Yesterday I woke up to the news that Mike Riley, the head of PGMOL*, called Frank Lampard and Everton Chairman Bill Kenwright to apologize for VAR and the match officials getting a handball call wrong in Everton’s defeat to Manchester City. This apology followed an outburst by Lampard in which he accused the VAR official, Chris Kavanagh, of being a failure at his job:
“The decision is incredible and that loses us the opportunity to get what we deserved. That’s a VAR call. That’s Chris Kavanagh. It wouldn’t have needed more than five seconds to know it was a penalty. [Kavanagh] should have either told the referee to give it or told him to go look at it. We’ve lost a point because of a professional who cannot do his job right.”
This story is reported in the Guardian which means that it is double sourced and we can be assured that some version of these events literally took place. What, exactly, Mike Riley said to Lampard and Kenwright has not been reported, perhaps it was something like “woops”.
What’s incredible about this story is that PGMOL apologized to Frank Lampard. For my entire footballing life, I can only think of a few times when match officials have apologized – one of them when Andre Marriner apologized to Kieran Gibbs for giving him a red card for an Oxlade-Chamberlain handball. But beyond not apologizing, the vast majority of the time the response to a manager saying an official “cannot do his job right” is to levy a massive fine for “bringing the game into disrepute.” And actually, it’s extremely rare that a manager would even go that far in his assessment of a situation – they are usually fined and censured for saying a lot less. Managers are fined so often for somewhat anodyne criticism of officials that Jose Mourinho mostly gave up and resorted to a now famous line “if I speak”. Meaning that if he says what he’s thinking, he’ll get fined or worse.
It’s right for the governing bodies to fine managers who bring the game into disrepute but criticizing the officials, in my mind, doesn’t do that. There’s nothing wrong with criticism in and of itself. We all make mistakes and learning from our mistakes is a basic function of being an adult. But the way that that criticism is done in the Premier League** is childish and usually not very helpful.
Criticism of the officials usually takes place in the aftermath of a match. A manager is paraded in front of 6 different interviewers who all ask him leading questions about the officials with the implicit goal of getting a juicy and harsh rebuke of the events that took place on the pitch. The press paint this as something noble – that they are just giving the manager an opportunity to speak – but depending on the match and the emotions it’s usually anything but.
An adult form of criticism would either be written down and reviewed or better yet would take place in a meeting between the officials and both teams. It’s a lot of work but something like this, an open and frank exchange of opinions – and as I point out over and over the Laws of the game are largely just opinions – would be a lot less damaging to the teams and to the officials than what we have now which is that the manager rants and football’s administration responds with fines and obfuscation.
The big problem that I see is that no one in the referring kingdom wants to have these kinds of open conversations. Nedum Onuoha was on the BBC football daily podcast the other day and let it out that he hates the officials and that he doesn’t even think of them as humans. This stems from the fact that officials almost never take a moment to have a conversation with the players and even more rarely bothered to admit that they got a call wrong. And this ethos is repeated all the way up the chain of command, to the point where PGMOL publishes fantastical numbers about their refereeing accuracy. Stuff that just isn’t, and can’t be, true. They cannot possibly be getting 97% of the calls in a game right, even if they are inflating their numbers with obvious calls that they make all the time (like when a ball is played out from a goal kick).
Some independent scholarly investigations put the number of accurate calls much lower, in the range of 60-80%. This matches my experience and expectations. And crucially, these studies suggest that big calls are much much less accurate: with some suggesting that referees only get the big calls right about 36% of the time – with wrong calls skewing heavily toward the first 15 minutes of matches. Again, that matches my experience and I’m guessing yours too.
We can speculate on why this happens and I think most of us would even accept that that low number is pretty realistic – officials are reticent to make a big call that will change a game, or as we saw a few weeks ago some officials can get swept up in the emotions of a moment and give out two quick yellow cards. And we could also argue that the 36% number is maybe too low or inaccurate since it includes value judgements (most of the Laws of the game are value judgements).
