The big refereeing talking point over the past two weeks has been Sir Alex Ferguson’s criticisms of referee Alan Wiley.
There are two aspects to his behaviour. Firstly the allegations he levied against Wiley and secondly his position as a manager making public remarks about referees. I don’t suppose there is anyone in the country, who doesn’t respect Sir Alex for being one of the greatest football managers that the English game had known, but that doesn’t give him the right to denigrate anyone when he feels like it. It may be felt that he is just another grumpy old man but there is more to it than that. Criticising Wiley was used to distract from the shortcomings of his side, who were lucky to draw with Sunderland.
Just a reminder of what he said about Wiley at the end of the game. “He didn’t add any time on for the goal we scored. There should have been another 30 seconds but he was actually walking up the pitch needing a rest. He just wasn’t fit enough for a game of that stature. The fitness of both sets of player, the pace of the game, demanded a referee who was fit. He’s not fit. It’s an indictment of our game – you see referees from abroad who are as fit as butcher’s dogs. We’ve got some good referees in this country who are fit but he wasn’t. He was taking 30 seconds to book a player and I think he was taking a rest. It was ridiculous.”
The PGMOL then produced figures taken from Prozone which completely destroyed his allegations but
Ferguson's reply was to complain that these figures should not have been made public. Never let the facts get in the way of a good moan. He seems to forget that the PGMOL use Prozone to monitor their referees so of course have access to the figures.
Fifteen of the twenty Premier League grounds have Prozone set-ups and an increasing number of Championship clubs. It is essentially a training aid for teams and it tracks the movement of all players as well as the referee and his assistants. So what did it reveal about Alan Wiley at the Manchester United/Sunderland game? It showed that he covered 6.86 miles, more than most of the players on either side. Nearly half a mile was at a sprinting speed of more than seven yards a second with a top speed of nearly ten yards a second.
But the purpose of ensuring that referees are fit, is to ensure that they keep up with play to make better decisions. Wiley’s average distance from the ball was just less than twenty yards, which was over five yards nearer than continental referee Victor Kassai who refereed United’s recent game against Wolfburg. Research shows that the perfect distance to judge incidents is fifteen metres or twenty yards and Wiley on average was just 15.5 metres away from any foul. Incidentally, Ferguson’s love of European referees doesn’t stand the test of time, for he has often criticised them in the past and he is probably not aware of the comparative level of fitness that this country’s top referees have to attain.
Once referees progress from local football they have to take a fitness test, no pass, no promotion. At each level the test gets harder and once they reach the Premier League they have to achieve the standard set for international referees. But that’s not all. All referees wear heart monitors at their games and for their training. These are monitored every week by Simon Breivik, the PGMOL Sports Scientist who is responsible for training of Premiership and Football League referees and assistants and this ensures they are maintaining their fitness. There is no way that they are not going to be fit, or less so than their continental counterparts.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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