Refereeing in the Prem

R

Raul

Active member
Why is it that teams in the Premier League can have players, managers, coaches, backroom team from all over the world yet the Ref's have to be British

It makes no sense to me

If we had to have British players / Managers then the quality would drop significantly, so why isn't it the same with Referee's?

The German Ref last night was brilliant I thought, he would be a great addition to British football

VAR has been superb all tournament which again shows to me that it not VAR that is the problem but the officials in the UK

The English game should definitely be taking note

Interested to hear other peoples thoughts...
 
Hadn't realised that it was only UK. Would there be an issue getting visas without government guideline changes?
 
Raul said:
Why is it that teams in the Premier League can have players, managers, coaches, backroom team from all over the world yet the Ref's have to be British

It makes no sense to me

If we had to have British players / Managers then the quality would drop significantly, so why isn't it the same with Referee's?

The German Ref last night was brilliant I thought, he would be a great addition to British football

VAR has been superb all tournament which again shows to me that it not VAR that is the problem but the officials in the UK

The English game should definitely be taking note

Interested to hear other peoples thoughts...
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I think it's telling that the weakest element in the PL is the officials and they are the element that seemingly has to be English.
Makes total sense to bring in the best refs from around the world to go with the players and managers.

The PL should at least be getting whoever is overseeing the VAR process at the Euros to come and sort out the protocol in the PL.
 
It doesn't have to be English refs but you wonder what the real incentive is.

For example that Aussie ref who is kicking around the Football League. He was a ref in the Australian A - League. Had been on the FIFA list for 6 years in his home country - lost that role now. He'd been a ref in his countries top competition for 9 years, travelled thousands of miles from his home for what - to ref in the EFL. I know the top refs get decent wages but it's a relatively short career and it's not like they are being paid the same wages as players.

Would the PL really pay that much more than the other top leagues do? Otherwise wheres the incentive for them to move? Especially when countries usually are limited by how many refs from their leagues go into UEFA / FIFA competitions. They'd be uproar if all the refs from the PL were being used in the Champions League for example.
 
Jan_Aage_Fjortoft said:
It doesn't have to be English refs but you wonder what the real incentive is.

For example that Aussie ref who is kicking around the Football League. He was a ref in the Australian A - League. Had been on the FIFA list for 6 years in his home country - lost that role now. He'd been a ref in his countries top competition for 9 years, travelled thousands of miles from his home for what - to ref in the EFL. I know the top refs get decent wages but it's a relatively short career and it's not like they are being paid the same wages as players.

Would the PL really pay that much more than the other top leagues do? Otherwise wheres the incentive for them to move? Especially when countries usually are limited by how many refs from their leagues go into UEFA / FIFA competitions. They'd be uproar if all the refs from the PL were being used in the Champions League for example.
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I agree

The incentive would be exactly the same as the players coming over though

Money, prestige, exposure

Why not attract the best in the world? Or at least give it a go
 
Raul said:
I agree

The incentive would be exactly the same as the players coming over though

Money, prestige, exposure

Why not attract the best in the world? Or at least give it a go
Click to expand...

How much are you prepared to pay a ref to move from Germany over what he's already being paid? Don't you think they'd then up their offer to try and keep him? And before you know we're paying a fortune fighting over refs. Are we going to get into bidding wars where the big transfer talk will be over a Bosman move of a ref from Sweden to England?

What about what I said about international tournaments? If we attract the best refs in the world - do you think Seria A, La Liga, Bundesliga etc would be happy about all the English based refs being selected? Or would they claim bias and wouldn't want a PL ref to ref games involving PL teams in Europe? Would they continue to limit how many can come from the PL / England in their tournaments? Where would the prestige be if they're then told sorry but only two of you can take part. So no Champions League Final for you, the World Cup or European Championships? Where's the prestige for them if they can't ref the biggest games? If you don't limit them - how many refs do you assign from other countries whenever England have a game - or is the same ref in charge of every England game in a tournament? You can't let an English based ref who is paid by an English competition ref an England international game otherwise you'd have everyone saying he only give that decision because they employ him.
 
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The bigger question that needs addressing is why is VAR almost seamless in the Euros? (and WC during trials).

I honestly forget VAR is in force. Its hardly ever used and just ticks away in the back ground with no stupid lines etc. Why's it different? 🤔
 
Raul said:
The German Ref last night was brilliant I thought, he would be a great addition to British football
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Oh yes superb ref indeed is that Felix Brych, and a Mark Viduka doppelgänger at that! We could have used him that night in Eindhoven in lieu of that other German bloke!
 
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