Mike Dean

[The_Boothen_End]

Withdrawn from this weekends fixture after receiving death threats.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55981926

Premier League football is in trouble, the introduction of VAR has just exacerbated every finite decision to the point it causes things like this to happen.

The sooner it's confined to history and we can go back to the ref just being a wanker one-week then giving us a dodgy last min pen a few weeks later and being a hero the better.

 

[tonydreamtheater]

I did some reffing of kids football, my observations were thus;-
1) reffing is not easy
2) you can only give what you see
3) your positioning on the pitch is absolutely critical though-out and is an art form in itself

People thought I did ok and opposing manager seemed happy, I was even handed - whilst sometimes, our manager thought was overly harsh on our own kids team.

Lastly

The very best referees are :- the ones you DONT notice.

Some of these professional refs just dont grasp that - i.e. its all about the game, the sport and, not them .

As for VAR - it misses the point - the games about goals and entertainment, far too many goals being disallowed because someones foreskin is offside - The human errors was and is, part of the game - To me its been a very negative experience.

Maybe It if was just used to cull the divers, the cheats and the cowards who dive and fake injury - I'd be much happier.

I also think there is still an inbuilt bias amongst the professional refereeing community, towards certain 'top' teams also - their players are still getting away with absolute murder in some cases - in spite of VAR.