Over The Counter Culture

The Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, and his assistant (Carlos Quieroz) are getting hauled before a kangaroo court at the FA for criticizing the referee in their FA Cup match against Portsmouth a few weeks ago, which Portsmouth won to the shock and amazement of many.

The broader context for all this is an ongoing ‘despair’ (forgive my cynicism) of many politicians, managers and players that referees are not getting due respect. This stands in stark contrast to rugby, in which, by and large, the referee is a near-deity, whose word is very much final, and is very rarely second-guessed by players (unlike football where a significant proportion of decisions result in the ref being surrounded and harassed - interrupting the game and angering all involved). It’s understandable that a referee should not be aggressed midgame by players. But a manager can have nothing but sympathy for his players if he can’t air his thoughts once the match has ended.

I’m interested in the  censure of managers and players once the game has ended. What’s the reason for this? The moment the manager turns away from the TV camera, seething but biting his tongue, he’s just going to head into the dressing room and slate the referee. In the pub, the audience will be ostracising the referee. So both the managers, players and audience are having a go. Banning a manager from publicly expressing his anger at a poor refereeing decision is just a charade! Who the hell does it protect? If it’s aimed at instilling a culture of respect, it fails because of the social context in which sport is watched - the audience, future players, all bounce anti-ref rants off one another whether a manager has a go or not.

Maybe if we allowed managers to air the team’s anger after the match, the players wouldn’t feel the need to harangue a ref during it. A manager wouldn’t sympathise with his players - who often get yellow-carded for their trouble (or get a red! e.g. Javier Mascherano last week) - he could have a go, telling them it’s his job to have a go after the match, their job is to play during it.

It’s worth a try, anyway - the censorship of managers is just a pointless charade. Managers would frequently criticise a ref if allowed, but that very fact would stop the media making such a huge story out of it. At the moment, they pounce and prey on it. Every post-match interview will ask a manager what he thought of the ref, despite knowing that the manager can’t say anything bad! Because when he does, it gets splashed across the headlines, and rehashed endlessly until the ensuing disciplinary matter is closed. If it was a common occurrence it wouldn’t be ‘new’ and wouldn’t make the ‘news’.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.