Isn’t it a shame that one of the most respected figures in football is now in danger of becoming a sad joke. Someone knighted for his service to football but now doing it a great disservice.
We have become accustomed to Sir Alex Ferguson blaming the referee when his team does not win but, more than that, he complains verbally and demonstratively against any decisions that goes against his team. He’s beginning to sound like Steve Bruce, whose continual bleating that the referee has got it wrong, only goes to show his own ignorance of the Laws of the Game.
Sir Alex made unfounded accusations about Alan Wiley when his team failed to beat Bruce’s Sunderland. These were not about his decisions but about his fitness, which with the evidence of Prozone and the PGMOL’s monitoring of their official’s fitness
through heart monitors, were easily proved to be untrue. Ferguson quickly made a series of grovelling apologies to try and lessen any punishment but
The FA Disciplinary Committee called his comments ‘grossly improper and wholly inappropriate’, fining Sir Alex £20,000 and banning him from the touch line for four matches.
But is this likely to act as a deterrent? He is after all a serial offender; this is at least his fourth touch line ban. £20,000 is a lot of money out of anyone’s pocket but does the touch- line ban hurt in any way. He can still sit in the stand watching the match. He can easily pass down messages to the bench about who and when to make substitutions etc.
Perhaps most important of all, he can still give the pre-match and half-time team talks. It’s really not any punishment at all. In some countries, instead of a touch line ban, errant managers/coaches are given a stadium ban, which means they cannot enter the stadiums where the fixed number of matches are played.
You may be surprised to learn that the FA have imposed this punishment but to Steve Evans of non-league Crawley Town who also was described as a serial offender. That’s hardly made a ripple, but what a message it would give if it was handed down to Sir Alex. Some coaches abroad have been made to referee junior games when their club are playing, to make them more understanding of the referees’ role.
Ferguson’s continual disputing of the referee’s authority not only encourages people like Bruce, but also coaches throughout the game, down as far as local youth matches. In the past three years, I have twice stopped a game in a youth cup tie, to speak to a coach who has been making loud criticisms of my decisions. I told them very simply that they are a role model to the young players under the control and I would hope they would rather be a good role model. If the young players hear them constantly making loud criticisms of my decisions, they will think it is a perfectly acceptable for them to do it as well, which could soon land them in trouble. To be fair to them, both coaches kept quiet for the rest of the game.
I think it is not a coincidence that where you have coaches who continually show their disagreement with the referee’s decisions, you will find high dissenters in their teams. Manchester United’s players have never been slow to show dissent. We still remember the infamous ganging up on referee Andy D’urso, led by then captain Roy Keane. In the recent Chelsea match Wayne Rooney was cautioned for dissent and against Fulham he was sent off for a second cautionable offence when he showed his disapproval of the referee’s decision.
Does dissent matter? I think the fact that we are loosing 7000 referees a year and last year had the lowest number of registered referees ever, speaks for itself.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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