EXCLUSIVE: Top EPL Ref Blasts Respect Campaign

You might assume that one of refereeing’s leading lights, Graham Poll, would be a staunch supporter of 'Respect', the Football Association's campaign to address poor behaviour towards referees. In fact, Poll is one of its fiercest critics.

Talking to Goal.com’s Graham Lister, he explained: “The FA said they'd researched the opinions of 11,000 people before embarking on the 'Respect' campaign, but they didn't ask one of the top referees for their views before they brought it in. Referees are the spearhead of it, and yet they didn't even get consulted. It's brought them very much into focus, and referees don't like that. They prefer doing things in the background, contrary to popular belief. Referees want to blend into the background, do their job, and go home - because it's a tough, tough job.”

Power Struggle

Poll claims: “There’s a battle going on between the FA and the Premier League for all sorts of reasons, not just refereeing. You're talking about commercial rights, England players, all that. Refereeing comes way down the pecking order. Professional referees report into Keith Hackett, who works for a spurious body called the PGMOL. [Professional Game Match Officials Limited.] They don't report into the FA. It's the only country in the world where you're not working for the national federation. That's where the issue comes: they’re not reporting into the right body.”

Indeed, Poll claims that the Premier League now runs English football, not the FA, and that the 'Respect' campaign is an attempt to mollify the Premier League, whose clubs don’t want their players sent off and suspended.

The Pressure To Appease The Stars

“This is about appeasement, it's about working together with players and it sounds very good but it is just buying players more time. It's giving more latitude to players' behaviour. So if you're misbehaving, rather than spoil a game by sending you off, the ref gets the captain over and says, 'Tell him, any more of that and I'll have to send him off.'  That actually buys him another opportunity - which to me, isn't right.

“Now a referee's going to draw enormous pressure if, without any reference to captains, he just goes, 'Right, red card, you're off.' The player will say: 'What are you doing, why don't you get the captain over?'  So there's additional pressure on the referee to use an extra disciplinary measure, and it's wrong.

“Way before the 'Respect' campaign, if there was an opportunity for me to talk to a player, and he wouldn't listen, I’d get the captain. I should have sent Wayne Rooney off on February 1, 2005 when he was repeatedly using foul language towards me. I ended up, just before half-time, getting [his captain] Roy Keane over. I said to Roy, 'He's not listening to me, you need to shut him up,' and Roy said, 'Leave it with me.' Second-half, Wayne Rooney never swore. "

F***ing Respect

"So it was working then, it isn't as though we've invented something new. But the 'Respect' campaign is being used as a stick with which you can beat the referee. I hear from former refereeing colleagues that Premier League players are saying to them on the pitch: 'If you want f***ing respect you've got to earn it, but you've got to do f***ing better than that with your decisions.'

“From the fans' point of view and the camera's point of view, if suddenly a red card comes from nowhere, you think, 'Hey, that referee's ruined the game.’ That's the reaction, not, 'Oh, that guy must have been stupid and said the wrong thing.'”

Poll feels that referees should stand up to high-profile players, but that there is pressure on them from the clubs and the media to appease the stars. “If a player from any of the 'Big Four' teams commits a bad foul and you [the referee] send him off, another player comes up and gives you a mouthful, so you send him off as well, so the manager on the touchline goes ballistic, the fourth official calls you over, you put [the manager] in the stand and you stand up for yourself - which is what people are saying referees should be doing.

“You've sent two players off and put the manager in the stand, do the other nine players that are left go, 'We better be quiet and leave that alone'? No, they don't. They surround the referee and give him a hard time. And can you genuinely stand up and go 'OK, you're going off, and you're going off, and actually, the match is abandoned.’ A Premier League match abandoned? It's not going to happen is it?

“That's why there's this quest to appease people, to add empathy, to add understanding and tolerance. But it isn't the answer.”

Penalise With Points Deductions

The answer, according to Poll, is to draw a clear disciplinary line and adhere to it. “For players, there's no certainty that if they are abusive to the referee they will be sent off. They need to understand that yes, they will be red-carded. And the only way of dealing with this is if they see it happen. So the referee needs to start pushing that line further back, and saying, ‘That is a red card, off you go’.

“Then the players need to understand that their reaction needs to be better, so that when a red card happens they don't all suddenly surround the referee. And the FA could deal with that differently. They could say right, more than three players at a referee at any one time will create a huge fine or points deduction. That would make clubs sit up. They're saying they can't because of litigation. But why can't they get all club chairmen to sign up to a charter which says we won’t litigate, we won’t appeal against that, we accept responsibility, we need to make our players behave better so that fans enjoy football.

“The chairmen need to say, ‘OK, if our players surround the referee, you can deduct a point from us. And if it happens twice it's two points, three times three points, etc. Sign up and agree to it. It's a good idea and it works. The chairman tells the manager, ‘You stop the players surrounding the referee or we will lose points. I've signed up to it, and that's it.’ It's simple, but effective.”

-- Graham Lister, Goal.com

Graham Poll is a pundit for the New Football Pools. To challenge Graham’s prediction prowess or to hear his weekly football podcast, visit www.footballpools.com