Whilst
Reading players are celebrating their elevation to Division
One there are
a
thousand or more professional footballers up and down the
country who have
less
cause to be jubilant. Their present contracts will be at an
end, and the
collapse of ITV Digital and the withdrawal of the income it
promised to lower
leagues,
means that fewer clubs than ever will be hiring new players.
Some of
these
players, of course, will find new clubs, some will coach and
others will
continue playing play part-time in non-league football.
There
is one other option. The Professional Footballers Association
wants ex-
footballers to consider becoming referees. The stumbling block
is of course that
to
reach the top, referees serve a long apprenticeship. They
start at the bottom
refereeing
in local leagues and then run the line on a league above in
what is
known
as the pyramid of promotion. Taking one step of the pyramid at
a time,
the
lucky referees can reach their zenith, the Premiership and
beyond to FIFA
referee.
All this takes time.
Local
Theale referee, lain Williamson, has been
promoted
from next season to referee on the Nationwide League, having
started
nine
years ago on the Reading leagues. This is pretty good going,
it can take ten
or
eleven years or more.
The
other problem for players is of course money. It would
mean
dropping down to something like twenty pounds a game for some
years.
Gordon
Taylor of the PFA says this is no encouragement to footballers
to join
the
refereeing ranks. He claims to have agreed with Adam Crozier,
Chief
Executive
of the FA, that ex-professional footballers can be
fast-tracked, taking
about
half the time to reach national level. This will include young
professionals
in
academies such as the Royals’ Academy who may not make the
grade as
professional
footballers. It will also be available to the best young
referees emerging under the present structure.
There
is of course nothing to stop professional footballers becoming
referees
now
or reaching the top providing they start young enough,
probably in their
early
thirties. Steve Baines, ex Huddersfield. Bradford City and
Chesterfield
defender,
when his playing days were over took up the whistle and he now
referees
on the Nationwide League. Steve believes that having played
the
game.
ex-pros have better insight, but others believe that
ex-players would be
too
soft on the sort of offences that have plagued the game in
recent years. In
local
football many of the best referees are local amateur players
who took up the whistle when they stopped playing, so there's
nothing to say that ex-players
don't
make good referees.
The
FA is committed to increasing the number of referees by four
thousand.
Let’s
hope that if this new scheme takes off it doesn't deter new
entrants at grass
roots level, because they feel their way up the pyramid is
blocked by fast-tracked ex-professionals.
Personally
I don't see a great number of professional
players
taking up this challenge, even if fast tracked. I think most
of them would
echo
what Ray 'Bomber' Reeves, the former Reading fullback once
said to me. 'I
wouldn't
become a referee for a pension'.
If
you wish to become a referee, however, fill in the online form
(becoming a referee, fourth paragraph, click online)
and you will receive details of our next course starting in
September. There is already a waiting list so don't delay.
As
this is my final column of the season may I thank Evening
Post Sports Editor David Wright for giving me the
opportunity of putting the referees' point of view. Thanks
also to the hundreds of you who tell me you enjoy the column,
especially those who have suggested topics, although I haven't
been able to fit them all in this season.
Dick Sawdon Smith