Worst Refereeing decisions you have seen in a game?

First topic message reminder :

tonight refeering decisions are in the spot light because of certain things that have happened tonight , so was just wondering what is the worst refeering decision you have seen in a game?

England may have been at the end of some bad decisions but the benefited from a few also. Owen's dives, the goal Ukraine scored in the last Euros and not forgetting 1966's Russian linesman.

compelling and rich wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:I don't think Nani's challenge was a red card but his theatrics that followed it just made him look more guilty than anything.  

And as I've said before, poor decisions went in favour of United in the very same game - Real having a goal wrongly disallowed and also being denied a clear penalty after Rafael's handball.

Both incidents conveniently forgotton by United fans.  

i repress anything that's bad against united   

but seriously i was fairly tipsy watching it so dont remember them properly live, where as the nani was shown time and time again before during and after, it was much easier to get a clear headed idea of what happened. the others weren't really shown

i agree nani's a d!ck, being a d!ck (unfortunately) isn't a red card offence though. drogba would have missed more games than Suarez!!

Yeah, I see what you mean. The problem is the British media always distorts the highlights. Showing endless replays of Nani's red but barely giving a second mention to Rafael's handball so people forget about it.
For example I earlier brought up the Holland - England 93 qualifier. The Koeman incident is always brought up to potray England as being the victims of injustice despite Holland also having a perfectly good goal wrongly ruled out in that very same game.

compelling and rich wrote:

CFCNick wrote:There were two similar challenges that got red cards in the Villa-Chelsea game last season. Ramires and Benteke both got sent off. Think one was a straight red and the other was a 2nd yellow. Those two were both soft but deserved by today's standards.

The Nani one is a red card every time for me.

if one was similar but only got a yellow and that was soft how was nani's a straight red?

It was a 2nd yellow. I believe you can't give a straight red to a player already booked. Either way. They were both sendings off. Both deserved and both were softer than Nani's.

CFCNick wrote:

compelling and rich wrote:

CFCNick wrote:There were two similar challenges that got red cards in the Villa-Chelsea game last season. Ramires and Benteke both got sent off. Think one was a straight red and the other was a 2nd yellow. Those two were both soft but deserved by today's standards.

The Nani one is a red card every time for me.

if one was similar but only got a yellow and that was soft how was nani's a straight red?

It was a 2nd yellow. I believe you can't give a straight red to a player already booked. Either way. They were both sendings off. Both deserved and both were softer than Nani's.

course you can be given a straight red even if your on a yellow. if a guy was on a yellow then chinned a opponent he would be given a straight red for violent conduct and serve the three game ban afterwards instead of the one game if it were two yellows

Willie Young 1980 against a young Paul Allen.

Not sure what the rules were then but he would have been straight off now.

Schumaker vs France in 1982. One of the worse challenges I've seen, and not even a yellow.

Stella wrote:Willie Young 1980 against a young Paul Allen.

Not sure what the rules were then but he would have been straight off now.

Schumaker vs France in 1982. One of the worse challenges I've seen, and not even a yellow.

The professional foul ruling didn't come in till 1990, so by the letter of the law the ref was correct in not sending off Young.

Agree with you about Schumacher on Battiston, that was absolute filth.

lorus59 wrote:England may have been at the end of some bad decisions but the benefited from a few also. Owen's dives, the goal Ukraine scored in the last Euros and not forgetting 1966's Russian linesman.

1) I've never thought Owen dived for those pens. He went down easily, but contact was certainly made, and it's a penalty both times.

2) The goal Ukraine scored in the last Euros should have been pulled back for offside.

3) Having a dubious goal given for England probably made up for the fact that the Germans second goal stemmed from a dubious free kick.

J.Benson II wrote:

compelling and rich wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:I don't think Nani's challenge was a red card but his theatrics that followed it just made him look more guilty than anything.  

And as I've said before, poor decisions went in favour of United in the very same game - Real having a goal wrongly disallowed and also being denied a clear penalty after Rafael's handball.

Both incidents conveniently forgotton by United fans.  

i repress anything that's bad against united   

but seriously i was fairly tipsy watching it so dont remember them properly live, where as the nani was shown time and time again before during and after, it was much easier to get a clear headed idea of what happened. the others weren't really shown

i agree nani's a d!ck, being a d!ck (unfortunately) isn't a red card offence though. drogba would have missed more games than Suarez!!

Yeah, I see what you mean. The problem is the British media always distorts the highlights. Showing endless replays of Nani's red but barely giving a second mention to Rafael's handball so people forget about it.
For example I earlier brought up the Holland - England 93 qualifier. The Koeman incident is always brought up to potray England as being the victims of injustice despite Holland also having a perfectly good goal wrongly ruled out in that very same game.

