Ex-Premier League referee Graham Poll has sat down in an exclusive interview with Casinos En Ligne.
Poll believes Sepp Blatter was right and VAR is making things worse for referees, and also reveals the worst Premier League referring decision of the season so far.
If you want to use the quotes from this interview, you MUST credit Casinos En Ligne and link to https://casinosenligne.com
Key stories from the interview:
- Mike Dean and Anthony Taylor at fault for worst mistake of the season
- Sepp Blatter was right, VAR is making things worse for referees
- Agrees with Alan Shearer ‘bring back common sense refereeing’
- Premier League haven’t got VAR right, Webb has to bring in much needed changes
- Referees should give post-match interviews
Full Transcript
Question: Do you believe Marcus Rashford’s goal in the Manchester derby should have been disallowed?
Graham Poll: “This is an interesting topic because when things are black or white it’s very easy to analyse but this incident certainly isn’t. The assistant referee was Darren Cann, who is the most experienced assistant referee in the Premier League. He did the World Cup final with Howard Webb in 2010, so he’s one of the best in the business. Then reviewing the incident on VAR you’ve got Michael Oliver, who is the number one referee in the country. So you look at it and think surely they’ve got to get it right. Rashford doesn’t touch the ball so that’s one of the criteria ticked off. He is in an offside position when the pass is played so that’s clear as well.
“So it hinges on whether he is affecting the opponents with his positioning. I can argue from my perspective that he doesn’t. I know Manuel Akanji said he stopped to play Rashford offside. Well that’s a mistake by Akanji not Darren Cann or Michael Oliver because the ball could’ve got swept 10 yards further left and then Rashford’s position is irrelevant so that’s a red herring for me. You can’t argue that Ederson is affected by Rashford approaching at the angle that he’s bearing down on goal from. I don’t believe that a referee who is totally engrossed in refereeing would necessarily look at that at the time. If I had been refereeing I’d like it to have been given offside and if under review VAR said to rule it out I’d have said ‘that’s fine thank you very much’.
“This is where VAR goes wrong because we try to get everything 100% correct and be 100% consistent but football isn’t black and white. If I go back to when Sepp Blatter was in charge, he was totally against technology being introduced for this very reason. At the time I thought that was an outdated view but looking at it now VAR hasn’t taken away confusion or doubt or inconsistency and you could even argue that it’s made it worse. So the reason I’d have wanted to see this goal disallowed is that it’s the most obvious decision to give. If you did a straw poll of players, managers and referees I think most would say they want it disallowed.
Q: Were the officials influenced by the fact that the match was being played at Old Trafford?
GP: “You sound like Pep! “We know where we’re playing and we know what happens here”. It’s scandalous to suggest that. You’ve got the most decorated and recognised assistant referee. He doesn’t care where he’s doing the game. They give what they believe is the correct decision, not the most obvious or easiest decision. In their absolute heart of hearts they believe the decision they’ve made is correct and you have to admire the cojones of making that decision even if they know they’ll get flack for it.”
Q: Are referees allowed to use their common sense enough in situations like the Rashford one?
GP: “What people want is consistency. The only way you can get that is by taking out the vagaries and being more dictatorial which is what FIFA have gradually done to the laws of the game over the last 20 years. They’ve taken out ‘in the opinion of the referee’. This is where it’s being spoiled in my view. We have to watch a reply for 90 seconds to decide whether he was offside by a millimetre or not for example. That’s ruining the game. When I used to do analysis for BT Sport I could give an answer in 5 seconds or say ‘that’s too close to call’.”
Q: Were you impressed with the ref in the North London Derby yesterday?
GP: “He went in with a low key approach which is popular as long as it works. For me Sergio Romero should have been sent off. He was involved in too many incidents which were highlighted by the Sky Sports commentary team saying ‘he could be off here and if not this time he’s got to go next time’. He then made another two or three clear fouls and he was very lucky to stay in the pitch in my view. However because Arsenal won 2-0 the Arsenal fans don’t care and that’s how a referee can get lucky.”
Q: Was Ivan Toney fortunate to be awarded a penalty for Brentford vs Bournemouth and should it have been a free kick the other way?
GP: “I think when you see it at full speed on first viewing it looks like a penalty. Then when you see it back in slow motion you can see Toney traps the defender’s arm between his own arm and body but it’s not a clear and obvious error so VAR can’t overturn it. Maybe it’s 60% Toney backing in and trapping the arm. I’m sure Brentford fans will argue it’s a penalty and I wouldn’t disagree.”
Q: Bobby Reid was awarded a penalty for Fulham by VAR but the referee didn’t see one TV angle that suggested he initiated the contact. What did you make of that?
