My Response

Comments (6)

This morning a recieved a response for the FA. However i did not idenitfy any of the major incidents during the derby match. I commented on Clattenburgs all round perfomramce.

So judge what you will from this response. However i'm afraid it's annother poor generic response inteneded to fob me off and pass me on to someone else.

Read on......

Dear Mr Brennan

I write in reference to your e-mail concerning the Everton vs Liverpool fixture on Saturday 20 October 2007.

The Football Association receives frequent correspondence on individual refereeing decisions across all levels of football as well as on the performance of referees in general. Every supporter will have an opinion on the game's major talking points and we're always interested to hear them.

Tony Hibbert's red card

Some supporters have suggested that Liverpool's Steven Gerrard influenced the decision to send Everton's Tony Hibbert from the field of play. All decisions on the field of play are made by the referee and regardless of the context it is not for players to influence or advise the referee on a decision.

Select Group referees' performances are assessed by the Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO) and appointments made accordingly (see below).

Dirk Kuyt's challenge on Phil Neville

As supporters will be aware Liverpool's Dirk Kuyt was booked for the challenge in question. FIFA guidelines aimed at avoiding the "re-refereeing" of matches generally prevent The FA from taking disciplinary action on incidents which are seen and dealt with at the time by the match officials (this includes taking no action). As a general rule, if the match officials see an incident and have jurisdiction to take action, The FA cannot act retrospectively. These guidelines prevent The FA from upgrading/downgrading yellow and red cards based on retrospective advice provided by the match referee.

Everton FC penalty appeals

Whether a penalty is awarded or not is a decision of the referee guided by assistance from the assistant referee. They are required to make a split second decisions based on what they see. This is subsequently analysed repeatedly by slow motion cameras and panels of football experts. Ultimately, football is a tremendously popular and successful game played worldwide under the fundamental principle that 'the referee's decision is final'.

Refereeing has been restructured with the aim of continued improvement of the overall standard of refereeing in the professional game. This sees match officials categorised into two groups with the Select Group officiating in the Premier League.

The Select Group is the responsibility of Keith Hackett, General Manager of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL).

There is a system in place for monitoring the performance of referees and referee's assistants. This involves referees assessors and reports from club managers. All assessors come from a footballing background and the majority are fully qualified referees themselves. The performances of referees over a season are then taken into consideration when the leagues appoint their referees for the following season.

Whilst we can understand the frustration that comes with decisions going against your team The FA are confident that the disciplinary procedures off the pitch as well as the referees on the pitch uphold the Laws of the Game without bias to player or club.

We do appreciate all of the feedback we receive from supporters. This feedback is collated and used to build a picture of public opinion and is subsequently fed back internally within the organisation. Please rest assured your comments will form part of this feedback process.

Kind regards,

Alex Howells
Shaun  Brennan, London     Posted 29/10/2007 at 11:41:23

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