IF the best referees in the world are making glaring errors, what does it say about match officials at the lower rungs of football? For quite some time, I have been forced to hear coaches and officials lament at poor refereeing decisions in the M-League but these complaints must always be taken with a pinch of salt.
For the most part, refereeing mistakes are part of the game and we have learned to live with them, and mostly these complaints can be written off as sour grapes.
But a recent incident at a President's Cup match has forced me to re-evaluate my take on Malaysian referees.
The FA of Malaysia is fond of waxing lyrical about Malaysian refereeing standards after Subkhidin Salleh was selected to officiate at the World Cup, but it now appears that Subkhidin is the exception among Malaysian referees.
Refereeing mistakes tend to usually be errors in judgement, whether a tackle was bad or not or whether a particular offence warranted a red more than a yellow card or whether a penalty should have been given.
But what happened on Monday in the game between Kuala Lumpur and Bukit Jalil Sports School A shocked me to the core.
Here was a referee who made not an error of judgement but a grave error in law, something you would not expect from a certified FAM match official.
The referee awarded a debatable penalty to Bukit Jalil with the score at 0-0 and sent off the KL skipper, who had been booked earlier, for protesting the decision.
That was not the problem as it is the referee's right to take action as he saw fit.
When the penalty was taken, it hit the post without the goalkeeper touching it. The penalty taker latched on to the rebound, tried to bring the ball under control and was brought down again, so the referee awarded another penalty much to the surprise of everyone at the stadium.
Here was an example of an obvious infringement of the laws of football and the referee's failure to award KL a free-kick when the penalty taker touched the ball again without anyone else touching it was diabolical, to put it mildly.
Law 14 clearly states "the player taking the penalty kicks the ball forward and he does not play the ball a second time until it has touched another player.
"If, after the penalty kick has been taken, the kicker touches the ball a second time... before it has touched another player, an indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team."
As referees do not explain their decisions afterwards, we will never know what this referee was thinking.
The referee's failure to adhere to this law goes against the grain of FAM's high assessment of its referees.
Worst still, this problem will continue to fester and the referee concerned will go on to make even more mistakes as his performance is not be subject to evaluation.
Why? Because in the start list for that match, the box for "penilai pengadil" (referee assessor) was blank. And this is how referees are developed in Malaysia - NST
Read more: Comment: When referees don't know the rules http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/40jie/Article/index_html#ixzz0t0PKbbjA
IF the best referees in the world are making glaring errors, what does it say about match officials at the lower rungs of football? For quite some time, I have been forced to hear coaches and officials lament at poor refereeing decisions in the M-League but these complaints must always be taken with a pinch of salt.
For the most part, refereeing mistakes are part of the game and we have learned to live with them, and mostly these complaints can be written off as sour grapes.
But a recent incident at a President's Cup match has forced me to re-evaluate my take on Malaysian referees.
The FA of Malaysia is fond of waxing lyrical about Malaysian refereeing standards after Subkhidin Salleh was selected to officiate at the World Cup, but it now appears that Subkhidin is the exception among Malaysian referees.
Refereeing mistakes tend to usually be errors in judgement, whether a tackle was bad or not or whether a particular offence warranted a red more than a yellow card or whether a penalty should have been given.
But what happened on Monday in the game between Kuala Lumpur and Bukit Jalil Sports School A shocked me to the core.
Here was a referee who made not an error of judgement but a grave error in law, something you would not expect from a certified FAM match official.
The referee awarded a debatable penalty to Bukit Jalil with the score at 0-0 and sent off the KL skipper, who had been booked earlier, for protesting the decision.
That was not the problem as it is the referee's right to take action as he saw fit.
When the penalty was taken, it hit the post without the goalkeeper touching it. The penalty taker latched on to the rebound, tried to bring the ball under control and was brought down again, so the referee awarded another penalty much to the surprise of everyone at the stadium.
Here was an example of an obvious infringement of the laws of football and the referee's failure to award KL a free-kick when the penalty taker touched the ball again without anyone else touching it was diabolical, to put it mildly.
Law 14 clearly states "the player taking the penalty kicks the ball forward and he does not play the ball a second time until it has touched another player.
"If, after the penalty kick has been taken, the kicker touches the ball a second time... before it has touched another player, an indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team."
As referees do not explain their decisions afterwards, we will never know what this referee was thinking.
The referee's failure to adhere to this law goes against the grain of FAM's high assessment of its referees.
Worst still, this problem will continue to fester and the referee concerned will go on to make even more mistakes as his performance is not be subject to evaluation.
Why? Because in the start list for that match, the box for "penilai pengadil" (referee assessor) was blank. And this is how referees are developed in Malaysia - NST
Read more: Comment: When referees don't know the rules http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/40jie/Article/index_html#ixzz0t0PKbbjA
4 comments:
Rizal,
Your blog is starting to look crappy! How about getting in some good reading stuff, instead of the rubbish you have been posting of late?
