h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What do people think about the new improved professional referees.

For some reason for the last few seasons I wanted profession referees, but now I realise It's the same people making the same number of mistakes, but just getting paid more. Perhaps it will sort itself out over time.

I'm not sure I agree with relegating a ref instantly after a bad match. Perhaps their should be a season for refs, with relegation and promotion at the end of it.

To be honest I can't really see any difference so far, except of course for the punishment meeted out for poor performance. All I really want out of a referee is some consistency in decision making and to keep the flow of the game going. What I don't want is decisions made from 20 million different camera angles and the game stopping every 20 seconds whilst the officals hold a mothers meeting to decide exactly what the infringement is, vis American Football.

Of course mistakes are going to be made. The poor bloke is only human and can't be everywhere at once with an all seeing eye. I say just accept that fact and move on.

I thought the title said Oil Referee, which brought strange images to my mind, of which no more will be said.

I've always found that the ref gets it right much more often than I do, even after a replay or two. Two of my cousins are qualified as refs for kids' matches and they both say that you have no idea how hard it is until you've tried it. The hardest bit is thinking quickly but carefully about everything.

This promotion and relegation thing has been blown out of all proportion. I actually believe the FA (or is it the league?) when they say it's just to get the bloke out of the limelight because whenever I've heard a ref interviewed he's never said that working in the Nationwide is 'worse' than the Premiership. After all, they don't even get paid less these days. If professionalism does make a difference it will be gradual, but hopefully good.

Using TV replays will only work if they're fast. You'd have to decide when they could be used and when they couldn't, bearing in mind that the tiniest things can turn a game. And you would have to have different rules for games with no cameras. The refs in these games would have to be up to today's standards, but the ones in the level above would be (if you go to extremes) just mouthpieces, which would be an odd situation, to say the least.

On televised games, the replay of a bad challange or a bad decission is shown about 10 seconds after the accident. If the referee could see the replay as fast as that, replaying a decision would not be a bad idea. Also, anybody who hassles the referee should get an imediate yellow card. You only have to see the way that Man Utd players hassled Andy D'Urso last season !