The email usually arrives at 4pm on a Monday.
Each week, that’s when referees find out which Premier League game they’ll be officiating.
But what factors determine how those decisions are actually made?
The process begins six weeks in advance,
with a complex system that has been put in place by the Professional Game Match Officials
Limited (PGMOL), the organisation led by referees’ chief Mike Riley.
It involves Riley and his colleagues keeping a league table – or “merit table,”
as they call it – to identify the officials who can be trusted with the most important games.
That table is based on an elaborate points system that takes into account every single decision
a referee ever makes. And, while it’s hidden from the outside world, the referees have password
access to see where they rank after every round of fixtures. It is the same for assistant referees,
too. They know whether they have gone up or down a few places and are acutely aware of their ranking.
The evaluation behind the system is more complicated than presumed, too.
First, a match delegate – a former player or manager – will put together a report on
the referee’s performance within a game. The more technical aspect, however, takes place afterwards,
when the PGMOL’s evaluators receive the match footage and go through every decision.
Not just the incidents where the referee penalises someone,
but every single time a decision has been made about whether or not to blow their whistle.
It takes a long time. A top-flight referee will typically make around
250 of those decisions per match. Even assistant referees will generally make between 50 and 100.
During the review, points are then awarded or deducted for each one, and each decision is
subject to an adjustable tariff, which depends on context. It takes into account whether a decision
was “easy”, “difficult” or “non-routine”, as well as where an incident occurred on the pitch.
More points are awarded for a correct free-kick decision just outside the penalty area than one
on the halfway line. If it is a particularly difficult decision, there are also higher marks.
Alternatively, extra points might be deducted for a mistake that directly influences the game.
But then it gets even more complicated. Within 24 hours, the referees receive the full evaluation
and can appeal if they think any decision has been marked unfairly. A specially convened three-person
panel will then decide through an online process whether points should be added or taken away.
It all goes towards the merit table. And even then, there are plenty of other
considerations for the PGMOL to take into account before making decisions.
A good example occurred four years ago, when Anthony Taylor was assigned the
first Liverpool-Manchester United match of his career. Taylor was brought up in Wythenshawe,
which is on the southern edge of Manchester, and Keith Hackett,
formerly the PGMOL chief, described it as “grossly unfair” to award him such a match.
Riley, Hackett’s successor, maintained it was the right appointment and Liverpool took the
view that, just because Taylor lived closer to Old Trafford than any of Sir Alex Ferguson,
Ed Woodward or Wayne Rooney, it did not necessarily mean he was a secret United fan
who would award all the key decisions in their favour.
Taylor describes himself as a fan of non-League Altrincham
and that now seems to be generally accepted, judging by the lack of attention to his Mancunian
roots when he refereed Leeds United’s 6-2 defeat at Old Trafford in late December.
Michael Oliver, on the other hand, is not allowed to referee Newcastle United, because they are the
team he supports. Nor will you ever see him taking charge of a Sunderland game.
This is why every referee has to declare where they live, who they support and any other relevant
details for the appointments panel – made up of Riley, ex-linesman Adam Gale-Watts and former
referees Alan Wiley, Mike Jones and Neale Barry – to factor into the selection process.
Jon Moss, a Sunderland fan, is kept off Newcastle matches for the same reason.
Moss is allowed to referee Liverpool, however, even though he was once James Milner’s primary
school PE teacher. A line has to be drawn somewhere and Moss could hardly be accused
of favouritism, given that he sent Milner off in a Liverpool vs Crystal Palace game two seasons ago.
At other times, more complicated issues crop up.
When Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur were competing for the title towards the end
of the 2015-16 season, Kevin Friend was removed from a Spurs match to spare him
from potential allegations of bias. Friend was affiliated to the Leicestershire And Rutland FA,
lived near Leicester and would sometimes watch games at their King Power Stadium.
He is actually a Bristol City fan, having been born there, but it was
still deemed too sensitive for him to referee Leicester’s direct rivals in the title race.
But Riley has to make decisions on a human level, too.
He will sometimes give a referee a weekend off if there has been a lot of media criticism.
At other times, he will deliberately give an under-fire referee another match
straight away. In other circumstance, a common-sense approach has to be applied.
Mark Clattenburg went six years without being selected for a game at Goodison Park
because of the fallout from a Merseyside derby in 2007
in which he sent off two Everton players and made several other calls in Liverpool’s favour.
Moss knows about this, too. He went 20 months without a game at Leicester
after they complained about his performance, featuring a red card to Jamie Vardy for diving,
during a 2-2 draw with West Ham in their title-winning season.
All of which helps to explain why the PGMOL’s planning meetings, looking six weeks ahead,
can last upwards of three hours. Then there are follow-up meetings every Monday to go
over what has happened at the weekend and, if necessary, make last-minute adjustments.
It's a highly complicated process which has to account for myriad, ever-changing factors.