The worst competition in the world is undoubtably the Premier League in terms of young referees trying to refine their skills and also learn from their mistakes. Keith Hackett, a retired official, took to Twitter where he stated: “This is by far the worst group of referees in the life of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited, allowing no accountabilities for errors.
Hackett stated on Twitter that, “The English Premier League is definitely the worst across the globe when it comes to criticism which is due to the immense exposure it has, the publicity it affords, and the rewards available for successful individuals and teams,” Walton stated, who referred from 2003 up until 2012 for the Premier League. “Obviously, fans want the best every time, and that’s exactly what they are getting.
However, there is going to be times when someone makes a horrible mistake. Unfortunately, this is hugely magnified when it comes to the Premier League.
Current Referee Situation
There is a total of 17 referees in the Select Group One who have been assigned to ref Premier League games this season. A total of 7 have experienced less than 100 top-class games, and Walton believes that they should be given more opportunities to get better in the same manner football players are.
“You can’t just walk into a store and select a ready-made referee which you can throw directly into the Premier League,” Simon Walton stated. “Not too long ago, we had a brilliant crop of referees with immense experience. At the moment, we have a mixture of old referees along with inexperienced and young referees, and that’s the primary reason why so many mistakes are surfacing currently. These mistakes are undoubtably happening across the globe, but due to the freshness of the referees, we’re definitely seeing more mistakes than what we are used to. We have referees that might lack experience when it comes to the top level but we need them to improve and get the necessary experience. In the past few years we have searched for younger people to become Football League referees and although they are still young, we can already see huge improvements from them.”
Video Assistant Referee
Keith Hackett also mentioned that a huge mistake was made by the Premier League for not including Video Assistant Referee technology prior to the start of the season. Instead, it’s been trailed and won’t feature in the 2018/19 Premier League campaign. Hackett added, “The Premier League did do something right, and that’s ensuring that before the system is introduced, the operators, referees, and officials know exactly how to operate it,” Walton stated. “ I sincerely hope the work we are doing behind the scenes this year will greatly improve the game next year when it comes to the Premier League. VAR will undoubtably be a fantastic feature. Should a referee make a mistake, the VAR technology will correct the mistakes 9 times out of 10, and that’s exactly what we need with such as a world-renowned tournament.”