Is Mr U.Rennie bent? A mate sent an emai asking the ? to the FA & go this crap back: Many thanks for your e-mail. The Football Association receives numerous correspondence on the performance of referees in general and also individual refereeing decisions across all levels of football. Unfortunately, because of the huge scope of these enquiries, we are unable to answer each correspondence individually. The issue of refereeing standards is a constant source of debate to anyone with an interest in football, fans will always have an opinion on the apparent injustice of decisions involving their teams, and rightly so, football is a game full of opinion. Our stance remains consistent, Referees and their decisions have to be respected for the game to remain workable. They are arguably the most consistently professional people in the game making split second decisions that will be analysed repeatedly by slow motion cameras and panels of football experts. Ninety five percent of the time these decisions will be correct, when they are wrong it is unfortunate but because of human error unavoidable. They make their decision based on years of training and experience and what they see at that moment in time. The referee can only act on what they see, assisted by the other match officials and naturally not everyone will agree with the decisions they take, especially when a supporter's own team is involved. Bias is an issue that is constantly raised, The Football Association receives many letters from fans of clubs complaining about what they see as favourable treatment. Our concern is to be even handed across the board. Referees try to uphold the laws to the best of their abilities and we are confident that no bias is shown towards any player or club. Consistency is also an issue that concerns supporters, and we fully agree, we are constantly striving to ensure greater consistency. It is, however, the case that two incidents can be viewed by two different people, from two completely different angles and under very different pressures to those that you or I may have experienced whilst watching the game. 100% consistency is impossible when you introduce human judgment into a situation. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for the referee to review yellow and red card decisions after the game. Any referee has 48 hours to consider an incident in a game and a video can be supplied if necessary. Clubs and players are also allowed to appeal against red cards. There is a system in place for monitoring the performance of referees, and referee's assistants, involving assessors and reports from club managers. Communication is an important issue and regular review meetings also now take place, involving referees, clubs and managers. Recently, there was a radical restructuring, aimed at continuing to improve the overall standard of refereeing in the professional game which sees match officials categorised into two groups. *The Select Group officiates in the Premier League and other competitions and comprises 24 referees and 48 assistant referees and is the responsibility of Phillip Don, Head of the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB). Premier League refereeing enquiries should be addressed to Philip Don, The Premier League, 11 Connaught Place, London W2 2ET. *The National Group will officiate in the Football League and other competitions, with 50 referees and 188 assistant referees. Referees Manager Jim Ashworth will supervise this group, which will also receive increased training and development. The relevant groups pick and monitor their officials as well as developingthem physically and mentally. The two groups receive feedback from the Referees assessor and in some cases other official participants. All assessors come from a footballing background and the majority are fully qualified referees. The referee's assessors report directly to the competition organisers (The Premier League, Football League or The F.A. for The F.A. Cup, Vase and trophy games that do not involve Select Group Officials) who will then forward it onto their respective Refereeing Departments who then analyse the reports. The reports are then used in the refereeing meetings. They usually accompany a video of any incidents and are shown in groups where other officials will comment and discuss incidents. This not only helps the official that has been highlighted, but also the others in the group. The performances of referees over a season are taken into consideration when the leagues appoint their referees for the following season. A Customer Relations Unit has been set up within The FA as a point of contact for all issues from the general public. Our role is to collate and communicate the feedback we receive from the general public and forward it to the relevant areas of the organisation, in the process giving fans an open, accountable and responsive Football Association. The Customer Relations Unit also attends select group and national list meetings where they put the comments of the public forward to Philip Don and the select group officials. Though we recognise it is unlikely that the above will entirely alleviate your concerns about the way in which this particular match was refereed, it will, we hope, demonstrate our objective of raising the standard of refereeing to the highest level possible. As we have previously mentioned, due to the numbers of enquiries on refereeing we are unable to further elaborate or debate this issue.Thank you for taking the time to write. Regards Customer Relations Unit The Football Association