You are spot on Mr. Anon 7:34. Normally this blog will be the first to read, however it's turn the other way round for me of late..
XABI ALONSO
LARKIN
IF the best referees in the world are making glaring errors, what does it say about match officials at the lower rungs of football?
For quite some time, I have been forced to hear coaches and officials lament at poor refereeing decisions in the M-League but these complaints must always be taken with a pinch of salt.
For the most part, refereeing mistakes are part of the game and we have learned to live with them, and mostly these complaints can be written off as sour grapes.
But a recent incident at a President's Cup match has forced me to re-evaluate my take on Malaysian referees.
The FA of Malaysia is fond of waxing lyrical about Malaysian refereeing standards after Subkhidin Salleh was selected to officiate at the World Cup, but it now appears that Subkhidin is the exception among Malaysian referees.
Refereeing mistakes tend to usually be errors in judgement, whether a tackle was bad or not or whether a particular offence warranted a red more than a yellow card or whether a penalty should have been given.
But what happened on Monday in the game between Kuala Lumpur and Bukit Jalil Sports School A shocked me to the core.
Here was a referee who made not an error of judgement but a grave error in law, something you would not expect from a certified FAM match official.
The referee awarded a debatable penalty to Bukit Jalil with the score at 0-0 and sent off the KL skipper, who had been booked earlier, for protesting the decision.
That was not the problem as it is the referee's right to take action as he saw fit.
When the penalty was taken, it hit the post without the goalkeeper touching it. The penalty taker latched on to the rebound, tried to bring the ball under control and was brought down again, so the referee awarded another penalty much to the surprise of everyone at the stadium.
Here was an example of an obvious infringement of the laws of football and the referee's failure to award KL a free-kick when the penalty taker touched the ball again without anyone else touching it was diabolical, to put it mildly.
Law 14 clearly states "the player taking the penalty kicks the ball forward and he does not play the ball a second time until it has touched another player.
"If, after the penalty kick has been taken, the kicker touches the ball a second time... before it has touched another player, an indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team."
As referees do not explain their decisions afterwards, we will never know what this referee was thinking.
The referee's failure to adhere to this law goes against the grain of FAM's high assessment of its referees.
Worst still, this problem will continue to fester and the referee concerned will go on to make even more mistakes as his performance is not be subject to evaluation.
Why? Because in the start list for that match, the box for "penilai pengadil" (referee assessor) was blank. And this is how referees are developed in Malaysia - NST
Read more: Comment: When referees don't know the rules http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/40jie/Article/index_html#ixzz0t0PKbbjA
IF the best referees in the world are making glaring errors, what does it say about match officials at the lower rungs of football?
For quite some time, I have been forced to hear coaches and officials lament at poor refereeing decisions in the M-League but these complaints must always be taken with a pinch of salt.
For the most part, refereeing mistakes are part of the game and we have learned to live with them, and mostly these complaints can be written off as sour grapes.
But a recent incident at a President's Cup match has forced me to re-evaluate my take on Malaysian referees.
The FA of Malaysia is fond of waxing lyrical about Malaysian refereeing standards after Subkhidin Salleh was selected to officiate at the World Cup, but it now appears that Subkhidin is the exception among Malaysian referees.
Refereeing mistakes tend to usually be errors in judgement, whether a tackle was bad or not or whether a particular offence warranted a red more than a yellow card or whether a penalty should have been given.
But what happened on Monday in the game between Kuala Lumpur and Bukit Jalil Sports School A shocked me to the core.
Here was a referee who made not an error of judgement but a grave error in law, something you would not expect from a certified FAM match official.
The referee awarded a debatable penalty to Bukit Jalil with the score at 0-0 and sent off the KL skipper, who had been booked earlier, for protesting the decision.
That was not the problem as it is the referee's right to take action as he saw fit.
When the penalty was taken, it hit the post without the goalkeeper touching it. The penalty taker latched on to the rebound, tried to bring the ball under control and was brought down again, so the referee awarded another penalty much to the surprise of everyone at the stadium.
Here was an example of an obvious infringement of the laws of football and the referee's failure to award KL a free-kick when the penalty taker touched the ball again without anyone else touching it was diabolical, to put it mildly.
Law 14 clearly states "the player taking the penalty kicks the ball forward and he does not play the ball a second time until it has touched another player.
"If, after the penalty kick has been taken, the kicker touches the ball a second time... before it has touched another player, an indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team."
As referees do not explain their decisions afterwards, we will never know what this referee was thinking.
The referee's failure to adhere to this law goes against the grain of FAM's high assessment of its referees.
Worst still, this problem will continue to fester and the referee concerned will go on to make even more mistakes as his performance is not be subject to evaluation.
Why? Because in the start list for that match, the box for "penilai pengadil" (referee assessor) was blank. And this is how referees are developed in Malaysia - NST
Read more: Comment: When referees don't know the rules http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/40jie/Article/index_html#ixzz0t0PKbbjA
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