Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
Some time ago WMUG opined that the level of abuse refs get - not just at PL level but all the way down - is such that the people who get to the top aren't necessarily the ones who make the best decisions but the ones who are bloody minded enough to put up with it. Maybe they even revel in it - we've all seen referees who seem to actively want to be "the story" after a game. There is something in that, I reckon. They keep talking about getting tough on abuse of referees but here we are in a game where a player can get a second yellow card for "kicking the ball away" but players can still surround the referee with no consequence.
Every fan who saw Collina was reffing their match just thought, fair enough. And there are refs in the PL we don't talk about, is that because they are bloody minded enough to just do their job and not be noticed? I think the ones who make it about them are obvious enough and, just coincidentally, they are the worst refs. It's their desire to be self important that makes them bad refs by default, they are missing the point of what they are hired to do. If they just got on with their job they'd quickly fall into obscurity, and so you have Oliver and Taylor and all those refs from the past that we remember.