Mark Clattenburg: Chelsea make complaint against referee

[Leody]

If rio pulls him back by the shoulder theo should be busting a gut to stay on his feet and score. If rio pulling him causes him to fall then fine, but if he goes down looking for the foul the ref should wave play on and book theo when the ball next goes out of play imo. That is how i want things to be!

We all do. But letting the ref determine that during the course of play at full match speed is insanity. Because you just KNOW they'll start making horribly wrong calls because they think the player could have fought through the challenge.

A foul is a foul. Regardless of how the player reacts to it. Leave it at that.

And Torres was fouled.

A foul isn't a foul if the striker saw the defender and purposely waited for the challenge. There was a time that was seen as cheating, now it is seen as a skill. I don't know how we got to where we are now or how to eradicate it but it is wrong.

Contact should not equal a foul, otherwise football becomes a non contact sport and that ruins it for me!

Perhaps if the defender is afraid of a player looking for a contact he should be more careful in his challenge and make sure he wins the ball... just a thought.

Look, we all hate the diving, simulation, going down before contact, dragging a foot and reaching for contact bull shit. But you cannot allow the refs even more interpretation in what is and isn't a foul. Your intentions are good, but enforcement misguided. You think the moaning about Manc favoritism is bad now... Jesus I fear to think the calls they would get in their favor if refs could judge the effort a player made to avoid or fight through a challenge. You'd never see another penalty at Old Trafford.

[greengoonerie]

We have United on Sunday..........in their ground. Could you imagine if Manc Clattenberk was reffing that match? 8-2 would seem like a good result for us, given his performance for united on Sunday.

Whatever the outcome of the complaint by Chelsea, Clattenberk should never be given another Man United game. That would go a lot further in ensuring the the EPL want to be seen to be ensuring fair play by Referees than anything else.

2 reds, and an offside winning goal.....in CHELSEA'S ground...!!

[Leody]

I'll tell you one thing that could be done tomorrow to go a long way towards dealing with simulation.

Have an external review panel that looks at video of every foul after each match. And player that was awarded a foul by going down without contact is suspended without pay for 5 matches and the club pays his wages to a league charity.

The problem is, right now too much responsibility is placed on the 1 center official for each match. Players know they can do almost anything they want and they only have to con the one man in the middle with the whistle, and if he doesn't get it right they face no other form of punishment. There are lots of things that could be done, but the FA doesn't want to even question the authority of the center ref when it's quite obvious that no man can see and properly interrupt everything that happens on a football pitch. Give them some help, don't pile more responsibility on the ref.

[Yorkyblue]

When there is contact, even when minimal, you can't book players. It's just f***ing stupid.

He went down like he'd been shot! That is cheating! Exaggerating injury to not only get a free kick but to try to get his opponent booked.

It may currently be part of the game but it needs to be stopped!!!

I want a new law banning exaggerated responses to tackles!

But he was fouled. Surly that matters more? Yes he exaggerated the foul more than it was but he was still fouled.

If he wanted to he could have stayed on his feet and might have scored. These days any sign of contact and players are on the floor. I hate that.

Contact shouldn't be the same as a foul. I'd like to see the rules changed so that it is about intention rather than contact. Currently strikers are encouraged to look for contact and go down. Leaving your foot there to encourage a foul should be seen as cheating!

Where did he leave his foot? He got caught just above his foot and went straight down! The second time it is shown on this vid shows how clear the contact is. That foot never touches the ground again either. Running at that speed, it wouldn't surprise me if Torres wasn't even trying to make it look worse than it was.

[ThereIsBearCüm]

When there is contact, even when minimal, you can't book players. It's just f***ing stupid.

He went down like he'd been shot! That is cheating! Exaggerating injury to not only get a free kick but to try to get his opponent booked.

It may currently be part of the game but it needs to be stopped!!!

I want a new law banning exaggerated responses to tackles!

But he was fouled. Surly that matters more? Yes he exaggerated the foul more than it was but he was still fouled.

If he wanted to he could have stayed on his feet and might have scored. These days any sign of contact and players are on the floor. I hate that.

