It is not often that I find anything worthwhile to read from the cut and paste gang in the GT but I thought this was interesting.

[url] https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/referees-efl-premier-league-grimsby-3399175[/url]

Is this really just the PL and the changes up there in the stratosphere or has there been a change in the way refs are being instructed to operate by their own bosses? Or has it been just a development over time?

I always understood that reffing was a team game. I got this from two respected local referees Derek Bray who was a league assessor after being on the linesman list for many years, and Norman Barmby who reffed at North Regional level and was an instructor locally for many years also. The idea of the team approach was to kill off dissent about the rights and wrongs of a decision. The ref would always look to the nearest linesman for confirmation and wait for a quick signal. I don’t seem to see that happening nowadays, could be wrong but refs do seem to be working solo with linesmen only doing out of play and offside and the foul under their noses. So are refs becoming prima donnas or are they under orders?

No, it’s still much better to work as a team. Refs at our level are now miked up so are talking all the time. Var is shambolic and needs to go as it removed the authority of the man in the middle amongst many other shite things it does. The trouble for me is that refs are probably over assessed and therefore terrified of making mistakes. Kevin Friend did a brilliant presentation to my local RA about this. He was brave enough to show us a shocking game he had (a play-off game Sheff U Vs Pompey) where he lost it. He then talked about how much detail he has to report on now. Basically every single decision he makes is scrutinised. By doing this your game management is really hampered as you have to be “right in law” at all times. This then spawns Var as it removes that crucial part of what is right for the game. Look at the Fox red card. In law, it’s a red, in the spirit of the game a yellow would have done and not one person in the ground would’ve complained.
Who are we running the game for? It’s not the fans any more.

I think modern “pundits” have a lot to answer for when it comes to the pressure refs are under. Every weekend you can watch live football from 11:30am, through Soccer Saturday, the half 5 KO, all Match of the Day, 11:30am-6pm live matches then MOTD2 until midnight on Sunday and rarely hear anything other than bog standard basic analysis which sparsely punctuates a two-day rant about referees and linesmen. Most of the pundits have nothing to offer and no real insight that anyone with one of Andy Gray’s machines couldn’t come up with, so they spend hours and hours just slating refs about the most marginal and trivial decisions. It’s a constant barrage all weekend and while refs have always been caned from the stands, the microscopic nitpicking that TV cameras allow now does nothing to help set expectations, which is why we’ve ended up with the farce that is VAR.

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

No, it’s still much better to work as a team. Refs at our level are now miked up so are talking all the time. Var is shambolic and needs to go as it removed the authority of the man in the middle amongst many other shite things it does. The trouble for me is that refs are probably over assessed and therefore terrified of making mistakes. Kevin Friend did a brilliant presentation to my local RA about this. He was brave enough to show us a shocking game he had (a play-off game Sheff U Vs Pompey) where he lost it. He then talked about how much detail he has to report on now. Basically every single decision he makes is scrutinised. By doing this your game management is really hampered as you have to be “right in law” at all times. This then spawns Var as it removes that crucial part of what is right for the game. Look at the Fox red card. In law, it’s a red, in the spirit of the game a yellow would have done and not one person in the ground would’ve complained.
Who are we running the game for? It’s not the fans any more.

Very true.

I know we can’t look at things in isolation, refs are only a part of the issue now the PL is a money factory. It seems to me that the PL (and the authorities) would be very happy to see refereeing taken over by VAR or at the very least, as you say, refs to be infallibly applying the letter of the law to every decision backed by VAR. For the EFL though we have in effect VAR rules but without the technology. That is what we are seeing at L2 level each week. No longer a team decision with a nod and a wink but an individual livelihood decision with a rule book.

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

Look at the Fox red card. In law, it’s a red, in the spirit of the game a yellow would have done and not one person in the ground would’ve complained.
.

I don't recall many taking that view with the Bristol Rovers goalkeeper at Wmbley