GP: “I thought it looked more like a penalty than not but if it’s not given on the pitch I question how clear and obvious the error really was in order for it to be overturned. He looked at a number of angles but I don’t know if he saw the critical one. I don’t think the Premier League have got it right yet on VAR. Looking back at the World Cup VAR incidents were resolved more quickly in general and it was more consistent. But in the Premier League it’s still not there yet. Whether that is because of the instructions Mike Riley is giving and him being cautious I don’t know but knowing his character that’s possible. Howard Webb is coming in and he’s got masses of experience with VAR from his time in America as well as doing TV work with BT Sport. So he’s a very much more experienced guy in that field so I think we’ll see some much needed changes soon.”
Q: Are you pleased that Howard Webb is taking over from Mike Riley then?
GP: “Yeah I think so. Firstly, without question the job is a tough one. Whilst in theory you’re working independently for the PGMOL, they themselves are beholden principally to the Premier League as well as the FA and the Football League. When Richard Scudamore was in charge of the Premier League he was pulling more strings in the PGMOL than anyone else. I know that as referees we used to have to make sure that Ricahrd was happy and that’s when refereeing became a bit softer. We had to be accepting of small fouls, don’t caution everybody, understand the excesses of players etc.
“I’m not a fan of the style of refereeing at the moment, it’s a bit too weak for me. As a result of that you’re getting more and more incidents where referees are surrounded. Managers are getting over involved. Look at Arteta yesterday having recently faced two charges, one of which was for him yet he was still outside his technical area all the time and even entered the field of play. It’s not seen as a problem any more but if you let the small things go they become bigger and bigger. So I’m hoping Howard comes in with a fresh eye and tightens things up. I’m not saying I want to see five red cards in a game but things need to be stepped up and hopefully they will be.”
Q: Do you think there needs to be a clampdown on players surrounding and intimidating referees?
GP: “There definitely should be. When I was refereeing they brought in stipulation to say if more than four players from one team surrounded a referee then we were to report them. So it was a fact there were no opinions. Referees have an issue about not wanting to look like they’re being intimidated. So a team will be warned for a first offence and then charged. That to me is a good way of clearing these situations up without the ref having get flustered and look all pinickity.”
Q: How did Pep Guardiola get away with kicking the water bottle at the Leeds bench?
GP: “As he would say: ‘You know who he is and you know who he manages’. How do you conclude otherwise? Yes he didn’t hit anyone. Doesn’t matter. No he didn’t hurt anyone. Doesn’t matter. That’s irrelevant. Did he do wrong? Yes. I can’t explain why he wasn’t charged.”
Q: Should the Premier League increase stoppage time as per FIFA’s directive in the World Cup?
GP: “No. I was If you signal to players that we’re going to add on as much time as it takes, the theory behind that is that they’ll think there’s no point in me wasting time because the time will just be added on anyway. But it doesn’t work like that because it’s ingrained. A manager like Jose Mourinho who was a master of the dark arts would utilise that to his benefit massively. When his teams were under pressure they would waste as much time as they could get away with. It’s a tactic to break up play. But what the referees should be doing is cautioning players for time wasting. And if they do it again they should be sent off. Why are we ignoring one of the laws of the game and just saying we’ll fudge that and just add the time on? It breaks up play and the game loses its momentum.”
Q: Is there a specific law that you would change or perhaps one that you’d want to introduce?
GP: “I think the laws of the game as written if applied properly and consistently are absolutely fine. It’s just that they’re not. People are allowed to get away with things. It’s minor things and silly things like foul throws. You might say does it matter? But it’s a signal that laws do matter. The number of substitutions keep on increasing and all that does is give people the chance to waste more time. Most subs are made in the last five minutes of play, not for injuries, yes for tactical reasons but mainly to just waste time. The law that a goalkeeper can only hold the ball for six seconds is another one. Keepers are never penalised. Ramsdale was magnificent yesterday but as soon as he catches the ball he falls to the ground. He then waves all the players up. They all do it. It’s infuriating.”
Q: Is there an element of fear among officials that they are at risk of being assaulted like Ramsdale was by a Tottenham fan?
GP: “I think more so among assistant referees than referees because of their proximity to the crowd. His or her position is dictated by play, whereas a referee can choose where to run and can stay more central in terms of his position if he wants. In the Premier League it’s very unlikely to happen but it’s down to policing and stewarding to reinforce that barrier between supporters and the playing area and sadly that didn’t happen at Tottenham on Sunday. There’s no excuse for that fan to do what he did and Tottenham have said they’ll find him and ban him and the police might do even more than that. It’s down the pyramid where local referees go out in fear on a regular basis which is abhorrent and horrible because they’re outnumbered and on their own. All it takes is one overly aggressive person to spark a situation and sadly there are many assaults on local referees. If you start from the top and look at managers who will often blame a bad result on the referee which leads to a culture where we all blame the referee. That cascades down the pyramid with the narrative of ‘It’s the referees fault.’ You see Anthony Taylor being labelled the most hated referee but that’s scandalous that he’s been labelled as that.”