Shouldn't Arbeloa have been sent off in the Man United game? That barely got a second mention.

As for Holland-England 93, there were several errors made by the referee:

1) Failed to send Koeman off.
2) Failed to give England a penalty for that incident, and incorrectly gave a free-kick.
3) The Dutch charged down the resulting free-kick from far closer than the allowed ten yards.
4) When England did that at the opposite end, the referee pulled them up on it and allowed the free-kick to be retaken, which Holland then scored from.

A far greater amount of errors than a 50-50 offside call.

Nakatomi Plaza wrote:

Stella wrote:Willie Young 1980 against a young Paul Allen.

Not sure what the rules were then but he would have been straight off now.

Schumaker vs France in 1982. One of the worse challenges I've seen, and not even a yellow.

The professional foul ruling didn't come in till 1990, so by the letter of the law the ref was correct in not sending off Young.

Agree with you about Schumacher on Battiston, that was absolute filth.

I thought that may have been the case. That incident did make me a little mad, as it was cynical, and it was on a 18 year lad, even though I was only 8 at the time, and anyone over 15 was old.

Connor Mcmanamans brutal assault last season on Haidara when Newcastle were visiting Wigan. It was a disgusting lunge which was fortunate not to end his career. It wasn't even a foul.

The behaviour of Wigan after the game was nothing short of a disgrace and I was pleased when they went down. Now I just want Martinez to fail miserably at Everton.

Lumbering_Jack wrote:Connor Mcmanamans brutal assault last season on Haidara when Newcastle were visiting Wigan. It was a disgusting lunge which was fortunate not to end his career. It wasn't even a foul.

The behaviour of Wigan after the game was nothing short of a disgrace and I was pleased when they went down. Now I just want Martinez to fail miserably at Everton.

I agree, although I don't mind Martinez.

Duty281 wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:

compelling and rich wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:I don't think Nani's challenge was a red card but his theatrics that followed it just made him look more guilty than anything.  

And as I've said before, poor decisions went in favour of United in the very same game - Real having a goal wrongly disallowed and also being denied a clear penalty after Rafael's handball.

Both incidents conveniently forgotton by United fans.  

i repress anything that's bad against united   

but seriously i was fairly tipsy watching it so dont remember them properly live, where as the nani was shown time and time again before during and after, it was much easier to get a clear headed idea of what happened. the others weren't really shown

i agree nani's a d!ck, being a d!ck (unfortunately) isn't a red card offence though. drogba would have missed more games than Suarez!!

Yeah, I see what you mean. The problem is the British media always distorts the highlights. Showing endless replays of Nani's red but barely giving a second mention to Rafael's handball so people forget about it.
For example I earlier brought up the Holland - England 93 qualifier. The Koeman incident is always brought up to potray England as being the victims of injustice despite Holland also having a perfectly good goal wrongly ruled out in that very same game.

Shouldn't Arbeloa have been sent off in the Man United game? That barely got a second mention.

As for Holland-England 93, there were several errors made by the referee:

1) Failed to send Koeman off.
2) Failed to give England a penalty for that incident, and incorrectly gave a free-kick.
3) The Dutch charged down the resulting free-kick from far closer than the allowed ten yards.
4) When England did that at the opposite end, the referee pulled them up on it and allowed the free-kick to be retaken, which Holland then scored from.

A far greater amount of errors than a 50-50 offside call.

Thanks for highlighting my point. In almost every game, there are several dubious decisions that will either will go for you or against you. As Fergie once said himself, over the course of a season they usually even themselves out.
Constantly potraying a victim mentality is pathetic.

As Fergie once said himself, over the course of a season they usually even themselves out

.And this is why they should not bring in goal line technology.

Tricky one, David Platt's offside goal against West Germany was very, very close, but probably the correct decision. The law was changed in 1990, after the 1990 world cup, not before Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20100330052703/http://www.corshamref.org.uk/offhist.htm (this is one web page)
https://www2.bc.edu/deirdre-bradley/soccerrules.htm

Platt might however have been onside himself, not even level, and should probably get some benefit of the doubt. But: another player clearly is level, and clearly is an offside position in the rule at that time. He is very close to the path of the ball so could be construed to be interfering. However at the time the interfering rule was different and unless the player was literally lying down injured on the other side of the pitch would have been ruled offside. In those days, an offside position was pretty much offside but only some years after 1990 was it changed to "gaining" advantage vs "seeking" advantage.

In summary, I am 90% sure that disallowing this goal was a good decision.

