Why would the Football League admit to this?

[ARLukomski]

It's like if EMR had admitted the percentage of times a train actually set off on time from Nottingham station. It's only going to cause negative fan reaction. Already this season Notts have been on the end of poor officiating, as mentioned by Luke Williams at the fan forum.

Sutton (A) - Joe Kizzi leans in with his elbow and gets away with it

Grimsby (H) - Aaron Nemane getting booked for taking too long with a throw, despite us being 1-0 down

Salford (A) - Aden Baldwin being kicked to bits in the first-half and Salford were just allowed to get away with it. The referee making it all about him in the last 15 minutes, handing out 8 yellow cards, 2 of them second yellows, resulting in Kevin Berkoe (Salford) and Aaron Nemane (Notts) being sent off

Wrexham (H) - Paul Mullin does some Lucha Libre spin kick on Jodi Jones and doesn't get sent off for kicking out, with it being right infront of the linesmen. Jodi somehow gets booked despite being the one that's kicked

Crewe (A) - Take your pick. Shilow Tracey diving in the penalty area within the first 5 minutes, Aaron Rowe, Joe White and Conor Thomas also taking tumbles to the floor after barely being nudged. The linesmen being completely behind play all game, culminating in Courtney Baker-Richardson and Ryan Cooney both being offside for an attack late on in which the lino doesn't start running from the half way line, until after the ball had reached Cooney. 

Bradford (H) - Aden Baldwin taking it past 2 players and then being upended, for which the Bradford player doesn't even receive a booking. Bradford committed 12 fouls in the game and didn't get a single yellow card, whilst we received 3.  

Wimbledon (A) - Isaac Ogundere manhandling Jodi Jones all the way through the second-half and not receiving a booking

Harrogate (A) - Brindley and Nemane taken out after the ball had gone but both times, the referee failed to caution the Harrogate players. Baldwin gets shoved in the back with nothing given, allowing Chicksen to play Harrogate in for their third.

This might seem like sour grapes but Luke Williams has mentioned it before. The officiating is inconsistent and in my opinion, the lack of common sense used is unacceptable.

Any others you can remember?

 

[liampie]

great post @ARLukomski!

the stats the efl mention probably suite the message they want people to believe because unless the game was captured fully, then who is to say they are correct or not? a foul could have been committed before one is given, so many times we see officials miss incidents. i dont think it sounds like sour grapes because i suspect it happens to every club except for wrexham.

salford were dirty, i thought the officials in that game missed no end of incidents in their attempt to keep the game playing. quickly is was stopped when on the other foot but clubs like them get it due to their owners.

[Piethagoram]

May have been the Walsall game, where one of our players was rugby tackled to the ground? 

[B&Wstripes]

The figure of 85% will undoubtedly appeal to the EFL board. The remaining 15% being attributed to human error seems reasonable, as everyone is prone to making mistakes.

[Chris]

@Piethagoram Yes, Bradford also did it. I think they are mistaken what game they were playing due to their shirt's looking like they belong more in rugby than football.

This is all about the EFL trying to highlight that improvements are being made in the officiating department.

I can't say I have noticed any significant improvements, outside the Premier League officials are very average. Incidents will be missed, but by the EFL reporting that they aren't making as many is just a weird statement. I doubt it's 85%, because it would make a lot more sense to be within the 50% 60% simply due to human error.

This doesn't fit their agenda though.

[Joshua]

The only explanation could be that they view the statistic as a point of pride. Perhaps they believe it indicates progress, or, more delusional, they might think the officials are of a higher standard than they actually are. I’m not sure, as stats can be interpreted in various ways.

[eighteensixtytwo]

The percentage seems impressive at first glance, but the problem is they haven’t explained how they arrived at this figure. They can’t base it on game highlights or live footage. Similarly, the fourth official’s reports can’t be considered in this context.

[KingMaynard]

I’m unsure, but I don’t believe 85% is satisfactory. Officials should aim for at least a 10% improvement to consider it acceptable.

[RetroPie]

The quality will never be top-notch due to human mistakes, but to claim it’s nearly perfect through a statistic isn’t really football, is it? If you remove the incorrect decisions, wouldn’t football become dull? It does give us something to discuss after all. I know we’d all like to live in a world where decisions always favour us, but that’s neither realistic nor expected.

[Robbie]

VAR has actually made things worse in the Premier league.No one I know likes this system at all. I wouldn't like to see VAR introduced in the EFL.