But the overall problem isn’t that officials get calls wrong. I can’t stress this enough – getting things wrong isn’t necessarily bad. What is bad is when you try to pretend that nothing went wrong. That for me is the real problem with officiating: there is almost never an admission that they are wrong and thus no action taken to correct the mistakes. In fact PGMOL often end up trotting out almost comical explanations of why a call was “correct actually” to the point where it’s like watching Bagdad Bob say “there are no American tanks in Bagdad” while there is very clearly an American tank firing over his left shoulder.
So, while my first reaction to PGMOL apologizing to Frank Lampard was a bit of anger and frustration (why are they doing this with Lampard and not Arteta or any of the coaches who have legitimate grievances?) I think that PGMOL apologizing for mistakes is overall a very good development and that they should do this more. A LOT MORE. And as they offer these apologies, us fans, players, and managers, all need to accept that there are going to be mistakes.
I also applaud the PGMOL for accepting a meeting from Arsenal over some of the decisions that have gone against us this season. As long as they are open to communication, willing to listen, and willing to admit that there were mistakes made, this could be a productive meeting.
The next step, however, is the big one. It’s not enough to admit that you’ve made mistakes, you have to work to correct those mistakes. And this is the big question that no one is asking: ok, you were wrong about the handball in the Everton match, so what are you doing about this? I don’t necessarily want to see officials lose their jobs but something needs to be done when a call this obvious and egregious goes wrong. And what is it that you are going to do to prevent that from happening in the future? Just firing Kavanagh isn’t the solution.
The Onuoha solution – that officials need to be more approachable on the field – and my solution – that there needs to be more adult criticism of officials (not just an angry quote in a post-match interview) both need to be married to actionable plans for correcting mistakes.
But as long as PGMOL continues to hide behind the parapets of their fantasy castle with it’s 98.6% VAR accuracy, and does nothing other than making phone calls where they say “whoopsie!” we will all continue to be frustrated with officiating.
*The professional referee’s association in England
**And every other football league
I like the take away from this: apologising to Lampard, or at least the admission of making a mistake, should be the norm. I also think every team should get say 3 opportunities per game to insist on a VAR check for things the officials might have missed. At the end of the day, they’re humans and not Sauron
Funny, I was going to say the same thing. Each team captain has 3 opportunities per game to request a VAR check.
I don’t know whether it will improve the standards of refereeing but at least it should help alleviate some of that acrimony stemming from frustration of powerlessness that players & managers (and fans) feel.
Cricket has/had (it’s been years since I watched cricket) a referral system of 3 per team. But it’s a “rolling credit”. If you refer a call and it turns out you were wrong, then you only have 2 referrals left. Conversely, if the official got it wrong and the 3rd official overturned his call in your favour, you still have 3 referrals left.
The laws might’ve changed but it is/was a pretty good way of managing video technology as a tool for officiating in a sport.
we have this system in the usa with the NFL and this suggestion comes up often and i’m ok with it.
Cricket still has it. With time they have even improved to be more decisive. The problem with football is that the game is much faster than cricket and does not stop after every event.
My personal views on VAR:
1. Offside lines should go away. If VAR can tell without the lines well and good. Otherwise go with the linesman. I don’t believe that we know exactly when the ball left the foot of the passer anyway.
2. Do away with VAR being always on. It should only be on demand. There are a lot of non calls by VAR that I feel are actually penalties. VAR simply lacks the guts to give them. For eg, 3 times a match, a team can ask for the onfield referee to check anything. There can be a clear hand signal to the ref that designates a check. Right calls carry forward. A bad call can be treated as a foul. Yellow card if it stops a counter. Red card if it stops a clear goal scoring chance. This is tough to implement though. Also, say a player is on yellow and he makes a tackle that is worthy of another yellow, it should be checked. It is a game changing moment.
