Referees assistants

[Gary]

I am always sat on the St Annes half of the Derrynane side, the same area as where the linesman is. I must say that the standard of them is woeful. They only seem interested in gettting off side decision wrong. Very rarely do they flag for a foul and anything, even when the ref hasn't seen it. Isn't that what the 'referees asst' job is? And the other day at the Derry game, a Derry player, after a decision went against him called the linesman a F-ing ****, right to his face and nothing was done as a result!!! Surely this warranted a booking at least.

[Jim Smith]

That same derry player (No. 7) also called Desperate Dick a F****ing Idiot. Now no matter how much you may have agreed with him (and he did have a point) surely if you have booked someone for throwing the ball to the ground both of these incidents warranted at least the same.
If match officials want respect from players they have to stop taking abuse from them.

[SoccerRef]

Hi
something to bear in mind about the role of the assistant (aka the linesman). he must follow the instructions as given by the referee. sadly a lot of referees refuse to allocate a lot of responsibility to their assistants and you will often get the ...im the ref, ill ref u leave the fouls to me! it also has a lot to do with the position and attitude of the ref. if he tells the assist to look at him before he makes a decision then he may well be getting a signal not to flag. also of course there are the linesmen that wouldnt have the b***s to give a foul if there life depended on it...in most cases it is the combination of both or of course it could just be that the fan has a clouded view of the situaton??? and what is often acceptable in senior football i.e. poulling , tugging would always be pulled for in junior games.

[Éanna]

fair point soccerref, but whether the ref ignores them or not, can the linesman not flag anyway- that would make fans aware of who the real villain is!

[Ref]

Quite simple. The referee is there to referee the game and the assistant referees are there to assist him/her. The referee's instructions before the game will be very clear and the assistants can not flag for a foul if the referee tells them before the game not to. The assistants simply have to abide by the referees instructions.

[Éanna]

maybe the rules are at fault so......

[pete]

I think the refs & assistants need to ounish hard tackles more often & give out more yellow & red cards. The leagues needs to give more protection to skillful players. This may or may not benefit each club now depending on their current style of play but will benefit the league in the future...

Only us diehards turn like to see the players kick lumps out of each other

[Chris McLaren]

The problem with Assistant Referees is that they are instructed what to do, signal, flag, etc. by the Referee.

The problem with Referees is that they are told what to do by their various Leagues, Football Associations, and essentially UEFA and FIFA who create the Laws of the Games.

It's not the referee or the assistant referee's fault - they are simply following their directives from higher echelons.

If they didn't - they wouldn't be refereeing in the high level leagues that they are because they would be demoted.

That's the unfortunate state of affairs!