Mouthy managers should be made to referee park games
Financial penalties for the kind of behaviour Nottingham Forest displayed are less effective in a bigmoney sport, writes Matt Dickinson, who suggests a humbling alternative. It says something when Richard Scudamore, a former chief executive of the Premier
ABOOK needs throwing at Nottingham Forest, but how hard? What is an appropriate sanction when a club, with reckless disregard for the consequences, accuses a senior official of bias?
The Premier League and the FA will have to come up with an answer. And the rest of us will be left wondering if, for a club with a turnover of more than £150 million, even a £1 million fine will make any difference? A point deducted - perhaps another suspended - certainly would have an impact given that only one point separates Forest from the Premier League relegation zone. A big call, then, but is anything less than such a penalty going to carry any sense of due sanction and deterrent?
Does it mean much to Vincent Kompany, supposedly one of the smart, cool heads in English football, to receive a two-match touchline ban - one suspended - and a £10,000 fine this week for repeatedly calling a referee a “f***ing cheat” after Darren England awarded Chelsea a penalty against Burnley at Stamford Bridge last month?
Kompany's lawyer told a hearing that the incident was out of character, the regrettable outcome of a red mist, but is this how low the bar is set for calling an official dishonest?
Forest's allegation, questioning whether Stuart Attwell allowed a Luton Town affiliation to influence his decisions, is so much worse: a message typed out on social media, seemingly having been signed off at the highest levels of the club, with more than 44 million views on X (formerly Twitter).
And you may think this is the idiocy of a particular club and characteristic of a chairman, Evangelos Marinakis, once banned from entering a pitch for five months for verbally abusing an official after a tempestuous game involving his other team, Olympiacos. But does it stop there?
Consider that last year the Greek prime minister contacted Uefa to ask for elite referees from other countries to see out
the closing matches of the country's Super League because the storm around officials was so out of hand.
Is this where we are heading: a government-driven football regulator asking Uefa to provide officials because every club starts employing a former referee such as Mark Clattenburg to find loopholes or lobby the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) or to stir up trouble, and to fuel wild conspiracies to deflect from a haphazard transfer policy, six points from the last 27 and an increasingly desperate relegation battle?
So the issue of that appropriate sanction - and the need to draw a very firm line - is important and will need answering soon, and with severity. But it is not the only question, perhaps not even the right one.
The real questions are “how did we get here?” and “where are we heading?” However strong the punishment is, does it mean anything unless it is part of a wider campaign?
It says something when Richard Scudamore, a former chief executive of the Premier League and not a man known for loose words, should warn that we are heading for “anarchy”.
He was part of a group that came up with some very simple, practical suggestions; from broadcaster Jacqui Oatley that one reporter should speak to a referee immediately after a game and relay a verbatim explanation of key decisions; from Conor Coady, the Leicester City defender, that referees, or representatives of PGMOL, should visit each club far more regularly given that even players have lost track of what constitutes handball; from Peter Walton, the former referee, that “clear and obvious” might be redefined as the need for a decision to “hit you in the guts” to be overturned by VAR.
But I was most struck by the panel discussing whether we need a public service advertisement shown before every live Sky Sports match and Match of the Day, in order to highlight that the game cannot tolerate this abuse any longer, at any level.
It will probably take something high-profile to have a meaningful impact. I checked back to 2007 when the FA launched the Respect campaign, perhaps the most notable of all the many attempts to improve conduct at all levels. It was launched in the top flight in August 2008. By November we were already writing that it was coming apart, with a series of manager diatribes.
How to change such a deep-rooted culture? I have felt invested in this for a long time. Both my kids have refereed on local pitches. You do care when your teenage sons start getting harangued by adults, and you have an email from the head of the local league warning that there have been a series of assaults.
I have debated hard with the game's administrators about the need for a crusade: tried to be creative about sanctions, even suggesting that leading managers, rather than a paltry fine like Kompany's, should be given the refereeing equivalent of a speed awareness course or a form of community service and made to officiate Sunday morning games as punishment. At least that would be giving something back - and they might even learn something.
But when football can tie itself in knots over VAR, incapable of agreeing how to use something as simple as a television replay, is this all whistling in the wind? Will the back pages forever be full of manager complaints? Match of the Day always dedicating as much time to analysing decisions as celebrating goals? Is arguing about fouls, and chanting that the referee is a wanker, integral to your entertainment?
It can feel like we are all - fans, media, pundits - addicts in need of the next hit of controversy. So no wonder Forest believe that they can use social media to whip up a fresh storm and distract from their inadequacies. All part of the game, eh?
It has been coming for a long time but if this scale of self-serving brazenness is not hit hard, then what next?