I mean, I’m not saying that there was any corruption or explicit instruction to give them a penalty, but even the minor thought that a certain club’s state-owners might pay me/hire me more often can be incredibly enticing.
I mean, I’m not saying that there was any corruption or explicit instruction to give them a penalty, but even the minor thought that a certain club’s state-owners might pay me/hire me more often can be incredibly enticing.
I’m sorry but 120k a year to referee a couple of matches each week is a lot of money. 60k base is huge, for essentially doing nothing. It’s not like they’re athletes, some of them are outright out of shape, like, what the fuck do they do with their time? A couple of meetings to discuss refereeing shit? They’re essentially doing a relatively normal work out plan (the kind of thing plenty of people do as a hobby) and then running around for 90 minutes, and they’re collecting a massive salary for it, and then most of them still manage to do a terrible job.
They’re basically robbing the league blind at this point.
So would you become a premier league referee for £120k a year? Constant abuse from fans, name thrown everywhere if you get any decision wrong (which no matter how good you’re is going to happen because they’re human) being recognisable around the world and being likely to have a random have a go at you for a previous decision. Players swearing at you. You’re happy to do this for £120k?
Yes I would, it is double what I am paid now and I feed 3 more people.
Yes, 100%. This is what a lot of doctors/surgeons get paid and they have to do like a decade of study and have people’s lives in their hands, so yes. To jog around a bit, blow a whistle, and have the best view of football of literally any non-player, yes, 120k sounds like theft.
You can’t compare what football earns to what doctors and nurses get paid. We just go back to having a go at what everyone earns in football the and the non footballing fan saying that it’s a disgrace what footballers earn for kicking a ball around. Refs are an integral part of the football setup and should be paid accordingly.
I can and I will. You’re talking about risks and repercussions in work, there are many, many jobs where the risks are far worse than what a referee risks. Police, who get paid less, how much do they risk? There are mundane jobs where people don’t get paid much but the regulatory and compliance environment means they risk jail time if they mess up. Builders, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, all of these jobs, if they do something wrong they risk financially and legally. If you don’t fit a seatbelt or a tire or a break pad right as a mechanic and that ends up killing someone in an accident, you risk literal fucking jail time. So again, give me 120k to jog around for 180 odd minutes every week with a bunch of overpaid wankers and I’ll take it every day.
You wanted to talk about salaries and what the job is and now you don’t because you realised your argument was a bit dumb, but no, I’m sorry, they get paid plenty and looking at their performances I’d say they deserve less.
It’s not just about what they “deserve”. It’s staving off corruption, and also attracting top talent to the job. The weak talent pool we have for officials at the top level is clearly evidence of that. You can afford to pay someone shit wages in retail because you can always throw a new body in there when you burn out the others. Not so with refs, it takes years to train up a PL level ref.
And to be clear, I advocate for higher wages for the officials, but hand in hand with greater consequences for huge errors like we’ve seen.
The idea that higher wages prevents corruption is false. Only checks and balances will do that, and football has very few.