Graham Poll Article

jive

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1381729/Graham-Poll-reveals-secrets-footballs-dark-arts.html

Interesting read given recent events!

Shane St.

very interesting. mourinho the sly dog bringing poll to the training ground

scudzilla

Good read

2. Do clubs influence refereeing appointments?

My favourite venue to referee at was the Nou Camp, Barcelona. However, I only got to referee there once, in a Champions League quarter-final second leg which they lost to Juventus. No controversy, they just lost and over the next five seasons I was not invited to go back. Strange, that.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Yakult

Interesting artical I must say.
If I were a ref, made a decision and then had a bunch of players run up intimidating me, I wouldn't be long bringing out the yellow card and booking each player there. Accept the decision, right or wrong. The ref made the call based on he's judgement and that should be the final say.

Theatrical dives/playacting should also be a punishable offense. Its cheating ffs, players have been caught so many times and nothing is done. No wonder they keep doing it.

ughh football too many times is just turning into a ****fest.

Predator_

Seems theres complete anarchy in football.

Paully D

Poll's one of the main culprits for the "celebrity" referee culture we have in the game today.

I've got no time for him at all.

Pauleta

Very interesting stuff. The on field stuff is plain to see but giving refs watches and a free reign in the club shop :eek: Then there is the "coffee" :pac:

bobbysands81

Yakult wrote: »

Interesting artical I must say.
If I were a ref, made a decision and then had a bunch of players run up intimidating me, I wouldn't be long bringing out the yellow card and booking each player there. Accept the decision, right or wrong. The ref made the call based on he's judgement and that should be the final say.

Theatrical dives/playacting should also be a punishable offense. Its cheating ffs, players have been caught so many times and nothing is done. No wonder they keep doing it.

ughh football too many times is just turning into a ****fest.

Were you watching the Real v Barca match the other night? At the very end of it Alonso came up to moan at the ref... the ref looked at him and then placed his hand on the back pocket of his shorts (where refs usually keep their red card) and looked at Alonso as if to say 'keep going buddy and you're getting sent off'... Alonso saw what he was doing and immediately skulked off.

I thought it was an excellent bit of refereeing so why didn't he do it DURING the game?

ROCKMAN

Interesting read but

Crowd intimidation :rolleyes:
In other words
Home fans doing their job.....

stovelid

Despite the fact that Poll is a bit of a publicity whore, there's real food for thought in there.

Dozen Wicked Words

Graham Poll, sometimes 2 yellow cards are just not enough.

Fuhrer

The point he was making about not being invited back to the Nou Camp, do clubs have a say in who Referees their games then?

pickarooney

Fuhrer wrote: »

The point he was making about not being invited back to the Nou Camp, do clubs have a say in who Referees their games then?

They do in Italy...

SickBoy

Fuhrer wrote: »

The point he was making about not being invited back to the Nou Camp, do clubs have a say in who Referees their games then?

I remember a while back Fergie said someone would never ref a match at Old Trafford again.
Can't remember who he was but I don't think he did a match there again after that..

Degag

Interesting read, especially about the gifts. You'd imagine though that the FA or FIFA etc would clamp down on this and make it illegal for refs to receive gifts. It seems amazing that they don't.

OhNoYouDidn't

Fuhrer wrote: »

The point he was making about not being invited back to the Nou Camp, do clubs have a say in who Referees their games then?

Of course not. But the clear implication is some do.

Gillington

The bit about the referee's changing room at Stamford Bridge is good

Pauleta

I think the dismissive attitute to referees being influenced has to end. If a manager questions a referees integrity, instead of just punishing the manager i feel that the manager should make an official complaint about the referee's integrity and an investigation is held. In the 2002 World Cup, Italy and Trappatoni were insistant that there was a conspiracy in their game against South Korea. It was all dismissed as sour grapes despite some of the decisions the ref made. 8 years later the ref was arrested with 7 kilo's of heroin at an Airport. Tom Ovrebo's refereeing display in the Chelsea-Barca game has to be investigated instead of being just dismissed as a poor performance.

Tippex

Pauleta wrote: »

I think the dismissive attitute to referees being influenced has to end. If a manager questions a referees integrity, instead of just punishing the manager i feel that the manager should make an official complaint about the referee's integrity and an investigation is held. In the 2002 World Cup, Italy and Trappatoni were insistant that there was a conspiracy in their game against South Korea. It was all dismissed as sour grapes despite some of the decisions the ref made. 8 years later the ref was arrested with 7 kilo's of heroin at an Airport. Tom Ovrebo's refereeing display in the Chelsea-Barca game has to be investigated instead of being just dismissed as a poor performance.

This is not going to happen though.
What should happen is that the referee should have a microphone (same as rugby) and all match reports should be publicly available and also referees should be allowed to be interviewed after a game same as managers etc. Part of the problem is the fact that managers can get hauled over hot coals for speaking out (and rightly so) but 90% of the time this is due to frustration with refereeing decisions which they cannot get any answers on.

The Muppet

Interesting article all right, football is big money and where big money is involved Bribery/ Unfair infleuence is always a possibility.

Chardee MacDennis

what does this mean?

After refereeing Paraguay v Colombia in Asuncion the away team representative gave us a gift of some powder. One assistant was so worried about it that he declared it to customs. After a full search, he was told: ‘Enjoy your coffee, sir.’

i read this as: "we were all given coke, one assistant was afraid of being caught and declared his bag (we didnt) but customs turned a blind eye and pretended it was coffee."

is that what it says or am i being mental?

UpTheSlashers

BastardPrince wrote: »

what does this mean?



i read this as: "we were all given coke, one assistant was afraid of being caught and declared his bag (we didnt) but customs turned a blind eye and pretended it was coffee."

is that what it says or am i being mental?

I thought he meant they were given coffee, but one assistant was worried about what it actually was.

CrowdedHouse

Interesting - thanks OP

some good tips there - must forward the link to our manager

jive

CrowdedHouse wrote: »

Interesting - thanks OP

some good tips there - must forward the link to our manager

LOL. I can imagine the Sunday League gifts.

"Hey, put in a good performance at the weekend and there's 2 cans with your name on 'em"

PHB

BastardPrince wrote: »

what does this mean?



i read this as: "we were all given coke, one assistant was afraid of being caught and declared his bag (we didnt) but customs turned a blind eye and pretended it was coffee."

is that what it says or am i being mental?

I thought it was, we got a gift, and we had reffed the game which went against the team that was giving the gift, so he was worried they'd try get him arrested.

ItsAWindUp

Pretty interesting article.

SickBoy wrote: »

I remember a while back Fergie said someone would never ref a match at Old Trafford again.
Can't remember who he was but I don't think he did a match there again after that..

Yep, that sounds about right.

Fuhrer

ItsAWindUp wrote: »

Pretty interesting article.




Yep, that sounds about right.

Its a Wind Up!

ArmaniJeanss

People (particularly Poll himself) are reading way too much into his 'wasn't given another match in the Nou Camp in 5 years' conspiracy.

If Barca get to the semi finals of the CL then they will have played 6 home matches in Europe. In the knockout stages some of these games will be against English teams (or at the quarter final stage will be a tie in which the winners play an English team in the semi's) so Poll wouldn't be considered anyway.

So we are talking around 20,22 games in a 5 year period. The Uefa panel is around 40 refereees, so it is statistically not very remarkable that he wasn't given one of those games.
If you subscribe to 'Poll was one of the top referees in Europe and should be given monster fixtures' then yeah maybe. But few would have that viewpoint.

Paparazzo

I thought it was a fairly unremarkable article tbh. Free club shirts? big deal! The mourinho story is good though