All I can ask is that over 90 minutes he is consistent himself in how he punishes offences. None of them go out looking to give cautions, but even so, the clubs know what their individual tolerance levels are Some of them really do their homework on referees I remember the first time I refereed at Anfield. I got there at 12, and Ronnie Moran came up and said 'Hello Mr Don, first visit?' He knew perfectly well it was. I said 'yes, and it won't be my last'."Of course, football has changed even since Don's own whistle-toting days.
Not least, he believes, because of the proliferation of foreign players. "They have certainly made life harder for referees by over-reacting to challenges and feigning injuries, although last year it became a cautionable offence for a player who simulates to deceive the referee. Where the dilemma occurs is when a player is slightly touched but over-reacts. In those cases we've said that in the first instance he should just receive a bollocking, then a caution."Don is uncharacteristically reticent regarding the most notorious case of a foreign player transgressing - Paolo Di Canio shoving Paul Alcock to the ground. Did Di Canio receive the appropriate punishment? "The FA dealt with it as it deemed fit." What did he, Philip Don, deem fit? "Well, you're looking at a player's livelihood...
I'm not prepared to comment further."So instead we turn to the issue of technology, and whether referees, like Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson and Andy Gray, not to mention cricket umpires, should be given the considerable benefit of the camera. After all, with recourse to a camera, Eddie Wolstenholme would have disallowed the Wycombe equaliser on Saturday and Wimbledon would have gone straight through to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup."Yes, but in cricket the camera is only used to determine run-outs... whether the batsman is in his crease, whether his bat is grounded A factual decision, in other words Offside is not factual, it is in the opinion of the referee To be offside is not an offence. If you are passive and not interfering with play, there's no offence, but it's still a matter of opinion. We are looking at goal-line technology, however, because that is factual. Fifa have said that we can't use cameras, because the ball is sometimes obscured by players on the line, so we are looking at something that can be attached to the ball but will not affect its properties or trajectory."We have also increased the responsibilities of the fourth official, who has a device the size of a mobile telephone and can inform the referee immediately in a case of mistaken identity, or if he has missed violent conduct - thumping, kicking, elbowing, butting or spitting.
A particular worry I have is that, since the outlawing of the foul tackle from behind, we are seeing more fouls with the upper body - holding, pushing, shirt-pulling - and they tend to do it on the referee's blind side. So we are asking the assistant referees to get more involved. They have electronic flags which they can press to draw the referee's attention."But assistant referees make mistakes, too. Don cites the example of the assistant who, at Blackburn on Boxing Day 1998, advised the unsighted Dermot Gallagher that the Aston Villa goalkeeper Michael Oakes had handled the ball out of his area. Oakes was duly sent off, although when Don and Gallagher examined the video, they both realised that he had been inside his area.
"We spoke to the FA [who rescinded the red card and three-match ban] The problem was that Villa still played an hour with 10 men. No matter what the referee says afterwards it won't change the outcome of the match. So I'm not certain what is to be gained by a referee going public with an apology. It can be counter-productive."Of course, good refereeing means never having to refuse to say you're sorry, a state of affairs that is within reach, Don believes, as soon as referees are properly employed by the Premier League, for three or four days every week "It happens in Italy. They meet up on a Wednesday, spend Thursday and Friday training together, then go off to their matches. I would like that to happen here as the first step towards full-time referees."In which case, nobody would be able to lambast referees for being useless part-timers They would just lambast them for being useless full-timers. Because no matter what, referees, like traffic wardens, will never be the most popular guys on the block.