Referees, Microphones and Post-Match Interviews

After talking the other day about goal-line technology and how we cannot simply introduce systems from other sports I started thinking about how this might not be true in all situations. In rugby the audience can hear everything the referee is saying between the players and the other officials. This allows the audience to understand the actions the referees take and may help them understand the decisions made later in the game. Currently in the Premier League the officials use microphones to discuss decisions between themselves, though the audience are not able to listen into these discussions. Due to this we are forced to come to our own conclusions about the decisions they make. There have been calls for referees to have interviews after the game to discuss their decision making. However I feel anyone who has been watching the game will have already come up with their own conclusions by then which may increase the pressure on referees rather than reduce it.



At the moment referees are given a lot of protection from the FA. This is due to the amount of criticism they often receive from players and fans. It would be interesting to hear more often about their views on the game and how they feel things could be improved. Though at the moment there is far too much criticism aimed at them for people to take them seriously. This is predominantly due to the fact that on TV we see multiple slow motion replays from a variety of angles to watch the instants they have one angle at full speed to assess. Therefore the introduction of microphones for us to hear on the TV would help us understand how they make their decisions, based on what they say rather than what we see. I have to admit post match interviews would be a step in the right direction and hopefully we will start seeing these soon to help us reason with the referees in our game.