Thankfully I was travelling during Saturday's game, so I didn't have to endure the radio nightmare of 7 minutes extra time, but hearing about it reminded me to mention something I'm now sure about:
English refs are adding on far more extra time than those in other European countries
I've watched probably 15 full Czech and German games (Live or TV) in the last year, some of them European ties, and the maximum extra time I can remember is 3 minutes. In one first half involving Viktoria in the Europa League, the ref didn't add any at all. I thought at first the TV counter had stopped working, so amazed was I to see it.
Now I am surprised at this because I would have thought that FIFA would have some kind of global guidelines for this; in which case there should be no good reason why there is more time added on in England. And if the FA are playing to their own rules, what happens when an English ref takes a European tie?
Of course, even if we are doing it differently to the rest of Europe I don't assume that means we are doing it worse. Of course if we are chasing a game, we dont want the other team to get away with blatant timewasting. The problem is, we just don't know, and I think we should know. Both what guidelines the ref is using, and more particularly, what he is actually adding. What I find really galling is that the electronic clocks in grounds are not permitted to carry on recording the time added on. Don't we have a right to monitor this? We are paying for the whole thing, after all.
Several times I have heard it said that our refs are adding on 30 seconds per substitution. Is this official, or not? If so, it clearly isn't happening across Europe with any uniformity. Recipe for trouble in Euro ties.
There ought to be transparency on this, and it wouldn't be difficult. The fourth official should be responsible for time added on, and his stopwatch should be wired to the stadium clock. When his watch stops, so does the stadium clock. Just like in ice hockey, in fact...
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Comments
Allowance is made in either period for all time lost through:
•substitutions
•assessment of injury to players
•removal of injured players from the field of play for treatment
•wasting time
•any other cause
The allowance for time lost is at the discretion of the referee.
"The allowance for time lost is at the discretion of the referee."
And that, I think, is the problem.
What would probably work better is an official in the stand micced up to the ref keeping time. Then the ref can use his discretion if he thinks people are time wasting and inform the official who would be monitoring injuries, substitutions and other prolonged stops in play.
We do what they do in rugby league (I think?), and stop the clock every time the ball goes dead. No need to worry about added time, and we get rid of timewasting.
Obviously we couldn't do this at every level of football.
I must admit, I quite like the unpredictability of referees, adds seasoning to the flavour of the game. Kelvin Morton's classic at Southend (Gatting and Walsh sent off, Curbishley sent to the stands), Mike Dean's evening up of Brown's sending off, that crazy Colchester game when Darren Sheldrake ruled the goal was then wasn't then was again. And of course the sheer panic when the board reads 5 at the end of a game all adds to the drama.
For me we can have referees being consistent, we can have referees 'managing the game', but they are to my mind mutually exclusive. Personally I think robot referees are the worst of all, and Mike Riley's running of the pro referees has led to an increase in this kind of approach.
I heard Mark Halsey comment recently that the assessors mark only on the technical side of the game, then send their numbers off to the USA for 'analysis', upon which the future of a referee's elite career depends. He tells a story of how both managers once highly commended a referee in their own reports, only for the poor guy to be demoted to the FL for the next 4 games because his assessor's score was too low.
I'd take inconsistency and a well-managed game over referees like Graham Poll and Rob Styles any day of the week. If they add on 7 minutes, power to their elbow - there was a lot more time wasted during the game than 7 minutes.
I don't trust referees with all this discretion. There are too many occasions where people are baffled as to where all the time came from. I'm just asking for transparency. Fine if one ref is harsher on time wasting than another. Lets just be able to see it. When he stops the watch, so the stadium clock stops too. When did you last see the ref blow for full time instantly after a corner is taken? Funny that, eh? Not funny at all if its us defending a one goal lead, and the ref adds a few seconds just to see what happens. And tell me, why isn't the stadium clock allowed to run as long as the game does?
I agree we need more openness.
The simple way to do this is for refs to be questioned after the game as to why they gave certain decisions.
I am against any sort of witch hunt, but after a period of time, supporters and those that play football for fun would have a greater understanding as to what refs are looking and would help football drive forward the behaviors they are looking for.
I must also confess to being a supporter who sees what I want to see at a match and when I see the replay - the ref has been invariably right! I actually feel sorry for them. Not only do the players, supporters and the crowd give them stick, they have their own assessors who seem to be there to criticize and not support. Perhaps it should be these assessors who should appear after the game and explain it all.
Can some-one explain
Many people see the premier league as the most exciting in the world (of the top leagues played on tv) and I think some of that excitement comes from the additional time that can be added and using it as a minimum rather than it has to end the exact time that the fourth official put up.
And for us in this country it makes the lower leagues as interesting. last season for the end of the Brentford v Doncaster game where a penalty was missed and they went up the other end and scored. in Europe they would never of had that chance.
grand stand finishes wouldn't exist if there wasn't that extra time and the possibility of even more time on top of that. a team 4 -2 down scores in the 89min to make it 4-3 then a European ref would end it there.
Plenty of games for each team including us have been won and lost during those last few minutes. It's one of the reasons why this is the best game in the world.
Another example. Before his rise to the Premiership, Uriah Rennie was one of the best referees I ever saw. He would rather stand between two players who were about to lose it than get his red card out because they'd been allowed to hit each other. Then he was elevated to the land ruled by the officious, and he lost it completely before fading out of the game back in the lower leagues. I've seen Howard Webb manhandle a player away from an explosive situation too.
Halsey wrote about Stuart Attwell in his book, in glowing terms of his potential but blaming Mike Riley and his cronies for the referee he became - one who could award a goal that never was and make such a liturgy of errors he's now widely seen as an idiot. Elevated too quickly, not supported, I have a feeling it was he who Halsey was referring to when he made his comment about the difference between the managers' views and the assessor's.
There is a fundamental problem with refereeing in this country, it's not necessarily better on the continent, but I think the English game suits the vagaries of a referee who understands the game and referees with empathy to it. Don't we all feel that they should be a little more patient with their cards in derby matches, where the emotion runs a little higher?
I also feel that referees should be allowed to talk to the press after the game to explain their decisions. They will sometimes get things wrong, and that's ok I think. That they're not allowed to admit they're not perfect is a bigger problem for me. Perhaps this is all for another thread one day.
As for time keeping, please let's not go down the line of demanding to know exactly when the game ends. We never have. We never used to even know how much time the referee was adding on. I do agree about the clock incidentally, quite why it's not allowed to run on I've no idea - it's not as if we don't have watches, as if it's some secret they want to keep - but if they're prepared to indicate roughly how much time is being added on, let's not get on their backs about an extra few seconds. Their job's hard enough with the extraordinary amount of player cheating going on.
EDIT: Just to add that I think Gurnham Singh was the best referee I ever saw, and it was criminal he never got the chance at the top level - but then perhaps he was all the better for it.
In a nutshell, they add on the rough time a physio is on the pitch, 30 seconds for a sub, would normally add 30 seconds for a goal (depending on celebration time). Time wasting and bookings would be thrown into the mix as well. It's an art rather than a science, it's all discretionary - it has to be - and of course delays in injury time would also be added on.
I think sometimes we forget that if the referee adds on 4 minutes, those 4 minutes should be played - if there's a minute delay within that time, the ref would still play 4 minutes but the game won't end until 5 are up.
One interesting point is that any change in the system would have to demonstrate a significant improvement over now - and I think that would be difficult to do.