Contact shouldn't be the same as a foul. I'd like to see the rules changed so that it is about intention rather than contact. Currently strikers are encouraged to look for contact and go down. Leaving your foot there to encourage a foul should be seen as cheating!

Thing is, intent is a very very hard thing to gauge. They try to leave it out of the LOTG as much as possible. As far as I'm aware, it only appears in the handball rule.

[greengoonerie]

Making physical contact with another persons leg is FACT.
How hard the foot hit the persons leg is OPINION.

The laws of the game are supposed to be based upon Facts.

Intent is equally nonsense. If there's contact, then its a free, regardless of whether the player dives like Greg Louganis or whether he has his leg broken.

once you start with the "I barely touched him, ref" stupidity, then you end up with situations like the Eduardo and Ramsay leg breaks.
Mistiming tackles is an offence, and it can be seriously damaging for the player on the receiving end too, if theyre not quick enough to dodge the challenge.

The foul on Torres was a mistimed challenge, and he dived to avoid more serious injury. It was a foul. And a free kick to Chelsea. But probably not a yellow card for the guy who did the fouling - the United player!! wHy clattenberk didn't give it, ony he and SAF can answer!!

[ThereIsBearCüm]

Making physical contact with another persons leg is FACT.
How hard the foot hit the persons leg is OPINION.

The laws of the game are supposed to be based upon Facts.

Intent is equally nonsense. If there's contact, then its a free, regardless of whether the player dives like Greg Louganis or whether he has his leg broken.

once you start with the "I barely touched him, ref" stupidity, then you end up with situations like the Eduardo and Ramsay leg breaks.
Mistiming tackles is an offence, and it can be seriously damaging for the player on the receiving end too, if theyre not quick enough to dodge the challenge.

The foul on Torres was a mistimed challenge, and he dived to avoid more serious injury. It was a foul. And a free kick to Chelsea. But probably not a yellow card for the guy who did the fouling - the United player!! wHy clattenberk didn't give it, ony he and SAF can answer!!

It's a contact game though. You're allowed to touch the guy, just not unfairly impede him. If contact always = free kick, the game would be unbearable... it would exclusively be: free kick -> pump it into the other penalty area -> penalty/defensive free kick -> repeat for 90 minutes. In other words, it would be Australian football.

[Arsenal Tone]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00005224G

^Watch this vhs video and tell me that diving isn't pathetic these days.

There's one bit where souness full on whacks his opponent in the face with his elbow, the ref waves play on and the opponent doesn't even go down!

The argument used to be that you don't let your opponent know that you are injured, don't show weakness. Now managers tell players 'if you get touched then make sure you go down and try to win a free kick/get the opponent booked - that is nothing short of CHEATING!!!

[Reverend Gooner]

A full on whack from Souness would probably hurt and if a player goes down it would not be diving although if he does a backward flip and rolls around on the floor 3 times I would call it over the top. I get what you are saying and I agree to an extent but at the same time, although I haven't seem the clip (I will assume it is deliberate or reckless) it does sound like Souness deserves a red card for that. I am all for cracking down on diving but I don't want to go back to a time where full on elbows to the face and full pelt studds up challenges are par for the course.

Clamp down on diving but clamp down on dangerous play as well.

Simulation is a bit different to diving, if a player gets mildly slapped and acts like he is shot and rolls around then it is stupid and a yellow card may be called for (something Rivaldoesque should probably be a red) but if someone gets a full on elbow to the face and goes down like a ton of bricks and wriths in pain then it may be that painful, some people have different pain thresholds and act differently to pain. To expect players to man up and not show weakness is pretty patronising and why should they? They just got intentionally elbowed in the face (or any other illegal action) and the offender deserves recrimination which maybe justifiably leave the opposition a man down.

I think there are times when a player is so clearly making a meal of their injuries, the kind of childish acting that is beyond belief and in those cases the referees should have the guts to show cards but if there is any doubt then they should keep their cards in their pockets. Not every player is as hard as Batistuta so what looks like simulation may not be. A balance needs to be found but I think it will be very hard to find. If we would see the kind of foolish refereeing we saw from Clattenberg on a regular basis then it may best just be left alone.