3. The clear and obvious thing is ridiculous. I mean there are so many things in life which become obvious only when someone sees them correctly. Earth being round is so obvious.
Think we can safely say that Lamps (nephew of ‘arry, cousin to Jamie) getting an apology to help save face (and possibly his job) is not a policy shift by the PGMOL.
In fact, staying onside of the old boys’ club indicates how much of a consummate politician Riley is, and hints at why attempts to hold biased referees accountable have and likely will stall.
If they acknowledge them publicly, the problem for the PGMOL will not be the ‘revelation’ that they make mistakes – that’s likely to be accepted as part and parcel of the game. The disaster will be the identification over time that their mistakes tend to skew in certain directions – that they do not even out over the season (or even multiple seasons). Show me one other club that has had three players’ legs broken within 5 years – seems unlikely even if we go back a century into the bad old days.
Best I thought of was mic-ing the ref up, but this Tennis-like approach is a good idea, giving team captains the ability to ‘object’ to a decision and put it to VAR will make officiating much better. My only change might be that each team gets 1 or 2 calls, but a correct decision gives another call so that teams won’t tactically waste their calls (I don’t know what for, timewasting maybe?).
It was reported in the broader British press that Kenwright wrote to Riley with a number of officiating grievances. The most recent being the laughable handball that wasn’t given against City. That incident was reviewed by the VAR for 2 minutes and he still came to the wrong conclusion. The ‘challenge’ concept used in tennis and cricket wouldn’t have resolved that error.
In that example I genuinely don’t think there’s a satisfactory answer. The rules are clear, the official is trained and experienced and he had the benefit of technology. I suppose you could have a committee looking at the incident rather than a single VAR but does football need to be that forensic? (‘Is your verdict unanimous or by majority m’lud?’).
Where VAR could be improved is that the on-field referee could spend more time reviewing the pitch side monitor. But that would compromise the flow of the game and we’d get closer to American Football and commercial breaks every 15 minutes. Personally I’d resist that.
Clear and obvious errors made on the pitch, you still have to give the ref some leeway – hence the introduction of VAR to assist them.
Clear and obvious errors made by VAR are inexcusable. We’re not talking about subjective, we’re talking about clear and obvious. There are only two logical reasons for this – incompetence or corruption. Either should have consequences.
When you say consequences do you mean justice or punishment?
The only consequence of any worth is to re-referee the match and award a different outcome. But that’s never happening.
Yes in a theoretical idealistic world I suppose a match replayed.
In reality though I meant the VAR official should be punished. Greater minds than mine to work out how and what, but there’s enough money in the game to have a large pool of trained officials
I was also about to suggest an impartial VAR committee or jury.
I’m completely confused about this handball incident and the way it was reported during and immediately after the game. The NBC match commentators were in disbelief how long VAR was taking to review a fairly obvious hand ball, but then reported an offside decision moments prior was the reason.
Guardiola, when asked immediately after the game if he felt City might’ve caught a break with the hand ball not being called, also referenced Everton player being offside and even cracked a joke that the reporter must’ve had cheap seats and that’s why he missed it.
Here’s the fun part though; they apologized to Everton for costing them a point but apparently City gaining two in a tight title fight with Liverpool makes no mention lol.
It’s all a cluster fu#k and has been for years.
I’m completely not bothered.
And it obviously it all evens itself out in the end……….and by the end I mean when Jesus comes back.
There is a lot that needs fixing. Players that surround and confront referees during games should get automatic yellow cards, only the captain should be allowed to voice problems with a call. There should be retroactive red cards for players who simulate fouls. Referees should never be overruled by VAR, only receive suggestions that they take a second look – all final decisions should remain with the on-field referee. The off-side rule needs adjustment so there is a daylight requirement and it not be a matter of one’s penis being beyond the defending line. Ex-players need to be aggressively recruited to referee instead of sitting in studios jawing over b/s or getting fat at home with their fourth wife. Why are there no black referees? Some of these referees are fat and old. There used to be an age maximum and fitness tests. Jonathan Moss looks like he’d struggle with a flight of stairs. He’s 51 ffs. Put microphones on these refs so they have to explain VAR calls like in the NFL. So much to fix.
