Football's 'Respect for Referees' Campaign Not Going Anywhere

Over the last few seasons, the English FA has come out with its "Respect" campaign.

It highlights how everybody involved in the game, be it the managers, the fans, or the players should show a semblance of dignity in their behavior towards the game, and more importantly, towards the referees and their assistants.

A well-thought out and good intentioned campaign to begin with, "Respect" has continuously lost ground, especially with managers and players in the top two-three tiers of English football over the last couple of seasons.

How did this come about?

The reasons for the undermining of the "Respect" campaign aren't too hard to uncover.

A union of a limited, yet dwindling, number of qualified referees, a similar pool of linesmen to choose from, and a huge number of games to administer, have all left the referees overworked and overstretched far beyond their capacities—both mentally and physically.

This has led to an increasing number of refereeing mistakes in matches, several of them being pivotal for teams in a competition or over a season. But it's not as if these mistakes have increased overnight, because naturally, experienced referees wouldn't suddenly succumb to making far more errors than usual.

Yet, the main culprits behind the gradual unraveling of the "Respect" campaign are the very technologies and methods which the FA, UEFA, and FIFA, are unwilling to incorporate into the game.

Yes, I'm talking about 1) goal-line technology, 2) video replaying, and 3) referrals.

All three have been incorporated successfully into rugby, and the sport seems to be all the better for it.

There's hardly a game in rugby which erupts into a controversy due to a contentious decision, while the exact opposite is true in football these days. Almost every game ends with one manager or the other berating a decision which cost his team either a loss or an injury to an important player.

Despite all this, and in spite of being aware of human shortcomings in decision making, UEFA President "always-correct-on-every-point" Michel Platini, decided the best way to get around this problem would be to involve two more linesmen in the game, positioned on the opposing goal-lines, to give decisive decisions for any plays in the respective penalty boxes—whether for a foul deserving of a penalty, or to award or cancel goals cleared of the goal line.

Needless to say, the system has shown itself to be a total failure in the Europa League, where it was first implemented.

The FA, which has often shown itself to be more pragmatic when compared to the more lethargic UEFA and FIFA, has also followed the bigger organizations' lead in not implementing the aforementioned technologies. The result?

Managers and players have been berating referees even more, especially since video playback, the very technology which should be assisting referees, comes back to haunt them. Especially when a controversial decision is replayed again and again in front of millions of fans, as well as the players and the managers.

It is then that the referee is put to the sword by the suffering team and its fans, especially if the decision could be a season defining one (case in point, Bolton had two legitimate penalty calls yesterday against Chelsea, neither awarded.)

If the correct decisions would've been taken, Bolton could've won 2-1, getting them three valuable points to avoid relegation, while Chelsea would've remained only one point clear of United in the title race. As I said, season defining decisions, replayed over and over, and the referee was thus crucified.

True, there are referees who suffer from sheer ineptitude, such as Tom Henning Ovrebo, whose controversial decisions cost Chelsea several legitimate penalty decisions against Barcelona in the Champions' League semifinal last season, and a blatant offside goal decision in favor of Bayern Munich that cost Fiorentina a quarterfinal place this season, have become legendary.

But, these technologies and systems would only help in reducing such blatantly callous decisions by the referees.

An argument against all these points is that this would undermine the referees' authority in matches, but then, if the referees are giving poor decisions, aren't they losing enough credibility already?

Fair to say, if a referee were to use these technologies to correct a decision taken in haste, he would be applauded for being pragmatic, rather than be criticized for being dogmatic and sticking to the old ways.

It is time that the FA, UEFA, and FIFA got their heads out of the proverbial sand, and looked at reality staring at them in the face. Technology to assist referees is the only way to save them, otherwise they would become relics of an unsavory past.

The time has come for football to embrace the future, and step into the 21st century, because, after all, if the "Global Game" will not take the lead in honoring its very custodians, which sport will?