This, they hurriedly messaged, was an illustration of yet more problems for the Professional Game Match Official Limited (PGMOL). Many are keen to opportunistically paint the picture of a body in crisis. The PGMOL would internally insist that it doesn’t recognise the current reality.
Right now, however, the massive noise around referees that this season was already generating is rising to deafening levels, if in the form of a quiet video, which is still being investigated by the PGMOL. That doesn’t mean a lot of it is worth listening to, of course. It should be implicitly acknowledged that referees naturally have human biases, and are inevitably going to have personal opinions about people who angrily shout at them or abuse them. That is literally the game.
That’s also different to the job. The reality is that such opinions don’t generally cloud a referee’s professional conduct. That isn’t how it works, as anyone who has worked in similar fields, including journalism, would attest to. It is like a switch comes on when you are professionally presented with a decision. Simple error is too often wrongly miscast as something more sinister, despite the obvious pressures of the role.
Where the Coote episode might be more consequential, however, is in creating more negative headlines for the PGMOL at precisely the wrong time. The referees’ body has never faced more questions, instigated by everyone including Premier League managers such as Gary O’Neil and Steve Cooper.
Those inside the PGMOL might well say that scrutiny always follows when a team loses. The Premier League’s own relationship with the PGMOL isn’t always smooth, mind. One senior club executive is understood to get so exercised by refereeing decisions that he is constantly threatening to send legal writs to the body.
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