Play the game, not the occasion – it’s a clichéd piece of advice given to sportsmen as they deal with the nerve shattering experience of preparing for a big game.
Somebody could have done with passing on this message to referee Mark Clattenburg at Anfield on Sunday.
In the post-mortem of Manchester City’s crushing 3-2 defeat against Liverpool, Vincent Kompany’s sliced clearance which teed up Philippe Coutinho for the winner may be remembered as the moment their title dream died.
But was it not Clattenburg’s failure to award City a stonewall penalty when Mamadou Sakho went through Edin Dzeko like a steam train?
How about when Luis Suarez escaped a second booking despite yet another blatant act of simulation?
Or when, in the last moments of the game, Martin Skrtel literally took matters into his own hands and punched the ball away?
You could arguably give the man in the middle the benefit of the doubt with the latter as, unlike the other two, the millions watching the game around the world couldn’t instantly tell he’d made a mistake.
He could also have awarded Liverpool a penalty when the struggling Kompany laid two hands on Suarez’s chest and pushed him to the ground, but four wrongs don’t make a right.
In an era when football managers have been chastised for using officials as a means of papering over the cracks of a poor team performance, sometimes the opposite can be true.
Kompany’s error was more in keeping with a pub league than the Premier League and he should take responsibility but it allowed Clattenburg a shield from the back pages – a place to which he is no stranger.
Referees in the modern game win and lose more points than the majority of squad members do, so perhaps it is time they were brought more in line with players, for their own benefit.
Of course, the obvious answer is simply to increase the use of video technology after the success of the goal line cameras’ debut season but there is a limit to how often they could be used.
Firstly, if a referee has a stinker they should be dropped, just as a player would be. There are thousands of equally competent officials further down the pyramid desperate to take their place.
Instead, Clattenburg is able to dodge the wrath of title-crazed Liverpudlians by not punishing their talismanic Uruguyan for a blatant dive, safe in the knowledge he will be able to pick up his hefty Premier League match fee next week.
Official-huggers may be quick to point out the bravery he showed to correctly award the Anfield side three penalties at the home of their fiercest enemies, Manchester United.
They should also bear in mind the fact two rash United challenges in the box went unpunished and Red Devils fans, whose side have little to play for, had already honed the blame on the club’s current regime.
Secondly, the Premier League is played at such an intense pace by near superhuman physical specimens that mere mortals with the whistles are struggling to keep up, although it must be said that Clattenburg is one of the best at this.
The only remedy for that is to get officials training day in, day out on their fitness and to bring the retirement age way down from 45.
If they love officiating at the pinnacle of the game, and they all do, a couple of hours a day keeping themselves in prime physical shape outside of their day jobs should be little sacrifice.
If they don’t like it they can drop into the football league where, although there are errors and talking points, they are far less frequent.
They do have a hard job, nobody is denying that, but with the attention and money they receive from it they are not the tragic fall guys that governing bodies often make them out to be.
Substandard officiating has cost too many points this season and in those gone by. It MUST stop now.
Main image courtesy of officialswfc via YouTube, with thanks.
