Making The Call
Bjorn Roston gives us some interesting insight about referees. Why not give him a follow on twitter @borganstein
Referees make a call. It’s their job. They train to be able to read the flow of the game, and judge whether player A hit player B. They have to keep in mind attacking flow, and whether advantage is accruing, and they only have a few seconds to make the call. Then after the call, does it deserve a yellow, or a red? Is it indirect, or direct? Inevitably, that call upsets about fifty percent of the people watching. Majority of the time those calls are good, sometimes close, other times flabbergastedly wrong. A certain Graham Poll game springs to mind.
For those of you who enjoy stats continue reading, otherwise just jump forward a few paragraphs.
Helsen and Bultynck (2004) completed some research regarding the physical and mental load on top-class referees in Europe. While the referees and games were played in Europe, it is essentially the same game. So the stats should at least give you a rough idea of exactly how many decisions a referee makes. These stats suggest that referees make an average of 137 observable decisions per game. Helsen and Bultynck also added in unobservable decisions such as no fouls. These can have an affect and are in essence a decision because the referee needs to determine that no foul occurred. This brings the total decisions made by a referee to approximately two hundred during active game time (Helsen & Bultynck, 2004).
I couldn’t find any statistics regarding active game time for the A-League, so I am using the Asian Football Confederation average of approximately 52 minutes of active game time per 90 minutes. This is certainly an underestimation. This means that on average a professional referee makes between 3 to 4 decisions per minute. These decisions are evenly spread throughout the match and so a match official needs to be vigilant for the whole match.
A paper by Mallo, Frutus, Juarez and Navarro which used top-level referees this time at the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2009 found that on average the error rate for referees was 14 percent for decisions relating to foul identification. Of the 15 matches recorded there was an average of approximately 25 fouls per game. This means that over the average active game time in a football match there is approximately a foul every 2 minutes.
There were 36 registered fouls in the Sydney FC v Melbourne Victory game on 14.02.2015 (Fox Sports; 14.02.15). Slightly higher than the previous example, which can be explained by the aggressive and tense nature of the game? So if we take the average game time for AFC international games, we can see that Delovski had to make a foul identification about every 1.4 minutes (1min 24secs) even if we take the average game time for an EPL match which is 64 minutes, Delovski had to make a foul identification every 1.7 minutes (1min 42secs) (Hamilton, H; 2013). The A-League most likely sits somewhere in between these two averages.
These are of course are average times and as such don’t represent actual time lines for decisions during the game. Though they do give a solid picture about how many decisions Delovski had to make and the amount of time he had to recharge. So out of every two minutes during active game time, Delovski made on average 6-8 decisions per two minutes of which 1 of them was a foul. If we take the average error rate of 14 percent, Delovski made an error identifying a foul 5 times.
Without access to personalised stats for the Sydney FC v Melbourne Victory game these stats only make an overview possible rather than a technical breakdown. A quick count of Delovski’s overt and non-decisions during the game did bring a total of just under two hundred. This is within the range found by previous research.
Not only do referees have quite a high mental load during game, they also have quite a high physical load as well. This means that they need to make those hundreds of decisions while under high physical stress. With some studies suggesting that referees reach an average of 85 percent of maximal heart rate, whereas assistant referees reach approximately 75 percent of maximal heart rate. Weston, Castanga, Impelizzeri, and Rampini (2006) conducted research which showed that referees on average covered approximately 9.438km in a game across 14 games in the English Premier League. This is paired with research conducted in the top Italian football leagues where referees covered approximately 11.469km (2006).
While knowing how many incorrect calls a referee makes is important, it is more important where and how the error occurred. For example, a mistake in the middle of the park, while still serious, has nowhere near the repercussions that a penalty given in error has. There are four sides to an error by a referee. Whether it is critical or noncritical and whether it was an error “in law” or an error “in judgment”. It is how these intersect that determines the seriousness of an error. For instance, giving a penalty for a high foot challenge is a critical error in law. As a high foot is only an indirect free kick. The penalty call that Delovski gave on Saturday for Sydney FC could be called a critical error “in judgement”. Where his decision was based on the proper application of the law, though he misperceived what actually occurred.
This is of course is just a rough guide by which a referee can get assessed and judged as to the success of his or her game. There are of course multiple layers and levels to a professional referee’s assessment and as such this analysis shouldn’t be taken as gospel.
I hope this little piece will help you judge a referee less harshly as they need to make a lot of decisions per game; they have an inordinately small amount of time to perceive, analyse, and react. They only get one chance to see an event and this often under high physical exertion.
Next time you see a referee make mistake. Ask yourself whether it’s an error “in law” or an error “in judgment”? Could the referee have seen something different from their angle? Did multiple events happen in quick succession? Was he or she blocked by another player? Was there deception involved? All these things and more, mean that making the call isn’t as simple as blowing the whistle.
References
Helsen & Bultynck, (2004), Physical and perceptual-cognitive demands of top-class refereeing in association football, Journal of Sports Sciences, 22, 179-189.
http://www.soccermetrics.net/team-performance/effective-time-in-football
http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/a-league/match-centre/match-recap?matchid=HAL2014-151704SYDMVC
Mallo, Frutus, Juarez & Navarro, (2012), Effect of positioning on the accuracy of decision making of association football top-class referees and assistant referees during competitive matches. Technical University of Madrid, Spain
Weston, Castagnam Impellizzeri, Rampinini & Abt (2006). Analysis of physical match performances in English Premier League soccer referees with particular reference to first half and player work rates. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 10, 390-397.
Image: www.footballaustralia.com.au
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