The Premier League Panel: What can be done to make officiating better?

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Which of England's young prospects have what it takes on the international stage? And with referees in the news for the wrong reasons, what can be done to make officiating better? Our expert panel weighs in.

Transcript

00:00Welcome back to the Premier League panel. Now, it's been a pretty bad week for top

00:08flight referees in England, with a video emerging which purportedly shows Premier League referee

00:13David Coote using some choice language to describe Liverpool, and in particular, former

00:17manager Jürgen Klopp. Coote's been suspended pending an investigation. Jason, I think we

00:22can all agree, if the video is genuine, then he probably wasn't very clever to allow himself

00:26to be filmed making such comments. But is there any part of you that has a little bit

00:30of sympathy for his thoughts, particularly on Klopp? Because to my mind, the way that

00:34officials, particularly fourth officials, are treated to get spoken to by a lot of managers

00:39can be pretty shocking at times.

00:41Yeah, I think, I mean, first and foremost, what is he doing? You know, I think we can

00:49all agree, what are you doing? Allowing yourself to be filmed saying those things is just absolutely

00:56ludicrous and unprofessional to the nth degree. And I agree with you on the point

01:01that I think that some of the hesitators say abuse, but the excessive criticism that officials

01:10come in for is, yeah, completely out of line. I think that we almost have a tendency to

01:15forget that they are people with emotions and feelings. And that, you know, they are

01:21inevitably going to have lines that, when crossed, are going to lead to express frustrations,

01:27however unadvisable that might be. The one thing I would say, where I do sort of have

01:33some sympathy for him, is that, look, everybody works with people. Sometimes you're going

01:41to work with people who you don't get on with, who you don't particularly care for.

01:45Is there a comment on anyone in this call, Jason?

01:48I'm not naming any names, Matthew. I'm not naming any names. But genuinely though, like,

01:53you know, in a workplace environment, and that's ultimately where he comes across someone

01:59like a Jurgen Klopp, you're not always going to be best buddies with everybody. You're

02:02going to have people who you clash with. You're going to have personalities that don't quite

02:06click with yours. And you're going to have people who you actually think are just a bit

02:09rotten. That's going to happen. The big question here is, does it, or has it in the past, affected

02:18his ability to be professional? Has it negatively impacted the way that he has officiated Liverpool

02:23matches? That is a different question. He is allowed to dislike Jurgen Klopp. He's allowed

02:29to have any opinion of anybody that he wants. I probably shouldn't express them, but what

02:33appears to be an afters at seven in the morning on someone's couch, but whatever. But that

02:39being said, as long as it doesn't impact the way that he does his job, the way that he

02:43conducts himself, then it's kind of a non issue. Like, obviously he's going to be dragged

02:49across the course of this. Obviously he's probably going to serve some sort of suspension

02:52if it does turn out to be real. I've seen people on the internet talking about deep

02:56fakes. I feel, you know, if you had that technology at your fingertips is the first person you'd

03:00go after is David Coutt. I'm not too sure, but anyway. But it does come down to that,

03:07you know, like if he's doing his job properly, he's allowed to dislike people. He's going

03:11to be suspended, potentially banned, all of those sorts of things, kind of understandably

03:16so. But I really do think that it's, it's maybe being made out to be a much, much bigger

03:21issue than it actually is.

03:23Oh, what are your thoughts, Mark? Because is there any way to make the relationship

03:28between referees and managers and players and so on less antagonistic? Because it is

03:33creating problems like this. And as Jason said, I mean, it can potentially could cause

03:37an issue with making, you know, referees, you know, unconsciously biased in the decisions

03:42they're making if they do have an issue with the players or managers they're working with.

03:45And I think, you know, almost all of us would find ourselves struggling to be as even handed

03:51as we'd like if we were busy getting, having someone screaming in our face every five minutes,

03:55you know, I mean, do you think there is a way to sort this out basically to tone the

03:59situation down?

04:01Just communication. Just got to talk more and talk sensibly and have adult conversations

04:05rather than having managers talk down to referees or, and I've got to be honest, this works

04:10two ways, by the way, because I've seen referees and we could name referees on here if we wanted

04:15to, we won't, but we could, who consistently talk down to, to players, to managers, to

04:20assistants, to anyone. So I just feel it's, it's time for everyone involved in the game

04:26to have, you know, adult conversations and grown up conversations about where we're going

04:31here with this relationship. Look, let's be honest. And I'll bring this down to grassroots.

04:36We couldn't have the game without referees, without officials. So there has to be a degree

04:39of respect, but this goes all the way to grassroots. Again, respect has to work both ways. What

04:45I will say on Coop himself, two things really, one, it's incredibly naive what he's done.

04:51Incredibly naive. And secondly, it's quite unfortunate that he and other officials, I

04:58guess, that have been caught out in the past with maybe not stuff like this, but certainly

05:02wearing football tops of certain clubs and stuff like that. They're almost doing it like

05:07Union stands at Trammere. It's also, it's that element of that. They can't trust anyone.

05:16And that's quite sad to work in an environment where you can't trust anyone, even, you know,

05:21whoever this is with Kuda, if it is a friend, then that's even more unfortunate. But I just

05:26think, yeah, going back to the original question, it really is a case of everyone sitting down

05:31and talking about it properly, working through issues properly. It's maybe highlighted something

05:38a bit more deep rooted within the game, within the relationship between officials and everyone

05:42else.

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