2022-2023 UEFA Referee Discussion [R]

I said as soon as he blew for penalty kicks in the World Cup Final that Marciniak was gonna get the UCL Final, but I just don't like how he got there.

It's pretty clear and obvious that at this point Rosetti and UEFA have no plan or long term vision either within a season let alone two to three years down the road when it comes to referee assignments and planning.

They are like your local assignor trying to cover a tournament. Throw a bunch of bodies out there and hope it works out.

As a result of this unorganized approach, they are inevitably going to put themselves in a spot where they will inevitably have to give someone the CL Final a second time.

If Marciniak didn't do well on the second leg, then who was the alternative? Vincic? Kovacs?

Which is why I don't understand why they didn't use Orsato on the second leg of the Man City vs. Real Madrid tie or have Marciniak do the first leg and Orsato the second?

I understand why all the confederations and leagues have gone away from having a referee committee in making assignments and just having a "Head of Refereeing" who is the face of the organization who has all the authority and veto power when it comes assignments. In this day and age, people like having a face to an organization instead of a vague and nebulous "referee committee."

However, you see some of the drawbacks to this. With a referee committee you would never end up with a scenario like this, because there would be voices in that room who would have the foresight to think ahead and plan.

If you get a Man City vs. Real Madrid Final next year or Man City vs. Bayern Munich next year, who is doing the game that hasn't done the Final yet?

Vincic? Kovacs? I guess you can point to Makkelie, but can you really put a guy on a Final one year after whatever the hell that was that he did in Sevilla?

Your point is excellent about not having any credible options if you have an English team in the Final.

I don't know why and who is to blame (it's probably everyone to an extent), the fact that we have now gone a decade plus without a serious Swiss, Belgian, Scandinavian (we are approaching that now with the Nordic referees since Eriksson last did CL matches), and Scotttish referee in the latter stages of the CL is finally catching up with UEFA.

Not to mention that seemingly the well has finally run dry for elite German and Italian referees and you're left with the situation we have now.

If the Balkans weren't going through a seemingly high point in their refereeing with Skomina, Vincic, Mazic, and Jovanovic (not as good as Mazic), where would UEFA be?

Russian referees were never that great to begin with, but it's still one less body from a large footballing nation due to the sanctions on Russia from the war in Ukraine.

If this continues, they might be left with no choice but to put a Marciniak or Turpin on a CL FInal again.

 

I think that's a bit harsh. They have limited control over how well referees perform, and referee development is more a function of the national federations than it is of UEFA.

Likewise, they can't anticipate changes in referee form....if anybody had told you 12 months ago that Makkelie would ref himself out of consideration for the CL Final with a couple of mediocre knockout round performances, you would have told them that that was pretty unlikely. But even the best refs have bad performances every now and then, and if you start eliminating refs from the "big match" pool just because of a couple of bad performances, you're going to end up with a very, very small pool to choose from.

And that's before you even start factoring in not being able to use certain refs on certain matches because a club from their country is involved.

 

True, but it's also about giving referees opportunities as well. I don't think UEFA has even made an attempt.

You didn't have to put Felix Brych on practically every knockout match but the Final in Euro 2020.

Look at the KO of the CL the past couple of seasons. It's practically all referees from the Big 5 Leagues. We've seen enough of Siebert that he simply isn't at that level. So give someone else shot instead of just putting Orsato and Marciniak on every other game.

 

One point I’d like to add about the repetition of Marciniak.

I think we can all agree - and surely Marciniak could see it too - that Anthony Taylor would have been appointed to the CL Final if Manchester City had lost. Well, combine City having won with a little bit of luck in the way of Makkelie’s performance, now Marciniak gets a chance for the Final. Therefore we have a situation where the result of City vs Real - which Marciniak, of course, refereed - plays a crucial role in deciding which referee got the CL Final.

This seems like a situation where it should be considered a direct conflict on interest. A huge milestone in Marciniak’s career hinged, at least temporarily, on City winning the game that he refereed. And it’s not just a milestone for personal accomplishment, it likely comes with a nice helping of public image that can contribute to lucrative appointments in the Middle East etc.

Now maybe Marciniak is willing and able to tune that all out. But maybe he isn’t, and how is anyone to know the difference?

Regardless he had to go out and ref the game to which they appointed him, it’s not his fault, but really it goes to show how sloppy and careless the assignments have been that they’re putting a referee in such a position, a position where the referee does personally benefit from the result.

 

I have opinions on the decision aspect like all of you do and it’s great to see marciniak in the final because he rules. But it is strange to me to see you guys talk about not wanting to give certain refs multiple finals. It seems like the best ref should get the appointments regardless of how many past finals they got or whatever.

 

Yeah but no one knew beforehand that the match would turn into such a simple 4-0. There’s nothing in the world any referee could have done that would have changed that, so my argument here is theoretical about the appropriateness of the appointment itself.

