"The referees were awful"... again

Every Sunday, almost without fail, the Italian football commentary ends up with the same conclusion - the referees were awful.

Now the truth of the matter is actually the opposite. In most instances, they take perfectly correct decisions in extremely difficult conditions. But all these are overlooked by the commentators in favour of the inevitable handful of errors, which are analysed repeatedly in slow motion in many different TV programmes. The most distasteful aspect of this is those retired referees who get paid easy money to appear on these programmes and issue generally negative judgments on their younger colleagues with the comfortable benefit of video replays. Their conclusion, almost every Sunday - the referees were awful, and Collina (the ex-referee who is in charge of Italian referees) should do something about it.

But, clearly, in the circumstances within which they are asked to perform, today's referees can't improve anymore, in any way. The pace of the game is simply too fast, and it's already incredible how they manage to get most of their decisions right. An advancing attacker is tripped as he enters the box. He falls inside the box, but was he inside when he was tripped? For Italian commentators, an error of judgment in such a situation is considered to be a scandal. An attacker is in an offside position by one centimetre. The attacker is advancing fast. The defender is advancing fast in the opposite direction. Which one of them was closer to the goal line when the ball was passed forward? And was the ball passed towards the attacker who was in an offside position, or towards another attacker who was just onside (in which case the former is deemed to have an "inactive" role) in that instant? The decision needs to be taken in half a second, without the benefit of any replay, in a tense situation being watched by millions of people. And once you've taken a decision, it's practically impossible to change your mind, otherwise you would seem to be undecided. It's mind boggling.

The stakes related to one single decision are often very high, involving millions of euro (in case of relegation, qualifying for the Champions League, qualifying for the World Cup, winning an important trophy), the job of a coach, a footballer's career, or the dreams of millions of fans.

It's useless for referees and football administrators to talk endlessly about improving refereeing standards. Referees are already performing at the limit of human capability, but it's just not good enough. And no, Herr Blatter, football is none the more interesting for it. Refereeing errors, along with violence on and off the pitch, are foremost among the ugliest aspects of football.

There's one, and only one, solution. Football is crying out desperately for the introduction of video replays to help match officials finalise their decisions. In case of a suspected offside, the ref would wave play on and if a goal is scored suspend the award of that goal until he has verified whether it was offside or not. Play is stopped for an offside ONLY if the ref is 100% sure (99% is not good enough) that the attacker is really in an offside position. Both coaches have two chances in each half to "challenge" the refs' decisions, just as happens in tennis and in other sports.

Not only is this possible, but it would drastically reduce important refereeing errors, and the waving on of play and the tactics involved in "challenging" the officials' decisions would actually make football more interesting.

Alas, we need to fervently await Herr Blatter's retirement. For the time being we can only dream on.