What’s weird about the first thing is that if you look in the FA disciplinary board documents teams are getting fined nearly constantly for surrounding the ref. Man U was charged last month, accepted the charge, and paid 20k fine.
Tom, all, if a ref has to take 5 minutes to review a play, then ita not clear cut and benefit of the doubt must be given… in the case of an offside to the goalscorer, in the case of a handball to the defender.
I was watching a Lakers game about a week ago and the refs took 7 minutes to review a play, and then overturned the original decision. It was marginal, yes, but if you cant make a call on a marginal in 60 seconds, you let things stand.
Abhishek, excellent comment at 6.41am.
Well, that’s fine in basketball where you score 60 buckets a game and play 82 times a year with nothing to go for but a place in the playoffs and no relegation. But in football, a red card, penalty, offside, or whatever is usually the difference between 0 and 3 points which can mean tens of millions in lost revenue or worse.
Claude, actually, I don’t have a problem with the length of VAR reviews, but with the confusion surrounding them and the outcome, which often tomes is laughable.
This isn’t the only example either. Villa had a goal disallowed at United in FA cup play after what seemed like a five minute review, and no one seemed to know in real time why.
Having grown up on science fiction literature, I’m all for completely automated refereeing systems – no human intervention. When it all inevitably goes to s$5t, we could have a secondary systems of drones to adjudge the mistakes and render dispensation, and when that fails (which it surely will), we could institute a “no rules” replay, which would be – be barring players murdering one another – the absolute last word. Maybe.
I don’t know what the answer is, but officiating in the Premier League needs complete and total reform, as does the ownership model.
Frustration about most things that happen outside the actual play, make it difficult to support anything beyond the team and the club as a cultural institution.
Tim
I am a couple posts late and didn’t respond about your comment about Bielsa being sacked. I was not criticizing Bielsa. Last season there were a lot of commenters suggesting that Bielsa’s tactics were better then Arteta and he was one of those managers who had the ability to get more out of his team then you would expect based on his roster and we needed a manager more like that.
I think Leeds did exceed expectations last season and we have seen cases where that has happened before such as Ranieri in Leicester or Ole Gunner in his first few months at Man U or Sheffield United a couple years ago when they spent much of the season competing for the top 4, However almost inevitably those over performances can not be replicated. It’s my belief there are almost no managers who can consistently year after year improve players and very few who can consistently year after year get results which outperform expectations. If there are managers who are that good they are not likely to be available.
I have never said that Arteta has been or is a great manager but the idea he was bad enough that we should have considered sacking him was unreasonable. IMO. The idea there should have been other managers we could have hired who would have done a lot better and improved the players and found tactical solutions which could have solved the problems we had and brought much better results seems unrealistic to me. I hope that makes sense.
i used to believe you made up fake arguments. but i’ve changed my mind. i don’t think you understand what people are saying, hence misrepresenting their talking points.
for instance, i don’t recall “a lot of commenters suggesting that Bielsa’s tactics were better then Arteta”. also, bielsa “does” have the ability to get more out of his players than arteta ever had to. the talent arteta had to work with dwarfs what bielsa had at leeds united.
likewise, everyone knows you need turnover of players for the team to grow. no one is expecting a manager to grow the same players year after year or have the team “outperform expectations”. the criticism against arteta is that he was failing to meet expectations. that was mainly due to his inability to get much from the arsenal superstars. arsenal had a roster that was better than the two 8th place finishes he got; arteta under-achieved, not outperformed expectation.
i’m one of the harshest critics of arteta but i’ve never suggested he was inadequate tactically. in fact, i’ve always praised his tactical ability. my criticisms have always been against him strategically, namely his inability to get the most out of the available superstars. aubameyang has 5 goals in his last 3 games for barcelona. he only scored 4 goals in the entire first half of the season for arsenal. why is that? you always blamed aubameyang’s age, which was wrong. it’s how he was utilized by arteta, compared to xavi (who’s about arteta’s age). likewise, despite my criticisms, i’ve never suggested arteta be sacked.
