Every Referee Needs a Trusty Firearm

You may have noticed a steady decline in respect for referees in recent years. Remember Roy Keane leading his Man Utd teammates on an Andy D’Urso hunt in 2000? How about John Terry trying to snatch a red card from Mike Dean’s hand this season as the ref was showing it to John Obi Mikel? But one ref in Malaysia has found a solution, backing up his decisions not with a whistle, but with a loaded gun.

An unnamed referee in an amateur soccer match in Kuala Lumpar gave out a red card so controversial that several players chased after him. But rather than backing off and meekly pleading “go away, go away” like D’Urso did, this ref - who is also a policeman - went to his car and pulled out a gun, which he then fired into the air as a warning. He is one badass man in black.

The players apparently changed their attitudes after seeing this armed and dangerous referee, but the ref’s fellow policemen weren’t so happy, and he’s now in custody awaiting a charge of misuse of a firearm. Five players are also in custody and may be charged with rioting.

Maybe a bit extreme, but this incident offers a suggestion of why referees struggle for respect. How can one man in an either black or stripy shirt be expected to control twenty-two fiercely competitive men by using a tiny little whistle? There’s no real threat from a whistle, but the gun shots soon got the Malaysian players in order. I’m not proposing arming Premier League referees (at least not until John Terry returns from injury) but this incident does suggest that referees could benefit from an air of menace. I’m more than half-convinced that Pierluigi Collina’s success as a ref was based on his complete lack of body hair which made him incredibly scary to look at, hence hard to disrespect.

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Category: Asia, World Football

Tags: Andy D Urso, Asia, Chelsea, John Obi Mikel, John Terry, Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia, Manchester United, Mike Dean, referee, Roy Keane, Wolrd Soccer, World Football

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