[bababui]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

I think on a whole ref's are poorer than they have ever been, even English ref's who I rate as the best are few and far between. Also imo a couple of things have helped the downfall of referee quality, 1 would be the advent of wall to wall tv coverage were every decision by the ref is replayed time and time again in slow mo super slo mo and different angle's, a ref as one chance to view that incident that happens 100 miles an hour. Another one is the constant pressure they are under from players, fans and tv and this comes also down to the ammount of money involved in football.

Another thing you have to take into consideration is that in International competition is they use refs from all over the world and sorry to say that refs from the lesser countries are not up to scratch be it technical or nerve wise to make decisions in front of 80,000 fans screaming for blood or the top players getting into their face to get somebody sent off. The players also don't help the ref with constant moaning and diving (cheating), an example of that being Landon Donovan last night who got Pique yellow carded for a blatant dive in the last minutes of the game.

I do give the English refs credit for being more generous. They allow players three yellows before bringing out the red.