The court of public attention.
There was a suggestion a few years ago that referees should be invited on to television the day after games and made explain their decision to disallow a perfectly good goal or not award the clearest of clear cut penalties.
It never happened of course, but it would have made for one heck of a show.
But one Swedish official has decided that instead of attracting abuse for baffling decisions then he’s going to let the world know what was going through his mind as he decided to blow for that penalty, or that let breaking challenge go unpunished.
Mohammed Al-Hakim, who’s a referee in the Swedish top flight, has launched a Facebook page dedicated to providing explanations for his decisions after he was roundly criticised for not awarding a penalty in game earlier this month.
Here’s what he said about his decision in the game between FK Norrkoping and AIK:
“I should have given a penalty yesterday. Full stop. Now I have seen what you surely have seen already. I’ve seen the replays a few times and looked at stills and different angles. Because what it is about for me, is that I want to learn something and try to understand why I did what I did. I will never be right all the time but it is important to minimise the mistakes and make sure that I am right in the important moments.”
The referee has also got the seal of approval of the Swedish refereeing committee, and the official had one simple message to the Facebook trolls who may want to abuse him for his views
“Keep a good tone here and the chances of this page surviving will increase.”
“Yesterday’s mission Kalmar FF – GIF Sundsvall is completed and will now be analysed to me to bring me new experience in my judgments. All matches means as much to me on the basis that I can always find something to work on and develop , it can be simple things like judgements, my fitness and signals. Therefore, I will now watch the game as a whole as I always do the day after . Even a workout will get done before the day is over.”
The comments below his post have been (largely) positive in nature. We’re not entirely sure that would be the case if a Premier League or GAA ref tried the same.
You can check out his Facebook page here.
