MARK HALSEY: BETDAQ BETDAQ World Cup Ambassador and former FIFA and Premier League referee Mark Halsey takes a look back at the refereeing performances throughout the World Cup, ahead of the return of the Premier League next week.
Polish referee contributed to fabulous final
I have to say, I’ve been watching World Cup finals since I was a little boy, and that’s got to be the most exciting final that I have ever seen. People will talk about what a fabulous final it was, but remember, one person made the final what it was, and that was the referee, Szymon Marciniak.
I think our professional referees should sit down and watch a re-run of the final – with regards to how the Polish official refereed that game – and learn from it. He wasn’t afraid to make big decisions and he didn’t receive any dissent, because he’d already gained the respect from the players early on. As soon as he spoke to Rodrigo de Paul in the second minute, he stamped his authority on the game through his body language and verbal communication. From that moment on, he had that game in his pocket, and we should show our professional referees that performance.
For me, he was man of the match! He showed empathy for the game, he let it breathe and played advantages, and only cautioned players when he needed to. If you look at all his cautions, you cannot criticise any of them, and that includes the booking for simulation for Marcus Thuram, I thought that was spot on too. He contributed to the final being as good as it was and should receive a lot of credit.
What pleased me, watching on TV, was the way Alan Shearer and Rio Ferdinand gave the referee a mention too, you don’t normally get that! As I said, he definitely contributed to that final being as good as it was – I thought he was magnificent.
PFA should encourage ex-players to consider refereeing
It does help being an ex-player – the referee for Sunday’s final played football to a good level in Poland. It’s not always about knowing the laws of the game – it’s also about knowing the game of football! That doesn’t mean to say that every ex-player would make a good referee, but his awareness of what was going on around him and the way he engaged with the players was fantastic.
You’re never going to get an ex-Premier League player become a referee – they will have earned enough money doing what they’re doing. But if you look lower down the leagues, perhaps Leagues One and Two, particularly players who are coming to the end of their playing careers, the PFA should be encouraging them to get into refereeing towards the end of their careers.
It’s like what they do in cricket – they get professional players who play county cricket and are about to retire – a lot of them go and become umpires. For me, football should do exactly the same – footballers who want to come into the game as referees should start their learning in the National League. As I said before, it doesn’t mean that ex-professional players will immediately make great referees, but at least they will know the game!
Extra added time application was a success and could feature in the Premier League
I thought the extra added time was very successful. Teams got the message early on in the tournament – we could play eight, nine, ten minutes if they chose to waste time or feign injuries. Subsequently, as the tournament progressed, we actually saw the amount of added time go down, because teams had got the message that time wasting would not work.
Obviously, the referees had their directives, we saw the timekeeping trend where they were playing a lot more added time. I think the referees allowed the game to flow a lot more – as we saw in the earlier rounds, there were far fewer yellow cards as they were managing the game more, rather than just coming in and issuing cautions.
I thought it was great to see, because we want to see 90 minutes of the ball in play. Every league will have a look at how the World Cup was officiated, and things like the extra added time could be implemented into the Premier League immediately.
VAR implementation still too inconsistent – protocols for interference need to be evaluated
Despite the general standard of officiating being good, I would be a little disappointed with the way VAR was implemented in this World Cup – it was too inconsistent. We saw one VAR decision which probably cost Danny Makkelie the final with that ridiculous penalty in the Poland versus Argentina game, which was given after review.
With regards to the inconsistency, it needs to be fixed through training and education. We may need to look at the protocol again, because it should be clear that VAR should only get involved in clear and obvious errors. If you’re too forensic, then of course you’re going to find something, so we’ve got to stop being too forensic.
