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After a tough week for Leicester it’s clear that referee accountability has to be the priority:

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They say a week is a long time in politics, well believe you me it can be even longer in football when things are going against you.

What a week it has been for Leicester City Football Club and with our history that’s saying something. Two games and in the eyes of most LCFC supporters two inept referee’s.

First up, I must confess that I have some experience as a referee and I have also been a lino as well. OK, it may only have been a friendly for my son’s U13 team but any parent who takes their sons or daughters along to take part in football matches will know this can be like entering the devil’s chambers.

It’s amazing but as soon as you pick up the whistle or flag you suddenly become the most hated person on the planet in the eyes of those watching. When I was the ref  I gave a free kick  for the opposition and their manager was shouting and complaining that the wall was not the required distance away.

So after they took the free kick and scored I might add, it was with great delight that I made them retake it – of course, they missed it this time! Being a lino is probably an even harder job, having to watch the ball, the line, the offside line and players all at the same time. So to be fair I do have a begrudging respect for what these guys do.

However it is not my job. I didn’t get paid to do it and I certainly hadn’t had any training for it, so in my defence to those parents who disagreed with my decisions you got me cause no one else offered to do it!

But to the professional match officials who’s job it is, who get paid handsomely for a few hours work a week: I wonder if enough is being done to train referees in regards to the rules of the game and how to react in certain situations. Has the standard got any worse from when Jack Taylor managed the World Cup final all those years ago to Howard Webb doing the same in South Africa? You’d have hoped that the standard would have improved by now but it just doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

But like everything, time moves on. No longer do we have Match of The Day showing one featured game with  a couple of camera’s and a few others with one camera at each ground along with a few hacks and their note books.

Now we have anything up to 20 camera’s at the top matches along quite often with clubs own camera’s for their Internet TV stations. Then there’s you, me and everyone else with a mobile recording from every angle possible.

If a ref so much as scratches his bum now it will be picked up by one of the cameras.

So what is my point?  Well match officials are human. They have a split second to make most decisions.  The match officials don’t have the advantage of a reply and God help us if we ever find soccer turning into American football which seems to have more stoppages than actual playing time.

I like the fact that games are run by humans with all their flaws, and I even accept that consistency between ref’s will never be achieved as they are all, like you and me, individuals. Decisions for and against do get balanced out over a long season and long may that human element continue. If anything it keep’s bloggers like me busy.

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