However if you really want to see a terrible offside decision from the 1990 world cup in an England match that everyone forgot about, check this baby out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Umkss-UESg

Berti is TEN yards onside. Admittedly Italy won anyway and it was only in the play off, but I defy anyone to produce footage of a worse offside decision in the entire history of football.

Henman

That is the worst off side decision of all time.

Lumbering_Jack wrote:Connor Mcmanamans brutal assault last season on Haidara when Newcastle were visiting Wigan. It was a disgusting lunge which was fortunate not to end his career. It wasn't even a foul.

The behaviour of Wigan after the game was nothing short of a disgrace and I was pleased when they went down. Now I just want Martinez to fail miserably at Everton.

speaking of brutal assault. ben thactchers assault on mendes was much worse and only received a yellow on the pitch!!

compelling and rich wrote:

Lumbering_Jack wrote:Connor Mcmanamans brutal assault last season on Haidara when Newcastle were visiting Wigan. It was a disgusting lunge which was fortunate not to end his career. It wasn't even a foul.

The behaviour of Wigan after the game was nothing short of a disgrace and I was pleased when they went down. Now I just want Martinez to fail miserably at Everton.

speaking of brutal assault. ben thactchers assault on mendes was much worse and only received a yellow on the pitch!!

That was horrible and cowardly. deserved a prison sentence.

HB

That Berti one realy was a shocker - he thakes about 4 strides forwards to become level with the stationary England CB in the middle (Mark Wright?)

Wasn't sure with the offside law when it changed to 'level' - WikiP only said 1990, not whether before or after the WC. The Platt offside was certainly an understandable decision, whether strictly correct or not...

another diabolical European ref here in the united game, not been a bad tackle and he's already had the book out 5 times

Duty281 wrote:Lampard's goal v Germany in 2010 not being given.
Sol Campbell's goal disallowed v Portugal at Euro 2004.
Platt's disallowed goal v West Germany 1990.
Clear penalty not given for England v Argentina 1998.
Rooney being kicked to pieces by Portugal in 2006, and nothing being given.
Hand of God.
Terry being pulled over in the box v Italy 2012, and nothing being given.
Koeman not getting a red card v England 1993.

Any of those, where England have been cheated out of various tournaments. Has to be a conspiracy, it's happened too many times to be a mistake.

No you're wrong. You're just biased. Truth is we had as many decisions in our favour as against.

2010 - they probably would have beaten us anyway. We lost that match 4-1.
1990 - if was offside, and anyway our 2 penalties against Cameroon were dubious. By the way, if Poland's shot against the crossbar 30 seconds before the end of the last qualifier had gone in, we wouldn't have even qualified.
1998 - they had a good penalty appeal as well, and Owen clearly dived for our penalty. Still I'll agree with you on this one since it was never a red card for Beckham, we were unlucky with the dubious Sol Campbell disallowed goal, and their penalty was almost as dodgy anyway. And yes our penalty appeak was blatant.
2006 - don't think we were robbed here, not quite, although they played us a bit.
2004 - maybe you're right, I think those 2 Portugal matches would have been fairer to have gone one each.
1986 - Maradona was hacked more by the England players than Rooney ever was. Not that this justifies the cheating of Maradona, so yes we were robbed.
1993 - They had a goal that was clearly onside disallowed wrongly in the first half, before any Koeman incident.

Also what about 1996. Spain had a perfectly good goal disallowed and we ended up beating them on penalties.

Commentary over the years has always been biased and a lot of people bought it.

It's gone in our favour as often as not. And the ball probably wasn't over the line in 66.

At the time of Lampard's goal we were bossing the game and would have come from 2-0 down to 2-2. But, we ended up chasing the game and got shredded by the best counter attacking team in the world at the time.

Stella wrote:

compelling and rich wrote:

Lumbering_Jack wrote:Connor Mcmanamans brutal assault last season on Haidara when Newcastle were visiting Wigan. It was a disgusting lunge which was fortunate not to end his career. It wasn't even a foul.

The behaviour of Wigan after the game was nothing short of a disgrace and I was pleased when they went down. Now I just want Martinez to fail miserably at Everton.

speaking of brutal assault. ben thactchers assault on mendes was much worse and only received a yellow on the pitch!!

That was horrible and cowardly. deserved a prison sentence.

Forgot about that one, cowardly and disgraceful.

What about the time Neil Lennon head butted Alan Shearer's foot. Disgraceful thuggery.

Having read through this thread, one thing is obvious:   Referees are not perfect.

But cheats..?  Nah.   Do they have an agenda..?   Don't make me laugh.  

I was a football referee for eleven years.  Only up to county level, I'll grant you, but that was tough enough.  I was accused of cheating on a number of occasions but I knew I hadn't done anything unfair.  Over the years, I may have made wrong calls, or missed certain incidents, or even mis-interpreted players intentions in the hurley-burley of the moment, but I can put my hand on my heart and say that every game in which I officiated, I did so to the best of my ability and with absolute impartiality.