All of the Jurgen Klopps of the world are taken. How is a clubs front office supposed to identify and then acquire the 1/100 or 1/1000 manager who is the next Klopp?
i think mike riley’s apology could be a good thing. it could indicate an endeavor to improve the level of officiating in the premier league.
the premier league has match officials that take actions with impunity. questioning them in the media could be reprimanded under the idea that they are somehow bringing the game into disrepute. it’s not the game that’s being brought into disrepute, it’s the officiating that is already in disrepute. if you don’t believe me, just go to any ground and ask average fans what they think of the officiating.
the only way to improve the quality of officiating in the league is to, first, recognize that it’s sub-standard. next, someone in leadership has to take personal ownership of improving the quality of the officiating; if no one owns that responsibility, it will never improve. next, they have to make changes to improve it; this is why the change has to come from someone in a leadership position. how they improve it should be based on the experience of as many officials as possible. however, it’s unlikely to happen as everyone in leadership pretends that the officiating is world class.
Josh, if there’s two things us Brits are champions at it’s moaning and blaming someone else. I’d wager there isn’t a sport or country where refereeing is discussed / blamed as much. It’s an unhealthy obsession.
I watch a little European football but not enough to know if it’s better refereed. What’s your thoughts on whether Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A could teach us a thing or two?
it’s a bit of a straw man argument as everyone in england will moan about the officials getting a big call wrong. it’s just an argument i would make if i were a coach; a challenge to the powers that be to improve the quality of the officiating in the league. why should “the best league with the best stadia and best fans” suffer bad officiating? there’s the nonsense of the offsides lines, which are ridiculous. i don’t know that any other league uses these offsides lines but the premier league. it’s just for show…..drama. just get the calls right and keep the drama.
i don’t think there’s as much controversy involved in american sports with refereeing as there is with the premier league. there are a few calls that get blown but the players and coaches are allowed to call them out without fear of a fine, as long as it’s not disrespectful. likewise, in the states, the media will lambast bad officials in a heartbeat, especially when the get the big calls wrong. in england, the seem to try and protect the officials too much.
Sumptuous goal by MO, and I am reminded of JoshuaD’s insistence that “when Auba plays at CF, he scores more goals, and when Laca plays at CF, the team scores more goals”. Sweet music to hear Paul Scholes observing that the Arsenal are “better coached” than ManU. A very pleasant Sunday evening in Rocha6464’s household (Missus might disagree), only slightly spoilt by concerns over defensive lapses that made the last ten minutes rather difficult…..
unfortunately, i’ve seen this auba movie before. one season, he barely beat out lewandowski for the golden boot in germany and dortmund finished like 7th in the bundesliga. who cares if you win the golden boot and your team finished 7th? bayern won the league and the champions league that year and their team lead the league in goals scored by a significant margin. i think auba scored like 63% of dortmund’s goals that season…but dortmund were out of europe. it’s crazy to be that dependent on one player, especially when his form goes bad. how do you get goals?
auba’s more of a scorer and that’s the spectrum of his game. laca’s a better all-around player with a better first touch, better vision, draws more fouls, and creates more for his team mates. i think people see the stature and speed of auba and they want to see if he can be like henry. he’s got phenomenal speed and a great finish but he’s simply not henry…and that’s okay; who else is henry (center forward who once set the premier league record for assists)?
Josh
Any team like Dortmund is going to struggle when they lose one of the worlds best scorers like Lewandowski and don’t replace him. You’re right most teams will struggle when they have one player scoring 63% of his teams goals. We had the same problem during the Emery/Arteta season when Auba was the only player who was scoring with any regularity and Laca was playing with the team and he started 22 games and made 30 total appearances that season so the idea that the problem with the manager not giving him enough chances is false.
