No! I do not see refs getting abused. To me abuse is physical violence not questioning. ALL players should be able to question the ref’s decisions. If a ref cant take questioning he shouldnt be a ref. Simple as that. I mean come on, at worst only being sworn at. Now if a player thumps the ref well thats different.
The drama over dissent and red cards is a joke. Yellow and red cards were not even part of football until recently, i.e. 1970. In the old days players tackled each other, sometimes badly, but just got on with it. In those days there was no uproar about ref abuse. I think it didnt happen then because the players were allowed to tackle each other and get on with it, i.e. they hardly ever had the chance to get frustrated. I think a lot of today’s amateur dramatics is down to frustration I really do. No doubt some of the refs deserve it. I mean come on, some of them act like theyre the star of the show. This just didnt happen in the 1970’s/80’s
Also, the managers were not celebrity status like now. People also went to watch the game not any one particular player. We went because our club was important to us. It seems that nowadays the manager is almost as important as they players. This is wrong. As much as I think Jose Mourinho is funny I still dont think he should be parading about trying to get noticed. We’re not at the theatre
In the past, there werent the acting perfomances we see today. Some times I think it isnt the footballers fault. I think footballers are paid far too much (theyre spoilt) and more or less encouraged to act up. I think the British (not English) media encourage this. Some journalists are very hypocritical to, i.e. when English club followers and England national team fans have been attacked abroad they hardly say a word but when the same fans have defended themselves journalists pipe up about “nationalism” and “hooligans”. Journalists also do this to players, i.e. one player is portrayed a demon whilst another is seen as an angel. Joey Barton is a thug when he tackles someone hard whilst Ashley Cole is seen as being a victim of the ref. What about what Ashley Cole did? He shouldve been sent off no doubt about it.
then on top of that he tells the ref to piss off then a fews days later his stupid manager says that everyone should pat him on the back for admitting he was wrong! What? Im telling you in the old days we didnt have this manager - footballer - ref worship bollocks like we do now. It was better then. Everyone went to see THE GAME not the ref or the manger or any one player.

Having said that I do think that players have to take a certain amount of responsibility too. In Mascherano’s case for example, he had already been booked for a clumsy challenge on Scholes and should have been fully aware his persistent nagging at such a strict ref would run the risk of a second yellow card. I would perhaps argue it is the duty of the manager or indeed the captain Steven Gerrard to recognise the tightrope he was walking and try and calm him down, but that aspect of the debate seems to have been ignored.

Basically, I feel both Ashley Cole and Mascherano should have been sent off, but the big hoo-ra fuss about respect for referees has been massively overblown by the English press’ desperation for a juicy topic, in my opinion.

“Richard Green was a boxing referee. He was the referee for WBA Lightweight Title fight between Ray Mancini and Duk Koo Kim on November 13, 1982, the famous fight where Kim lost his life at just 23 years of age. Green blamed himself for allowing the fight to go on and for Kim’s death, taking his own life on July 1, 1983. He was 46. Green had also been third man in the ring for the Larry Holmes-Muhammad Ali fight in 1980.”

All in all, it’s the hardest job in sport. NO ONE respects you, or will back any of your decisions unless they go for their side, you can’t list your address publicly for fear of murder, the press passes judgment on every ruling you make (when they have access to BSkyB’s thousand camera angles and replays), you get paid well but far less than the spoiled wankers who tear strips off you twice a week at the drop of a hat even though you are an integral part of the game: in conclusion the job sucks. Perhaps they should have women referee the game…smack some respect into those boys.

There should be enough football nerds here for someone to dig up some high profile ref suicide…

I’m not sure where Masche’s little outburst came from, it struck me whilst I was watching it (which was on Match Of The Day on Sunday night, after having heard what had happened) that it’s somewhat out of character for him. Yes, he normally yells his head off all through matches, but it’s far more frequently in the direction of his team-mates (this is a man who was made captain of River’s and Argentina’s Under-21s at the age of 17).

I suspect the vehemence of his outburst does in part come from Argentina, though. Partly for the reasons you’ve mentioned, but also for some more fundamental cultural norms. For one thing, he’s learned English from Premier League footballers, who aren’t known for shyness when it comes to use of the word ‘f**k’. For another, he’s Argentine, and Argentines, whether they’re sweet little old ladies, four-year-old kids or anyone in between, swear more than any other group of people I’ve come across (and, as an aside, have a far more impressive range of curses than the English language or for that matter ‘Peninsular’ Spanish).

Something else is that if you tell an Argentine to sit on his hands, you’ll probably find he’s rendered unable to talk until he frees them again. Taking these things into account it doesn’t surprise me massively that he ‘couldn’t understand’ what he was sent off for - because in Argentina that behaviour, talking to the referee whilst leaning in close and gesturing as he was doing, wouldn’t be seen by the ref as threatening. It’s just how they talk to one another. All the same he was still an idiot for going on, and on, and on, to the point of tedium. And he should have learned by now the differences in use of language that I’ve outlined above. He’s been in England over a year and a half, after all.

Javier Castrilli (known as ‘The Sheriff’) is a special case in Argentina, you’re right. He retired from refereeing in 1998 but is now Subsecretary of Sporting Security for the Ministry of the Interior. It says something that he’s taken that post rather than one involving the running of the refereeing profession…

If referees are armed and ready to card players who show dissent (this means you Cashley) then players will have to learn respect pretty quickly.

I feel for Mascherano. He didn’t know the backlash was coming, and in many many way Mascherano got Ashley Cole’s red card.

Best thing would be for refs to say at the start of the 2008/9 season: “Here’s how it’s going to be. You show dissent, we show you a yellow.” Then at least everyone is forewarned, and players who get cards for running their mouth will have no one else to blame.