Why would I not do so..?  Hey... I didn't care who won the game.  It meant nothing to me.  I was there because I cared about the game of football itself, not the narrow self interest of the two competing teams in any given match.  

My motivation for becoming a referee was to give something back to the game after I quit playing.  And so I did the best I could and I can put my hand on my heart and say I kept my integrity and dignity at all times.

It might not seem so at times, but one of the things a referee has to have, is a deep love of football and footballers.  I played the game for thirty years, man and boy, and I know how much everybody wants to win.  No referee goes out onto the pitch wanting confrontation or with an intent to discipline as many players as possible.  But footballers are their own worst enemies and often deliberately do things that have to be punished according to the rules and regulations as handed down by the FA.  Those are the rules of the game and the referee doesn't have a choice.  I had to issue my fair share of red cards down the years, and I didn't enjoy a single one of them.  Actually, they all left me feeling disappointed that it had come to that.

And I think this is how it is for every bloke who picks up a whistle and works for an FA badge.  Referees are honest men....... which, when you look at the diving, feigning of injury, misbehaviour, gamesmanship and dishonesty that goes on in every match you see these days, is more than can be said for a lot of players.

Of course, fans will never criticise their own teams.  Every decision that goes against their team is a "bad call", whilst every act of their opponents is a "blatant" offence.  Fans will attempt to pressure referees into making decisions that benefit their team even when it is clear that they have no entitlement to such a decision.   Players, managers and coaches vent their spleens into the microphones of Sky Sports post match interviewers.  The press scribble their poison pen lines and TV pundits use all manner of technology and slow-motion repetition of incidents to relentlessly review incidents that the official sees only once, in real time and then the pundits pronounce in lofty terms  "For me, that's a penalty".

Well if they're so clever, then my suggestion to them is to pick up a whistle, put their kit on and get out there and do it.  Let's see how easy it is "for them" when the going gets tough and they have to make a call one way or the other.  

Those who can, do.  Those who can't, don't.

I eventually quit refereeing when I got to the point where I couldn't keep up with the pace of play any more and so couldn't do the job to the best of my ability.  I miss it in many ways, because actually, there were far more good times than bad.  By the time I hung up my whistle, I felt I had given something back to the game.

Referees are honest men doing a damned difficult job to the best of their ability in the face of relentless, remorseless connivance to deceive, coached dishonesty, orchestrated dissent and vitriolic ill-will from all quarters, and yet, they just get on with it and do what they do with the utmost integrity.

I'll leave the last word on this in the form of a little anecdote from my refereeing days.  I remember it so clearly because of the sheer brass neck of the player concerned.

In one match, a team's striker missed a penalty, blazed another shot over the bar from inside the goal area, miskicked on several occasions and was so slow that I was sure he was playing in lead divers boots. Near full time, I had to caution him for punching the ball at goal and trying to kid on he had headed it (it was the only attempt he got on target all afternoon).  He was furious at having been caught and berated me for carding him.    

At full time, as we were walking off, he shouted across to me, clearly playing to the gallery of all nearby,  "You had a f***ing 'mare this afternoon, ref."

I had a 'mare..!!    It was as much as I could do to keep a straight face all the way back to the changing room.

Footballers......... you gotta love 'em.

wouldn't ref if you paid me, footballers are a horrible breed, i work at a sport facility with few grass pitches and a 3g so often watch the games and the amount of abuse the refs get is ridiculous. if i reffed them i would be sending half of them off, although i got brought up playing union where we learn you can actually talk to a ref without swearing at him

compelling and rich wrote:wouldn't ref if you paid me, footballers are a horrible breed, i work at a sport facility with few grass pitches and a 3g so often watch the games and the amount of abuse the refs get is ridiculous. if i reffed them i would be sending half of them off, although i got brought up playing union where we learn you can actually talk to a ref without swearing at him

Quite right. I played rugby union too (rugby on Wednesdays and football on Saturdays), and the contrast between the treatment of referees in rugby and football could not be starker. It would take an even longer post than the one I've just written to try to do it justice, and I think that would be TOO much <laughing>.

Both rugby and football are great games and I love them both. I just wish football didn't have this antipathy towards officials. There isn't any need for it and it really is quite puerile.

Down at our 6-a-side league the abuse refs get is crazy. I wouldn't do what they do for £20-30 a night. Our goalie is a rugby union player and fan above football and always calls the refs sir. He saves his swearing for me and my defensive partner when we concede, even if we are already 5-0 in front.