Overturned: Glory striker Billy Mehmet is sent off by referee Strebre Delovski. Source: Getty Images
By Tom Smithies | The Daily telegraph – 4th January 2012
THE A-League unfurls its Big Wednesday today, and everyone from Harry Kewell to Shane Smeltz wants to be centre stage.
But there are five individuals whom no one wants to be the focus, least of all them.
When the A-League’s best referee has a major decision overturned on appeal, it puts the spotlight on the quality of officiating as the quality of football rises.
But when Perth’s Billy Mehmet had his red card for a tackle on Newcastle’s Tiago Calvano overturned yesterday, it was another small step in what is, believe it or not, a quiet revolution.
Coaches believe referees live in ivory towers with no accountability, and it’s doubtful anything will persuade them otherwise.
Even yesterday, Sydney’s goalkeeping coach Zeljko Kalac was fuming over the non-award of a penalty to Bruno Cazarine in last week’s loss to Melbourne Heart.
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“The referees are making these key decisions and getting them wrong, and they’re changing the course of matches,” Kalac told The Daily Telegraph.
“People’s jobs are at stake here, and maybe the people in charge of the referees need to drop them when they make a mistake like that.”
But for all that coaches will always fume, there is also a major change underway in the way referees are judged.
There’s no doubt to most observers that officials have struggled in past seasons to keep up with the A-League’s greater pace and technique.
No one knew that more than the referees, so in the end the most senior – Delovski, Matthew Breeze and Peter Green – lobbied at the end of last season for a fundamental rethink in terms of helping them improve.
From it came the appointment of retired official Mark Shield as a director of referees, with the remit to improve coaching and support for refs – and the authority to address those who got it wrong.
Yesterday, for instance, he was happy to confirm that Delovski’s performance overall wasn’t up to scratch – “there were several incidents that weren’t interpreted correctly, and we’ve gone through the game with him,” he said.
“On a number of occasions this year I’ve said I don’t think a referee got something right.
“But that’s one game, and generally this season Strebre has officiated superbly – in the Melbourne derby he got everything right for instance.”
It seems unbelievable that it’s taken until the seventh year of the A-League, but now every ref gets every game dissected, and every decision is reviewed.
Error rates are tracked, and consistency measured. And yes, refs who seriously stuff up do get demoted.
“You’ll never hear a referee complain if we get dropped for making a bad decision,” said Breeze.
“We know that we take big decisions that affect games, and we want to be accountable for those. If that means going back to basics then that has to be part of the process.”
Breeze accepts that has to be the flipside to the extra focus.
“It means we’re getting more support, more feedback and more coaching – trying to run it more as a business,” he said. “So we are given performance indicators and goals to meet, to make us more consistent and lift the quality of the refereeing.”
Shield’s job is enormous, tearing up everything that came before, while trying to build enough depth.
Throw in the fact all referees hold down full-time jobs, and his challenge is extensive.
“There’s a real appetite to improve quality of refereeing, but it will take time,” he said.
“But look at the context of where we’re at too. Last weekend, four of the five games were handled really well.”
And for the record, he doesn’t agree with Kalac. “We’ve looked at (Cazarine’s collision with Clint Bolton) from a number of angles and we think it was just a collision of bodies,” he said. “No doubt there’s a wide variety of views, but to us it wasn’t a penalty.”
On some things, there’ll never be agreement.