The numbers from who scored show that in the previous 4 season Laca has started 26, 27, 22, 22 and made 128 total league appearances and played >8500 league minutes but he has been mostly underwhelming. He has been our main CF for most of the last 4 years and the idea our managers have not given him enough chances or playing time to prove himself does not seem accurate given those numbers. If he is as good as you seem to think why hasn’t he been the difference making player we have needed the last 4 years?
I accept that Laca is a better facilitator then Auba but this year our results are obviously better then last year. However, you always said his scoring output would increase if the manager used him regularly but this season his meager goal scoring output from prior years has completely dried up and we are still a low scoring team compared with other CL clubs we hope to compete with some day. Saka, ESR and Martinelli have outperformed expectations but they are still not high scoring players and there are very few teams in the world who can expect to compete with other CL teams with a CF who is currently on pace to score about 5 total league goals. Laca is the best player we have for that position right now but this is his age 30 season and he isn’t going to get better with age. We clearly need an upgrade at that position.
In the past less then total control of the CF position, poor quality of football and a lack of chances were reasons used to explain why Laca’s goal scoring numbers have been underwhelming. None of those rationalizations apply this season
I’m not saying you’re wrong Bill, but it’s a question of emphasis. Yes, in the long term we need an “upgrade”, and a bigger goal threat from that position, but we can still appreciate him. The team is playing better with him in it. He’s the fulcrum of the attack. 7 assists in 9 games – right now, today, he’s probably our most important player, and I’d like to celebrate that.
I also don’t think that his lack of goals is only a Laca problem, it’s partly just the way we attack, linking up down the channels inside the fullbacks while he drags defenders, plays with his back to goal and leads the press. He doesn’t look like he’s lacking confidence. He’s not off the pace. I don’t remember him missing too many chances that he should have scored – just that one-on-one he skewed marginally wide against Wolves (I think).
Over at City, who we are more and more starting to resemble, the top scorers are also wide players and midfielders: Mahrez, Sterling, De Bruyne, Foden and Silva. Jesus has 2 from the same number of starts as Laca.
“The team is playing better with him in it.” – ‘Better’ when compared with what ? Aubameyang who was woefully out of form for the past two seasons ? That’s not saying much.
“he’s probably our most important player, and I’d like to celebrate that.” – Important as in he’s the only senior striker ? Then there’s nothing to celebrate. Or important as in the team can’t play without him ? That’s very debatable, and I’d say more false than true.
“I also don’t think that his lack of goals is only a Laca problem, it’s partly just the way we attack” – Nonsense. We keep crossing the ball to nobody. A player with even decent areal threat would have been hugely helpful. We try to counterattack but always find ourselves a man short because Lacazette can’t keep up. These loss of scoring opportunities are a direct result of Lacazette’s deficiencies.
“I don’t remember him missing too many chances that he should have scored” – He’s been woeful in front of goal. 3 goals a season for Arsenal is simply not acceptable.
“Over at City, who we are more and more starting to resemble” – Man City have been trying to sign a striker for two seasons now, it’s not like their ‘system’ doesn’t need a good striker. We wouldn’t have desperately tried to sign Vlahovic if Arteta was happy with Lacazette.
So the narrative that our entire system is built around Lacazette is entirely made up.
Okay then!
All the raving about our performance on Sunday belies the fact that against the second form bottom team who have lost their last 7 home games, we managed 4 shots on target, one less than Watford achieved.
3 were very good goals, but somewhat individualistic, rather than team goals ,The 4th was a woeful lob by White into their goalies hands.
Otherwise their goalie was rather underemployed.
I suppose that whilst the luck continues we will continue to beat the weaker teams and we may even benefit from weaker refereeing post Riley’s apology.
However that does not make us a particularly good team or one that could hold its own against the elite of the EPL, let alone Europe.