The Political Economy of Football V2

The problem with the award of penalties is that a lot of them are marginal decisions, even with VAR.   This is particularly the case with the handball rule which has arguably been applied a little less stringently as the season has gone on, and probably rightly so. Analysis by the Match of the Day team last night suggested that two of Forest’s penalty claims at Everton were not justified, but the third one was.    The referee should have been at least summoned to the screen to review his decision. It is easy to be critical of Nottingham Forest. And the manner in which they used social media to voice allegations over the integrity of match officials after Sunday’s 2-0 away loss against fellow relegation candidates Everton was arguably undermining the foundations of the game.    Officials make mistakes, sometimes bad ones, but they may not qualify as clear and obvious errors and they indicate poor decision-making rather than bias. Yet whi...

 As I have noted in earlier articles [for the Leamington programme], tensions between football crowds and referees were on the increase in 1922.  In the Leamington area the police had to be called on more than one occasion to evict spectators who had abused the referee.  It was also claimed that crowds had started chants which questioned the capacity of the referee to officiate.    The Football Association was so concerned that they launched an overall review, but as a first step they decided to ban referees who wore glasses, following a number of complaints about the poor eyesight of some officials.   This caused some confusion at the meeting of the Birmingham FA. Should all referees who had been seen wearing spectacles be struck off the list?  It was eventually decided that it should only apply to new officials. Writing in one newspaper, referee ‘Solo Whistle’ argued that some sort of X-ray machine might help to resolve disputes on the fi...

Incidents on the field of play and the quality of referees continued to be the subject of considerable discussion one hundred years ago in 1920.   The Coventry Evening Telegraph reported, ‘Unusual enthusiasm seems to have been infused into some of the games in the past few weeks, and in one or two cases there were regrettable outbursts of temper on the field of play.   The Coventry Football Association has heard an exceedingly large number of cases, even a special meeting being necessary for the purpose.'   ' In a number of cases, sudden temper seems to be the plea, while in others some go far as to plead justification.    In most of these cases referee’s decisions were put as the start of the trouble, in other words, another referee had failed to please everybody.   Generally speaking there are three main difficulties in refereeing: 1.        The putting into practice what is learnt in theory. 2.    ...