You argue that if it had been a different score, a different set of circumstances in the match, that Marciniak would have been ruled out of the final too; well, that’s sort of my point. The fact that the match had to progress a particular way, related to something beyond simply the quality of the referee performance, still seems problematic to me - even if the conditional is more complicated than “City must win.” Maybe it blurs the lines enough where it makes the consequences blurrier and easier to ignore and therefore less conflict-ridden. I still don’t like it.

Yeah you’re probably right about that!

Nevertheless it is still fair to say that Marciniak did indeed want the UCL Final.

 

English VARs on the EL final seems pretty notable given how poor their reputation within UEFA has been recently. Bit of a weird place to welcome them back into the fold.

 

No one watching the EL Final? Taylor and the English VAR crew doing a fantastic job.

 

Taylor surely setting the record for most stoppage time in second half extra time.

 

I thought he was amazing. Made great calls again and again. Roma were the sneaky team trying to win fouls as instructed by Mou.

 

https://streamff.com/v/JTgAjsLQHf

So this... is the hand close enough to the body which is why it is not given? Is that the correct call? Just want to verify, as I don't know what a handball is, after all

 

Clearly misunderstood the guidance on below the armpit, thought it was below the wrist.

 

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

"Jose Mourinho confronts referee Anthony Taylor in car park after Europa League final defeat"

 

I thought Taylor did really well last night. It was an awful game and I thought he managed things ON THE PITCH really really well. The cautions and fouls selection were all pretty good. It was a challenging game.

Off the pitch and the technical area was whole another story. The substitutes, bench personnel and managers were just out of control from both teams.

It was awful. How they couldn't find one person to send off from the technical area is beyond me.

The technical area non-sense wasn't entirely down to the English philosophy of being just a punching bag/traffic cone as a fourth official. Yes, part of it is English referees and fourth officials just don't want to be the bad guy when it comes to managers and technical staff.

Howard Webb admitted himself that their approach of being accommodating and "working" with the managers and technical staff just isn't working and that they need to be stricter and harsher.

A huge part of is that FIFA, UEFA, and the governing bodies just don't seem to care and don't think this behavior is a problem.

Also who didn't predict that giving yellow and red cards to technical staff wouldn't have unintended consequences in that managers now have a clearer understanding of what the bar is for getting sent off and are pushing it where before it really was just down to "in the opinion of the referee."

I think whoever the referee was last night wouldn't have produced a red card in the technical area.

Just look at the past 5 World Cups. It's been a gradual and steady decline in the technical area. Just look at games from the 2006 World Cup to the last one. You almost never see substitutes run onto the field to celebrate goals or protest decisions. Now you see it in every big match.

Managers getting into with each other was a big no-no and an automatic dismissal. Now, it's just part of the game.

Mourinho would have gotten sent off like 5 times over last night back in 2010. He literally had to be restrained in the game and only got a yellow card.



He got sent-off for this in a champions league semi-final and last night he had to be restrained and didn't get a red card.

 

It will never happen obviously, but it would really be great if all UEFA referees, ARs, 4th officials, and anyone else got together and refused to work Mourinho’s matches. This guy is completely insane and clearly will either never be sufficiently punished for his constant transgressions, or just doesn’t care when he does receive them. Constant dissent, constant abuse, constant post-game confrontations, waiting in the parking lot for referees multiple times, it’s ridiculous.

 

Or they could just actually, you know, toss him each time he earns it . . . .

 

In England, it's probably not a handball.
In UEFA, it's probably supposed to be

@code1390 was referring to Chelsea/ Dortmund Champions League match earlier this year. One key difference is the Sevilla/Roma clip doesn't show how much time Sevilla's defender had before the pass/cross into the box (although it looks like he's positioned himself to block/deflect it)
Chelsea/Dortmund at 6'09 of the highlight video


Of course, whether this should be a handball offense — reflected in the Laws of the Game and the guidelines given to referees — is a separate matter. It's my opinion, we shouldn't accept such cynical, ugly, negative defense in the game, but many of course disagree.

***

"Sollozzo is known as the Turk. He's very good with the knife, although only in matters of business and with some sort of reasonable complaint..."

 

Without wishing to be a broken record on this issue, the sizemic jump was between 2010 and 2014 - taking this up specifically with someone who attended the latter tournament, he was told not even to bother warning the coaches and just let them "do their thing", let everything go.

I watched De Bleeckere's Barcelona vs. Inter Milan SF last summer - despite everything, Mourinho left the technical area perimeter once during the whole match, and Gumienny as fourth official immediately called over De Bleeckere at the next stoppage in play, the ref warned the Portuguese coach, and he never transgressed again. And I'm not exaggerating that btw.

Hilarious to read these opinions on Twitter that "it is about time that the authorities clamped down on this sort of thing" - no, it can never be forgotten that such scenes were and are deliberately encouraged by FIFA, UEFA and only came about because of deliberate choices by them.

Rosetti hugged Mourinho in the seconds before he shouts at Taylor + crew in the underground car park ffs...

 

It’s over for our friend marciniak.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-referee-spoke-at-event-with-far-right-leader

also here’s footage of Anthony Taylor’s family being assaulted at the airport after the UEL final
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/com..._app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1