Referee Accountability Quotes

Everyone makes mistakes, but when players or managers make mistakes, they are all accountable and have to take responsibility. When I talk about referees, you wonder, 'Can I say this?' You have to be careful - but they are the only group in the world of football who are treated like that.

VAR exposes everything. Before we didn't have the possibility of seeing some things that we now see. The referees are people who can be wrong as well.

I've addressed this before, and I'll say it again: The league has to take a long, hard look at full-time officials. The officiating has been inconsistent all season long.

In Italy, everyone is talking about the referee for three days before the game - 'We don't like him. He is no good.'

I would say the referees have the toughest game to call. I would say that there's a lot of officiating done by announcers, local announcers. Sometimes you should listen to a game from both feeds, and you'd think you were listening to completely different games.

I don't like to criticise referees because I believe it is a very complicated job, and what they do is very beneficial for football.

For me to be speaking of the referees, then you know it must be something big.

There's no reason for me to go into a big dissertation about why I'm not getting the calls. The refs have to do their jobs as well. I even mentioned it in training camp to the refs when we had our little meeting.

Football officiating is so subjective - much more subjective than any other sport. But the more I watch - and I watch too many matches - the more impressed I am with referees.

I have spoken to refs after games, just to ask about something that had occurred during a game. It's always been off the record and I've never had a ref not answer.

Damn referees, I'll miss them less than anybody.

I always think we have to be cautious with our attitude to refereeing the professionals and the people in the football family.

Refereeing is always an issue where you want to have the best officials, and I think the referees do their very best in the games, but we always want to improve standards across the league.

I would like to change the refereeing system. The pressure that is put on an official in a match is too large.

We should not discuss refereeing performances but support decisions to help their work.

The league feels like it's their job to protect the referees more than the players.

I'm glad to see goal-line technology working; we should have had it for years. I do believe we will soon see managers being allowed one, or two, challenges.