No excuse for Klopp or Conte’s recent antics but refs must improve communication and take accountability for decisions

THERE needs to be a watershed moment with referees in football.

Officials are trying their best and they don’t deserve to be screamed and shouted at like Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte have done.

I can’t sit on my high horse about it because I am one of the worst for having a go.

And I don’t think a referee can get it right every time. I really don’t.
But the key thing is communication.

As a player or a manager, you need to feel heard. Right now, there simply isn’t enough of that.

A lack of communication. A lack of clarity.

There is no excuse for what Klopp and Conte did, but that’s where it stems from, especially in recent weeks.

If referees were made to take proper accountability for a controversial decision, get in front of a camera for one or two minutes and explain their thinking, the dynamic would completely change. I honestly believe that.

You see it at the end of games, refs standing in the centre circle telling players and managers to go away and leave them alone.

That isn’t helping anything.

They shouldn’t be bombarded by an interviewer post-match for every small incident and every foul.

That would be ridiculous. It needs to be done in the right way.

There are normally one or two big decisions in a match.

Refs should get about 15 minutes in their room at the stadium after the final whistle to review some TV footage.

Then, they can get asked, ‘Why didn’t you give that as a penalty?’ or ‘explain why you felt that was a handball’. No pointing the finger, just a discussion.

It sounds like such a small thing, but for managers and players, the public watching looking for clarification, it changes everything.

I don’t think it will happen but why not? I understand we want to protect officials.

Refs need to be accountable.

There needs to be a greater understanding of what goes on in their minds and how they react to being in a potentially season-defining moment.

Should they be scrutinised in the same way as a manager or player?

Of course not, but they shouldn’t be able to just walk out the back door and say nothing.

Why can’t they go in front of the press and explain a decision?

It would literally be two or three questions maximum and that is it.

Clubs do referee reports after games. Why can’t we also publish those?

It is not about saying the referee is bad but highlighting things that went wrong and taking accountability.

Until we can ask those questions and get the answers up front, without any cloaks and dagger, you are going to have this weird space where refs are all interpreting the same law differently without being called out on it, and that’s what causes arguments.

When I was at the Euros last summer, the VAR was top drawer. We all thought, ‘Here we go, we are getting somewhere’.

I don’t remember too many games in that competition when VAR was ever mentioned or was contentious.

What is happening now is that we always try to evolve, we always try to do something weird and wonderful. Each year there are five or six different law changes.

For example, the interpretation of the handball law from last year to this year is completely different.

Goals that were disallowed last season would stand this season.

If you walked up to any player, in the Premier League or the EFL, and asked them to write down what the handball law was, no one would get it right. That’s a worry in itself.

The letter of the law to the interpretation is completely different and that is where the frustration comes from.

In the Championship, I do feel there is less anger at an official and less anger in general, without VAR.

You can have your frustration purely with a ref. It is his decision.

The enjoyment I am having is that it is not stop-start every two minutes.

There are loads of set-pieces, corners and fouls in this league.

They would be reviewing every action every two or three minutes with VAR and games would be two hours long.

The conversations are also a bit better with refs in the Championship.

In the Premier League, I felt there was more ego.

The meetings with referees during pre-season can be very productive.

You get to meet them in a non-pressurised situation and they get to see you having more of a laugh and a joke.

At the start, officials are like players — they are very high energy, enthusiastic, making promises they are going to be better than the year before.

Ultimately though, when the games start, they are trying to do their best and our job is to win.