency means

The cry for consistency sounds reasonable enough - the same offence should get the same punishment, whenever and no matter who is the player or the referee. So far so good and there is no disagreement about that. The trouble starts when you actually think what it means. Not only is total consistency (uniformity) impossible, it is often undesirable. Circumstances do and should alter cases.

Judgment and common sense

Some of the Laws are absolute, like the size of the goals and the ball, but those involving play have always included elements of judgement. There is also the International FA Board advice to referees not to punish ‘trifling breeches of the Laws’ which used to be published with the Laws. So a referee may well overlook the metre stolen at a throw-in the first time but penalise it the second time. Inconsistent? Not really. All games are different too, and the good referee senses and responds to that difference. We all know that some games ore good-natured, some ill-tempered. Sometimes the game starts with a history of scores to settle.

Players and spectators recognise all of this by calling on the officials (particularly when they dislike a decision) to use ‘common sense’ i.e. not to apply the full force of the Law.

Do we really want robots?

In addition to the Laws, referees now receive mandatory instructions handed down by FIFA - with the specific aim of improving consistency by standardising punishment. Yet somehow referees who are, for example, consistent in dismissing players who deny an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, are not top of the players’ or spectators’ list of favourites.

Of course, in spite of all the good reasons for differences, no-one should try to defend the same referee treating the same offence (if it really is) differently at different times in the match, or treating the home side differently from the away side, or the foul in the penalty area differently from the same foul elsewhere. When it happens, it is because referees are, like the players and the spectators, human and fallible and, in spite of their best efforts, they will not achieve perfection. Thank Heaven. Who wants a game of perfect robots controlled by a perfect robot? Might as well stay at home and do it all on the computer.

Brian Palmer

© B. Palmer 1999

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