Reading’s game on Easter Monday against Charlton (now managed by former Reading boss Alan
Pardew), seems to have aroused considerable controversy. I find the whole thing a little of a mystery.
I waited up to watch the Match of the Day highlights which were not until 11.20pm but, as Reading were not the first game on, the Teletex report said it was a poor game, and I had to get up early for golf the next day, I decided to go to bed,
I mention all this only to explain that I have no personal knowledge of the incident. In fact, I wasn’t aware of it until I was phoned for an opinion. What I am told, is that after a Charlton player had been cautioned by referee Graham Poll, Alan Pardew allegedly asked Poll that, if the situation arose where he was going to send the player off, to let him know and he would have the player substituted
It sounds to me very much the sort of thing that used to go on at pre-season warm-up games. If a player was likely to be sent off, the referee would signal to the bench and they would substitute the player. A player sent off in a pre-season friendly can be very costly. This season Wayne Rooney was sent off in one of Manchester United’s pre-season friendlies and was banned for the first three games of the Premiership season. This highlights how much this can mean to clubs, so they came to an arrangement with referees to prevent it happening. But, as I say, this
used to take place, but two or three seasons ago the FA sent out a directive to all referees, saying
the practice must stop.
There is nothing wrong in a referee warning a player that he is getting close to a card. Referees do it all the time. Speaking to players in this way is part of the referee’s man management and control. Officially, referees should also warn players when they caution them. I know this doesn’t happen in professional football. They just show the yellow card but in lowers levels of the game we are required to warn a player ‘as to his future conduct’. In other words, ‘if you commit another cautionable offence you will be sent off’.
There are referees who also like to advise the player’s captain, something like ‘if you don’t get a grip of your player, then I will and it will involve cards’. However this doesn’t prevent the referee taking further action if necessary. Some referees may even pass this same message on to club managers or coaches. Perhaps this is what the Premier League spokesman had in mind when he backed Poll saying it is ‘beneficial to the game’, and ‘Our view on it, is more broadly the issue of communication between players and management.’
ut warning what MIGHT happen is not the same as ‘giving the manager the nod’, to substitute a player, AFTER that player has already committed the offence for which he should be sent off. A referee cannot absolve himself from taking action by allowing the player to be substituted. This would be an abdication of his duties and totally wrong for two main
reasons:
Firstly, if a player is aware of the arrangement, he can continue to foul knowing he is not going to be sent off and the worst punishment he is going to suffer is to be substituted.
Secondly, of course, sending off a player is not just a punishment on the player but also on his team. His team
would then gain an unfair advantage by not being reduced to ten men as they should have been, if the law had been correctly administered.
I can’t believe that Graham Poll would agree to, or that the Premier league would condone such connivance.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2007