I say Leave it to the Referees. When a decision goes against us it's a talking point for a while but we move on, until the next incident. It's just part of football, it's not perfect, but it's the same in any other officiated sport.

[menzinho]

I do think we’ve been on the end of some bad refereeing at times, but I think you ask any fan in the league and they’d say exactly the same. Think Morecambe fans won’t be too pleased with the penalty decision last night, the defender puts his arm out but doesn’t really grab Nemane, no way in real life does that action make you fall over. I guess for us though it equals out as I thought the penalty for Doncaster wasn’t a foul.

I’d like to see ex-players start refereeing after they retire from playing. Football in this country has so much money, I think the FA should have program specially for lower league players after retiring so they can have a viable career. You’d have players who have been in those moments on the pitch, they know what it takes to knock you of balance, how much force is in a tackle. I think the standard would increase dramatically.

On a slight side note, I don’t think going down the route of constant criticism of refereeing mistakes is the answer either. It’s become the norm now to blame the ref and some of the abuse a lot of referees get specifically at grass roots level is horrific. I play for a Sunday morning team, just for the fun of it and it’s such a low level of football it’s completely meaningless but I can’t believe how many grown men get so upset and angry at the man who’s given up his time to ref it. In our league last season one of the referees got punched by a player and the sad thing is this isn’t even a rare occurrence anymore... It'll definitely have a knock effect in the future, who want to become a ref right now?

[Ohh Tommy Johnson]

On 21/12/2023 at 21:29, eighteensixtytwo said:

The percentage seems impressive at first glance, but the problem is they haven’t explained how they arrived at this figure. They can’t base it on game highlights or live footage. Similarly, the fourth official’s reports can’t be considered in this context.

This - unless you know what a 'correct decision' is, the numbers are meaningless.  For example - if Jones is pulled back constantly and nothing given, is that simply 'no decision', are some decisions and others not, or are they all decisions.  If the play is allowed to go on and no action taken retrospectively, what is the decision - the 'play on' or the taking no action? Is a decision only when a foul is given or the game interrupted?  All these would give wildly different results.

Also, 85% is an average - is that average pulled up by a few very very good officials? How many games (and officials) have less than 85% correct decisions? What is the spread across all the refs? How many decisions do the refs make per game?  15 per game is a lot of bad decisions, but if they only make 20 overall then 3 isn't too bad?  Do they weight how bad a decision is - a wrong decision on a penalty is more impactful than a foul in the centre circle.  

I could go on, but the long and short is that 85% says nothing, other than overall the officials make a number of bad calls per game (which you would expect and we all knew anyway). 

On 30/12/2023 at 12:35, menzinho said:

I do think we’ve been on the end of some bad refereeing at times, but I think you ask any fan in the league and they’d say exactly the same. Think Morecambe fans won’t be too pleased with the penalty decision last night, the defender puts his arm out but doesn’t really grab Nemane, no way in real life does that action make you fall over. I guess for us though it equals out as I thought the penalty for Doncaster wasn’t a foul.

I’d like to see ex-players start refereeing after they retire from playing. Football in this country has so much money, I think the FA should have program specially for lower league players after retiring so they can have a viable career. You’d have players who have been in those moments on the pitch, they know what it takes to knock you of balance, how much force is in a tackle. I think the standard would increase dramatically.

On a slight side note, I don’t think going down the route of constant criticism of refereeing mistakes is the answer either. It’s become the norm now to blame the ref and some of the abuse a lot of referees get specifically at grass roots level is horrific. I play for a Sunday morning team, just for the fun of it and it’s such a low level of football it’s completely meaningless but I can’t believe how many grown men get so upset and angry at the man who’s given up his time to ref it. In our league last season one of the referees got punched by a player and the sad thing is this isn’t even a rare occurrence anymore... It'll definitely have a knock effect in the future, who want to become a ref right now?

I wish pundits would learn the rules themselves and stop the 'he got a touch on the ball so it isn't a foul' nonsense.  It can be both a foul and a touch on the ball. They create a lot of the culture around criticising every decision, and it is interesting that VAR is criticised as much as refs used to be. If the campaign to get rid of VAR succeeds it will only be a matter if time before there are calls to 'use technology' to avoid officiating mistakes.  The issue isn't VAR, it's how they communicate to those in the stadium... but that is a whole different topic!!