est The FA has to have someone independent review the ref's performances and shit decisions like these need to be punished by demoting to the lower leagues/match bans for the officials and new (foreign if needed?) refs need to be brought in to referee the games.
I don't disagree with this but I think for real improvement in refereeing in the PL, much deeper reform would be needed. PGMOL is an amazingly amateur organisation, more remiscient of an old boys club (or a corrupt police force as arseblog put it) than a modern, professional body. There are totally unaccountable, they know it, and I'm certain they see themselves as the victims of a wide range of grievances and are cultivating a siege mentality (I have a certain amount of sympathy as they shouldn't be subject to violence or threats, no matter how badly they do their jobs). But they are a serious, serious problem for the PL that needs to be addressed.
For me, a lot of things need to change. Here's a few.
1.
Referee remuneration, career prospects, ethics
Referees should be paid FAR more. I think the top refs earn about 100k a year, which is a pathetic amount given how much money is swishing around in the PL and how much stress refs are put under. It also creates problems. It incentivises refs to think about careers in the media after they 'hang up their whistle', and thus I think referees should be banned from paid work in the media either during or after their careers. Media organisations that involve them should be blackballed and hiring them should be explicitly barred in all matchday rights contracts. A key principle of good refereeing is that referees should not put themselves in the centre of attention, and this recent phenomenon of refs appearing on panel shows to discuss their decisions etc works completely against that. It encourages active referees to build their brand and profile for a lucrative media career later by being provocative as a ref. A ref who quietly does his job well and nobody hears about it is going to have less media opportunities later than a ref who always seeks the spotlight. It's perverse. Pay them more, and make them shut up.
Further, poor remuneration also encourages refs to take up paid gigs in the UAE and other places (clear evidence of the broken 'celebrity ref' culture the current setup has created), which is a clear conflict of interest and could be considered bribery in a lot of other industries. It's so amazingly obvious that this should be banned yet the PL still turns a blind eye to it.
Poor pay also makes it harder to attract talent. Looking at some of the decisions being made right now, I think anyone can see that this is having real consequences.
2.
Referee visibility
As mentioned above, refs are encouraged to seek out the spotlight by the current economics and rules of PL refereeing, as well as by human nature generally. In addition to them being paid more but banned from any involvement in media, I think their identities should not be circulated, at all. They should be removed completely from the match discussion - no more 'today's referee is X', no including their name in match reports, no reporting on it in any sense. This may seem counterintuitive as it could reduce accountability (if that's even possible), but I think it'd eventually take the heat out of refereeing, make it easier to attract talent, and it would get rid of the limelight seekers. This may sound a little wacky, but the only way for this to actually work would to also physically hide ref's identities - have them wear a mask during games. Yes, I'm serious.
Anonymising refereeing would in theory mean fans would have nobody specific to rage against when their team is wronged, but I think it'd lead to more professional, better refereeing generally, would improve working conditions for refs, and would reduce the impact of particularly intimidating grounds (studies have shown that certain grounds with noisier atmospheres, like Anfield, do result in more favourable decisions for the home team). It'd also reduce the celebrity-adjacent attraction effect that some referees clearly enjoy (as we saw with David Coote), whereby their near celebrity status acts as something of a perk in the absence of good pay or healthy working conditions. Anonymity is also an important prerequisite, in my opinion, for the next reform:
3.
Refereeing selection
As humans, we all have biases, some are obvious, some are subtle, and eliminating bias completely is impossible. But the PL could do an awful lot more to build confidence amongst clubs and fans that it was doing everything in its power to minimise it. The PL should be well resourced with data analytics teams that continually evaluate and scan for potential biases in refs. For example, as mentioned above, some grounds can intimidate referees and lead to more favourable outcomes for the home team, but this isn't universal amongst refs. Some are more prone to home bias than others. Some refs will have biases against certain clubs, certain regions, etc. There are a million ways humans can be biased and the PL should be continually evaluating, and sharing what they are doing with the PL clubs to build confidence and trust in the integrity of the process. Their current process, which is to deny that bias even exists and to accuse anyone who opines otherwise of 'bringing the game into disrepute', ironically, itself brings the game into disrepute.
When biases in refs are found, the information should not be shared with the media or the ref subjected to a witchhunt, but rather, the PL should simply quietly move the ref in question away from scenarios where their biases would be exposed. This should be done proactively, not reactively. I think information on the various checks it does could be shared with the public to build trust, but sensitive information (such as when the PL identifies a suspicion that a referee may have signs of bias against a specific team) should not be released to the public. It could probably be released to the clubs, under very strict rules about information sharing. This would make the clubs responsible for building trust amongst their fanbases in the process, and encourage them to buy into it, rather than rail against it in the media.
4.
Conflict reporting & resolution
Related to the above, I consider the recent controversy with David Coote, caught sounding off, probably under the influence, about a PL manager, their fans and so on. To me, the affair was utterly predictable - everybody knows refs hold such opinions on PL teams and managers and know the PL/PGMOLs protestations of integrity to be total bullshit. PGMOL's reaction, to sacrifice Coote and allow him to be painted him as a bad egg rather than to admit the reality that their entire organisation is rotten, was equally predictable.
I have sympathy for Coote. I have no doubt that behind closed doors, all the referees regularly sound off to each other and others about the various teams and personalities they work with. Most just don't get caught. But refs are mostly average people whose job it is to babysit a bunch of millionaire narcissist crybabies every week, be subject to constant abuse and to get paid fuck all for the privilege. It'd turn me to drugs too tbh, and I think some understanding needs to be shown.
But obviously, a referee opining that a manager is a cunt is a bit of a problem from the perspective of bias, so I think a whole lot of processes are needed here. I think referees should have to disclose any and all interactions with managers, clubs or fans they are responsible for officiating. That can help inform bias analysis carried out as part of item 3. In the case of serious disputes with senior officials from clubs under their purview, a conflict resolution process is needed to try to defuse such situations before they build up and turn into an emotional triggerpoint that will impact decision making. If such efforts fail, refs should be moved off games involving their subjects. But also, on the flipside, if you have a manager who gets into disputes with so many referees that the PL has difficulty finding referees to allocate for that manager's games, then the PL should have the power to ban that manager from the touchline for such games until they resolve their disputes. I don't think such a scenario is too much of a stretch, given that most managers are former footballers, a group I'd argue is more prone to anti-social personality disorders than the general public. I think it's likely that some managers are just awful people who create toxic workplace environments (while simultaneously cultivating a positive public persona), and that shouldn't be acceptable anywhere, not even in the PL.
5.
Governance reform
Finally, it's crucial to build more accountability with refereeing and PGMOL is a laughably inept organisation with precious little accountability. I'm not sure what reforms need to take place here - my first thought is to have the refereeing body rights put out to tender every couple of years so that at the very least, the closed shop nature of PGMOL can be rectified and if results don't improve, they can turfed out. It is amazing to me, given the amount of wealth in the PL, that its refereeing body is so unprofessional as to not even establish clear and battle tested procedures for VAR (I'm thinking of farcical things like VAR forgetting to draw the offside lines, failing to establish with the referee what his actual on field decision was, and so on) before starting a season. That sort of shit wouldn't be acceptable in any of the average joe organisations I've worked in, and a proper league would have dumped and replaced the entire organisation ages ago. Maybe an independent regulator with power to sack officials and enforce root and branch reform would be enough, but I dunno.
Anyway, that's my 2c. What changes do y'all think ought to happen?
