Gordon Taylor Wants Invisible Force-Field Around Referees

PFA chief exec Gordon Taylor has reacted to the recent refereeing controversies involving Ashley Cole, Javier Mascherano and player dissent by suggesting an exclusion zone around the men in the middle. “I have made it clear referees should be a no-go area,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

Taylor wants a sort of invisible force field around refs so players can only get so close, and seems to think this would reduce dissent and increase players’ respect for referees. But really, being told you can’t go near someone because they’re scared of you is no way to make anyone respect anyone.

This idea might have prevented Paolo Di Canio from pushing over Paul Alcock back in 1998:

And it might have stopped Roy Keane leading his Man Utd teammates on an impromptu Andy D’Urso hunt in 1999:

But it wouldn’t change the general air of disrespect. When Ashley Cole was dissing Mike Riley last week, the problem wasn’t that he was too close. It was the exact opposite. Cole was too far away and refused to face Riley, just showing him the back of his shirt instead.

And players still need to be able to talk to refs, provided it’s all nice and polite. An exclusion zone will make the whole thing very very silly.

All Premiership refs need in order to win respect is for players to know they’ll get booked if they mouth off. Javier Mascherano learned this the hard way on Sunday. I’ve got some sympathy for him, because he can’t have expected Bennett to be so harsh.

But Mascherano will probably be very careful about how he talks to anyone armed with whistles and cards in the future. And If what Steve Bennett did on Sunday was applied consistently throughout the Premier League, then players wouldn’t have much choice but to learn respect for referees pretty quickly.

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Category: English Premier League