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The League Of Referees

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Just as there is a league table for football teams, so there could be a table for refs.
At the end of each game, the referee could be awarded a score, based on a similar system to the opta rankings and the average score over a season could translate into a league position.
The refs salary could reflect their position in the table, and at the end of the season the top ref in each league could be promoted and the bottom ref relegated.
The premier league of referees would officiate in premier league matches and so on downwards.
Now the refs would have a lot riding on their performances and this should ensure a higher standard all round.
MikeOliver, Apr 08 2005

OPta Index http://www.optasocc...ices/optarating.htm
Just like this. [MikeOliver, Apr 08 2005]

[link]






       Of course, those at the top would be referred to as 'extraordinary gentlemen.'
RayfordSteele, Apr 08 2005
  

       Surely refs need to be seen to be equally as good, otherwise it would provide us Watford supporters with a valid excuse for our teams rubbishness?
hazel, Apr 08 2005
  

       Sadly most refs currently are seen as being equally as bad!
MikeOliver, Apr 09 2005
  

       There must be some sort of ranking system, because whenever England have a difficult game (i.e. somewhere where the fans have some sort of historical excuse to pick a fight), they wheel out that one that looks like the Mekon from the Dan Dare comics.   

       Hmmm... now that's a photoshop moment for sure...
moomintroll, Apr 09 2005
  

       //There must be some sort of ranking system, because whenever England have a difficult game (i.e. somewhere where the fans have some sort of historical excuse to pick a fight), they wheel out that one that looks like the Mekon from the Dan Dare comics//   

       Pierluigi Collina you mean? I've always thought he looked more like Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.
hazel, Apr 14 2005
  

       I'm not sure I like this. I pretty much autobone any idea that leads to more statistics, but I felt this one deserved an intelligent discourse.
  

       [Mike], no one can argue that referees the world over make bad decisions, and wouldn't it be grand if we had a rating system to keep them in check? Well, we do. Leagues generally decide who does the best job and who does the worst, and assign them to matches and divisions accordingly. We all wish we could make those decisions, especially when our team suffers on bad reffing, but also when it doesn't.
  

       We can't, however, and we shouldn't. Why not? Although most sports (with the notable exception of boxing) are objective in nature, refereeing is quite subjective. We can analyze sports with lists of goals, assists, tackles, hits, runs, shutouts, etc. But there can be no such thing for refereeing, because you just have to be there and see it being done and form a subjective conclusion. There's no other way, because you can't boil down any call to numbers: there's a certain amount of rightness and wrongness, a certain angle at which a certain thing looks different in certain ways, and certain standards which may or may not be adhered to at certain times. All of this uncertainty means you can't compile a table that says "Aha! Mr. McDoogen is the year's best referee". All you can do is watch, and decide (as a league) that a certain referee seems to make the right call more often than not.
  

       Also, I've refereed soccer and volleyball in my lifetime, and being a ref is tough as shit. Many times throughout a match, you're called on to make a superbly fair and accurate decision on a half-split-second of deliberation, and then subjected to the anger of about half of the players and fans each time--less if you're right, more if you're wrong. It was particularly tough being a volleyball lineman, because I was a representative of my [high school girls'] team, and when I screwed up and made a bad call, I could see the hydrogen bombs in my friends' eyes after she made a great serve, and I would know it was my fault. After the game, I'd be lucky if she didn't hate me for the next week or so, and I'd know I deserved it if she did. It's not easy, Mike. And I can only see it getting worse if we try to objectify it: the people in charge of deciding what's a good call and what's a bad call will have their own virtually made-up statsheets to point at and say "See! I told you he/she's a great/terrible ref. Let's give him/her an even bigger raise/kick-in-the-pants."   

       Your heart's in the right place, but it's not that simple, unfortunately.
disbomber, Apr 14 2005
  
      
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