Q: What’s been the worst refereeing mistake of the season so far?
GP: “Sergio Romero pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair going unpunished. To me that was one of the most obvious red cards you’ll see. Anthony Taylor was refereeing and didn’t see it. Mike Dean was the VAR official and I know he’s since said I got it wrong and said I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough.”
Q: Would you like to see referees explain their decisions after a game?
GP: “I think if referees came out and gave a fair and balanced post-match interview we’d see them more as human beings and we’d understand the difficulties they have with making decisions. I came out a few times and gave interviews on Sky, not to claim that I was always right but to give my side of how I saw an incident in the hope that people would hear my side and think OK fair enough. Because an incident can look totally different from two different angles. You have to accept that I might have got it wrong but from my angle it looked like a red card. I remember giving a penalty to Newcastle for a foul by Sol Campbell on Alan Shearer but straightaway Shearer came up to me and said that was never a penalty. Now you’ve got VAR which is designed to help in that situation.”
Q: Is it a good idea for referees to wear bodycams?
GP: “100% yes. This is nothing new. Twenty years ago refs were being mic’d up and we wanted to make it public. That’s what they were doing in rugby at the time. The first thing they said was if a player comes at you just say you’re on the mic. So they know and it tempered their response to you. But it was turned down by the PFA at the time because they didn’t want their members exposed unfairly. But you think if you don’t want to be exposed then don’t behave like that. Back to 2023, yes a bodycam is a great idea. Players aren’t sent off anymore for foul and abusive language any time because it’s apparently part and parcel of the game. We were told not to be so sensitive and not to give red cards for it. We were told to calm the player down which goes against the laws of the game really.”
Q: Are referees fairly compensated for the stress and pressure of the job? Should they be paid more?
GP: “I think what you have to look at is would the standard improve if we paid them more money? Refs probably earn in a year what the top players earn in a few days. Would players respect refs more if they were paid more? You’d have to ask a player that. I was taunted with ‘how much do you get paid’ by millionaire players. But you can’t pay refs millions because we’re not here to watch refs, they’re just here to facilitate a game of football. I think if you’ve refereed for 10 or 12 years in the Premier League you shouldn’t be scratching around to earn a living once you’ve stepped down, that’s for sure.”
Q: How did Pierluigi Collina become arguably the most respected referee in the history of the sport?
GP: “Pierluigi was given a gift at the age of 26 when he got alopecia. He says this himself. He showed us photos of him when he was young when he had loads of hair and no one could recognise him. He said see I’m just normal here with hair. He said once he went bald he became very recognisable and it gave him this image. He used to say 90% of his job was done before he even stepped on the pitch which to me is incredible. Reputation counts for so much. And if he made a mistake he was still a good referee who made a mistake, not a bad referee.”
Q: Is it a concern that there’s a lack of young referees coming through?
GP: “We’re not seeing many young referees coming though that’s true but I don’t mind if a ref is young, old, female or male we just want the best referees that we can get. I always say if there were 20 ex-Premier League footballers who wanted to become referees and do the job better than me, I’d be more than happy to step down a level and say go on then because it’s about the match being refereed well. It’s a fact that an ex-player who played at the top level understands the game better than a referee no matter how much they might have studied the game. If you accept that then equally how can former players openly criticise referees when they’ve nerve refereed. It works both ways.”
Q: Could that open a can of worms because ex-players might have grudges against some teams from their playing days?
GP: “Personally I could go out and referee any team without being affected. If I had any sense of bias I shouldn’t be out there. Mark Clattenburg for example is a massive Newcastle United fan so he couldn’t referee them and then if they were in a relegation battle he wasn’t allowed to officiate any of the last six matches of the season because it can impact Newcastle. So it’s tricky from that perspective.”
Q: Is there a lack of diversity among referees?
GP: “Interesting question. Uriah Rennie was a super referee and I recall him saying he was the only black referee on his training course. It was a difficult situation to step into but he was a massive character and he could deal with that. When you look at the percentage of black players you think it seems incongruous that there’s so few black referees. If people don’t want to referee they don’t want to referee. You get a lot of abuse as a referee anyway, I can’t imagine what it would be like as a black referee and be potentially subjected to racist abuse on top of that.”
Q: How did you rate the standard of refereeing at the Qatar World Cup?
GP: Overall I felt it was good I thought. The selection process means the vast majority of referees at the tournament are very competent. The Brazilian ref at the England vs France quarter-final it’s probably fair to say didn’t have his best game. There was a clear foul on Saka in the build up to France’s first goal, that’s a fact. It wasn’t a World Cup dominated by major refereeing controversies as others have been in the past so overall yeah I felt it was good. I was delighted to see the Polish referee Szymon Marciniak get given the final. I thought Michael Oliver was excellent at Croatia vs Brazil and was unlucky not to be given a game further on in the tournament.
