The whistle has been blown and the call is made, but that is never the end. As a sports fan with a broad range of sports interests, there’s one thing I noticed. Lately, coaches and players have become increasingly angry with officiating. Could it be the rise of social media, where every missed call is played on a loop for every fan to see? Or is it that the increase in money and sports stakes have never been higher? A missed call in game 62 of the NBA season that could’ve led to a win means that instead of a top-six playoff seed, your team is in the play-in.
Is Reffing Getting Worse?
Replay is everywhere and in every sport. Yet, it often causes more problems than it usually solves. Well, that’s what it seems like. Let’s look at international soccer, specifically in La Liga and the Premier League.
Ghost Goal
In La Liga over the weekend, the biggest game on the soccer calendar took place: El Clasico. Real Madrid versus Barcelona. In a tied two-two game, Barcelona’s super-duper star youngster Lamine Yamal scored a goal to put Barcelona up 3-2….or it seemed like that. The ball crossed the line…but the ref didn’t call it a goal. Why? Well…..La Liga is cheap that’s why.
Goal-line technology was introduced in 2014 at the World Cup and adopted the following year in European leagues. La Liga hasn’t paid $4.3 million to implement it in theirs. Cheap? Yes, and it’s egregious for a league that makes 2 billion euros a year. So, the people in charge are actively deciding to let something like this happen, which is insane. Barcelona have every to be upset.
Liverpool Tottenham Game Conundrum
In September of 2023, Tottenham beat Liverpool 2-1. This wasn’t the story. In the first half, Luis Diaz scored, except he was offside…but when the lines were drawn he didn’t seem to be offside. Insanity ensued after the game when both teams saw the lines. Liverpool was pissed and requested the VAR audio. When the audio was released, it was made clear that the officials moved the game on too quickly and realized they made a mistake.
That game costed Liverpool at least one point…which would put them two points behind first place. If they had won, that would put them tied for first place. But officials make mistakes right? Yeah, they always have.
Officials Mess Up and Know it
The NBA’s two-minute report is released after every game. It highlights the plays officials got wrong, so fans can be even more pissed. Jokes aside, this doesn’t help anyone. NBA players have even more reason to feel the officials are out to get them. Coaches have to ruminate on the fact that they could lose their job over a missed call that cost them two or three points.
Officials don’t have it any easier, their mistakes are shown for everyone to see. Does an official think twice about making a call if he or she has just gotten one wrong the night before? Probably. The added layers of officiating in the quest for perfection give players, coaches, and fans something tangible to blame.
The Blame Game
It’s the officials’ fault. We lost the game because the officials messed up. Look no further than LeBron James blaming refs after Monday night’s game two loss to the Denver Nuggets. Nothing about how his team gave away a 20-point lead. The officials are to blame, says the best player of his generation. This only further alienates fans who back their superstar player and believe those guys in the zebra stripes are out to get them.
Watch any basketball game from the last five years and you’ll notice something early that will continue the whole game, players complaining on almost every play. They often don’t rush back on defense and instead, stay a second or two behind the play to yell at refs. Look up any star NBA player and then search “complaining,” and there will be a multitude of videos and articles about this.
This is an actual tweet from an actual team’s account in England after they lost two-zero on Sunday.
The, “everyone is out to get us,” idea that has seeped into the Premier League. You’ve got the Arsenal manager making bold claims about refs and other managers attacking them as well. It seems every single week, at least one game has questionable officiating. This gets analysts and fans further away from talking about what is actually going on and who is playing well and who isn’t. Instead, we deal in hypotheticals, we have pundits and fans who’ve never read the rulebook or taken any officiating classes being tasked with deciding whether or not a decision is right or wrong.
Baseball Corner
The nature of baseball is tough. The umpire calling balls and strikes seems like he might have one of the toughest jobs in sports. Yet, early in the season, there have been countless incorrect calls. This seems to be paving the way for one of two solutions.
The challenge system allows pitchers to challenge a call by the home plate umpire. This is then related to a system that shows whether the call is right or not. Thus, it takes about half a minute. This system is already used in the minor leagues.
The second solution is robot umpires. Every ball and strike is called by an AI system that then relays the information to a home plate umpire who makes the call. This would seem perfect, but it could also take a bit longer and increase how long games are throughout.
American Football Corner
Football in America has the same problems as other sports and is the most watched sport in America. The unique thing about football is that it gets most of the calls right. The problem with the officiating is the consistency of those calls.
The officials and replay system do a great job of getting calls right. The rules of football could be tweaked and the constant change of the rules gives the officials a shorter time to adjust to how the game is being called. Plus, officials who are used to letting the quarterback get hit their whole reffing lives, now have to adjust. Human error in that process of evolving as an official is natural. Will fans understand that? Most likely not.
The Nature of the Game
“What are we really talking about here!” spouts Osborne Cox in “Burn After Reading”. That’s a fair way to look at the discourse over officiating in recent years. Every game in every sport is made up of little moments that usually decide the outcome. How important is a missed call in the last two minutes of a basketball game if your team missed ten free throws? Kobe Bryant was right when he said to do the simple things right. The devil IS in the details, not the missed foul call or penalty you weren’t awarded.
UCONN women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers was asked about a controversial call in the Final Four game versus Iowa in which the Huskies lost. Her response…well it was brilliant.
An elite mentality is required to play sports at the highest levels in this era. One must push past the excess of praise and hate they receive online about their performances. One must also be able to realize how complaining about officiating after the fact leads to nothing significant coming your team’s way.
Players, coaches, and fans are allowed to be emotional about the game they just played or watched. It’s fair to feel hard done by a call, but a failure to understand the real reasons why you’ve lost the game will cost you more in the long run than any official ever could.
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