[golfinguy]

Rolling around and feigning injury..... means nothing unless the referee lets it get to him. As I ref, I ignore all that crap. You are to call fouls for the foul itself - any performance afterwards gets ignored by me. If it makes spectators angry to see players rolling around, thats on the player and the crowd - NOT the referee. What I do, is have them take the kick and play on ASAP. I do not indulge the performer with any stoppage in play. He gets very little whinging time, and no visit from the physio.

But I do NOT agree the players should not get a call because of how easily they went down. Illegal contact is just that and should be judged as such. Torres was fouled - end of. Its a simple free kick, no cards for anyone. If Torres wants to lie on the turf and cry, let him - but I'm having the game play on. I do think we need to play on quickly and not allow all this injury time and physio's onto the pitch every 10 minutes. There are no timeouts in football - stop allowing players to get them. Its fairly easy to recognize those few times when someone really needs help ASAP - but lets stop doing it for minor bruises.

The referees are indulging them, this needs to stop first. Just that will reduce a few performances - then we can tackle the others with video evidence after the match.

[TheArsenalPost]

I couldn't agree more. The performance aspect and trying to over-sell what happened has gone beyond a joke. Players dive all the time and don't always get a card, we saw Bale dive a few weeks back, Young loves a dive but do they get what they deserve? Not always.

[EvAMY-CRAIGLEEAFC]

I think he is guilty. He is a complete idiot. Loves the attention. TBF to refs you can lip read what the players say to them. So why can they not gob off either ?. I once saw Mark Halsey look as though he was sticking up for himself. I would have no problem with a ref giving it back as long as it did not go too far like Clattenburg will have done. It has to be said the standard of refs is shocking. United play to different rules. The best of a bad bunch is Probert.

[Est83]

Rolling around and feigning injury..... means nothing unless the referee lets it get to him. As I ref, I ignore all that crap. You are to call fouls for the foul itself - any performance afterwards gets ignored by me. If it makes spectators angry to see players rolling around, thats on the player and the crowd - NOT the referee. What I do, is have them take the kick and play on ASAP. I do not indulge the performer with any stoppage in play. He gets very little whinging time, and no visit from the physio.

But I do NOT agree the players should not get a call because of how easily they went down. Illegal contact is just that and should be judged as such. Torres was fouled - end of. Its a simple free kick, no cards for anyone. If Torres wants to lie on the turf and cry, let him - but I'm having the game play on. I do think we need to play on quickly and not allow all this injury time and physio's onto the pitch every 10 minutes. There are no timeouts in football - stop allowing players to get them. Its fairly easy to recognize those few times when someone really needs help ASAP - but lets stop doing it for minor bruises.

The referees are indulging them, this needs to stop first. Just that will reduce a few performances - then we can tackle the others with video evidence after the match.

The most sensible comment yet. And I agree with Rev also, as much as we hate the diving, we can't go back to the other extreme... PG!

Golfinguy, I could really do with you reffing one of my 5-a-side matches where you literally have to hear the crunching and breaking of bones, or do absolutely nothing, to get a foul. If I stay on my feet after I get kicked hard, then no foul is given, whether I'm in posession or not. I'll skip past someone, take a whack to the calf and get pushed off balance, but then hear the word "advantage" yelled as the ball rolls to an oposition player... all because I stayed on my feet!

[Zedie]

I'll tell you one thing that could be done tomorrow to go a long way towards dealing with simulation.

Have an external review panel that looks at video of every foul after each match. And player that was awarded a foul by going down without contact is suspended without pay for 5 matches and the club pays his wages to a league charity.

The problem is, right now too much responsibility is placed on the 1 center official for each match. Players know they can do almost anything they want and they only have to con the one man in the middle with the whistle, and if he doesn't get it right they face no other form of punishment. There are lots of things that could be done, but the FA doesn't want to even question the authority of the center ref when it's quite obvious that no man can see and properly interrupt everything that happens on a football pitch. Give them some help, don't pile more responsibility on the ref.

Spot on.

[Yorkyblue]

Id blame others before our FA. It needs sorting at the top rather than here.