REFEREES SHOULDN’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN THEMSELVES, SAYS MICHEAL CLIFFORD

Removing the gag from referees is back on the GAA news agenda this week after David Gough’s suggestion that H.Q. should act

THERE is a good reason why those of us who scribble for our beans on these pages are viewed by the serious hacks as toy department workers.

We don’t really have any war stories to tell you. The ball goes up the field, sometimes it goes wide, more times it goes over the bar and we keep note.

There are a few more tricks to it which we can’t disclose under our trade secrets act but you know getting into this game there are no badges of journalistic valour coming your way.

The roughest it might get is a post-match wide-eyed death stare from Jim Gavin, but even then you are not going to be checking under the Ford Fiesta the following morning to be sure, to be sure.

Even the nuts and bolts stuff of tabloid journalism, like door-stepping a reluctant interviewee has by-passed us.

Well, most of us. We know a colleague in this profession who has soared in our admiration on the strength of being ordered to do just that some years back.

It was the morning after the day before and she – and it would take a woman to show us the way - was instructed by her editor to push the door bell of Martin Sludden’s house.

The previous day, the Tyrone official had somehow missed three blatant fouls to award Joe Sheridan that goal for Meath which denied Louth a first Leinster title in 50 years.

No doubt, many will take the view that in chasing down a voluntary official at his home a boundary was crossed – as it happened the bean an tí answered the door and summarily flashed our frontline correspondent a red card - but there are times when such sensitivities have to be parked.

Like when it becomes frontpage news and your boss wants to know what have you got on it. Telling him that you have a line from an official source, confirming that ‘the CCCC is awaiting the referee’s report’ simply will not wash.

You just wonder how that would have rolled had Sludden a platform where his voice could have been heard.

If he had simply been able to communicate that he suffered a brain freeze, panicked and was sorry for his mistake, it might have helped tease some of the poison from the moment.

And how much more pressure would that have bought to bear on Meath to do the right thing?

Perhaps, but then again Meath did not have to hear an act of contrition when cowering behind the sanctity of the final result.

Removing the gag from referees is back on the GAA news agenda this week after David Gough’s suggestion that Croke Park should look at appointing a match officials’ manager that would give referee’s a post-game voice.

It was a suggestion made in the context of his revelation that he would have awarded Kerry a crucial free which, most likely, would have forced a replay in last August’s All-Ireland semifinal, but his sightline of Kevin McManamon’s foul on Peter Crowley had been obstructed.

In the aftermath, Gough was showered with abuse at the final whistle from Kerry fans.

Had he been able to reveal the circumstances behind that missed call then, he might have cooled their sense of injustice and certainly would have diminished that moment as a talking point.

So there is value there, but is that really enough for changing a practice which is common place in most sporting codes?

Across the Irish Sea, the Premier League’s policing of its match officials vow of silence is rigorous to the point that any retired referee who publishes an autobiography, within 12 months of hanging up his whistle, faces losing his one-year’s severance package.

There is an obvious reason why sporting organisations don’t want their referees wheeled out for post-match grillings and it boils down to that core political truth – when you are explaining you are losing.

The Sunday Game will never ask us to vote for the refereeing call of the Championship.

Instead the focus will be on contentious calls and downright wrong ones, and the price for referees making a stream of public apologies would serve to diminish their authority.

That is the last thing they, and the game, need.

The focus for the GAA should be less in providing a public platform for its referees, but in seeking to ensure there is less need for one.

That is not easy and will demand all-encompassing conversation regarding the use of TMOs, the introduction of a sin-bin and a more proactive role for linesmen and umpires to ensure all apologies are kept to a minimum.

Otherwise, for now, silence may not be golden but talk is certainly no silver bullet.