Jjamez is right that it shouldn't matter about race or gender when refereeing. The greatest problem is that football has become a refereed instead of a played game. There is an idiot, impossible belief that every important decision has to be right ..... and that forensically analysing every blast or silence on the whistle can become part of the game. The referee has become so integral to results that several continental clubs already employ refereeing advisors, a role now proposed for Mr Clattenburg, when not on Gladiators!
The truth is sport is a way for human beans to take the rough with the smooth, without complaint or anyone getting killed or injured. It is an enjoyable undress rehearsal for the exigencies of life. If you get kicked stop crying, get a mardy tablet and get on with it. If the opposition score and you think something unfair happened. Hold the tantrum. Stop swearing and try to be a grown-up.
Whilst I have nothing against women referees I do think women and men play football in different ways, just as men and women have different ways of thinking. I can't see that men's or women's football benefits from officials of a different gender. The developing WSL needs more good female officials, and whilst men's football needs better referees, stealing them from the women's game seems akin to the NHS recruiting large parts of its staff from poorer countries which have invested heavily in training them. I hope women's football soon no longer needs or wants men managing teams and that both men and women can appreciate each other's game without weighing one against the other. Bluntly a glut of testosterone helps in some ways and sometimes turns you into a nasty set of ruthless psycho' bar stewards in another.
If men at all levels treated referees better and with greater respect, then the decisions referees make would improve exponentially. Perhaps it is significant that the best rugby referee was openly gay. Did that perhaps set him aside from some of the pressures the game levels at others?
The truth is sport is a way for human beans to take the rough with the smooth, without complaint or anyone getting killed or injured. It is an enjoyable undress rehearsal for the exigencies of life. If you get kicked stop crying, get a mardy tablet and get on with it. If the opposition score and you think something unfair happened. Hold the tantrum. Stop swearing and try to be a grown-up.
Whilst I have nothing against women referees I do think women and men play football in different ways, just as men and women have different ways of thinking. I can't see that men's or women's football benefits from officials of a different gender. The developing WSL needs more good female officials, and whilst men's football needs better referees, stealing them from the women's game seems akin to the NHS recruiting large parts of its staff from poorer countries which have invested heavily in training them. I hope women's football soon no longer needs or wants men managing teams and that both men and women can appreciate each other's game without weighing one against the other. Bluntly a glut of testosterone helps in some ways and sometimes turns you into a nasty set of ruthless psycho' bar stewards in another.
If men at all levels treated referees better and with greater respect, then the decisions referees make would improve exponentially. Perhaps it is significant that the best rugby referee was openly gay. Did that perhaps set him aside from some of the pressures the game levels at others?