Sunday 20 September 2009

Where do referees buy their watches from?

So you get to the 90th minute of a Football match at Old Trafford. The physio hasn't been on the field once in the match. United are playing better, but City have just scored to come back to 3-3. The 4th official holds up a board to indicate that there will be 4 mins of injury time.

Five and a half minutes later, Michael Owen scores the winner for United. There were 2 substitions, but no injuries. I've no issue with Owens goal, it was well taken, but why hold up a board if you are going to play one and a half minutes extra. Sure I'm a City fan, sure I'm bitter as hell, but that isn't the point. The point is that there were no injuries. There were no incidents where the physio came on and there was no blatant timewasting. I've seen games where the physio has been on a few times, there's been blatent timewasting and there's been less than five and a half minutes. What is the point having that board? How do they add the time? These days the officials are well paid. Is it too much to ask them to do the job properly? I think that the sign which says how much injury time is a complete waste of space. In the premiership, I'd like to see a proper timekeeper and a countdown display saying how long to go. The refs are wired up and he could tell the timekeeper to add time for timewasting etc. That way it would be fair and transparent.

As to the Old Trafford fiasco - the fact Fergie was laughing and joking with the linesman said it all. He knew that the officials had done him a favour.

1 comment:

Don't Call Me Dave said...

Fair? Transparent? Are you from another planet Rog?