Alan Wiley on the tough run for refs

If it's been a bad couple of weeks for the nation's small and hard-pressed band of referees, then they fully expect it to get worse.

"We're getting to the business-end of the season now when the pressures intensify," says Alan Wiley. "All the officials will know that every decision will carry extra significance and will be under intense scrutiny. But that's only what they expect."

In fact Wiley, the retired former Premier League ref who now helps school the up-and-coming officials in the demanding practice of controlling perhaps the most intense and competitive league football in the world, believes they wouldn't imagine it being any other way.

He has watched the question of refereeing performance returning to the top of the game's agenda with a resigned shrug.

It was triggered, of course, by the moment Mark Clattenburg only penalised Manchester United's Wayne Rooney with a free-kick after he clearly elbowed Wigan's James McCarthy off the ball.

Since then, the controversies have come rushing at the game's officials in an avalanche of accusation and counter accusation.

Martin Atkinson earned the wrath of Sir Alex Ferguson for failing to send off David Luiz, Clattenburg's late award of a match-winning penalty in the crucial Fulham-Blackburn game was questioned before the Sunday double - Jamie Carragher escaping a red card against United and Mark Halsey enduring a torrid afternoon at Molineux.

Burntwood-based Wiley knows just what it's like to be at the centre of the media firestorm generated by such high-profile incidents after suffering a typically grumpy blast from Ferguson, who questioned his fitness, last season.

Having lived to tell the tale, you can excuse his not getting carried away by the storm raging around the heads of the exclusive club of officials charged with the task of keeping all those egos and athletes in line.

Wiley said: "It's the story of the moment isn't it? In a couple of weeks, something else will come along and take over the headlines. But I don't think referees expect it to be anything different.

"It makes me chuckle to be reading about Mark Clattenburg needing to take a month's break to get away from the stress and spotlight. Utter nonsense.

"Mark was abroad doing a Europa League match last night and there are no Premier League games this weekend.

"Long ago, he had pre-arranged to be absent the following weekend for a private function which is then followed by international week - there's your month away. It has nothing to do with running off to escape the stress.

"But it's part of the firestorm that we get caught up in when the media gets its teeth into something like this."

So what did Wiley think of some of the decision-making that has caused such uproar?

He said: "Well, I don't think any of this would have blown up if the original incident had not involved such a high-profile player.

"In the Rooney case, Mark has seen something - but not enough of it - to know Rooney obstructed McCarthy and awarded a free-kick.

"There was not a lot else he could do and the rules are quite clear - if the referee has dealt with the issue on the pitch, there is no course for a review."

What about those penalties - first one not given, then one given - at Fulham? Was this the classic case of a referee atoning for an earlier lapse as has been suggested?

"The two decisions are quite clearly correct," Wiley argues having studied the tapes. "The first was not given was because the contact was so minimal.

The penalty awarded has been described as a 'soft one.' I hate that term. A penalty is a penalty and that's it.

"Everybody is going on about wanting referees to toughen up on this holding and shirt-pulling in the penalty area and the Fulham player was dragged seven metres by the defender.

"I've measured it on the replays - it's quite clearly a penalty."

Wiley has sympathy for Wolves while, at the same time, understanding Halsey's reasoning in those two flashpoint incidents in the Spurs game.

He said: "For the penalty, he has seen the pull and the ball then veer off in another direction.His first action is to decide whether or not it was a penalty before he considers whether a red card is applicable.

"But he has to do that in a second. I've watched it repeatedly and yes, a red card should have been awarded but Mark didn't have a clear enough view. The Gomes incident should have probably been a goal awarded to Wolves.

"But again, from his angle, Mark has seen both players off the ground and in that instant he has to make up his mind, concluded that there was enough contact on the goalkeeper for a foul to be awarded to Spurs.

"It's that old thing about referees having to decide in a second what we can study over and over again on replays."

Wiley likes to tread a path of Swiss-like diplomacy through the minefield of opinions that decorate these controversies but you sense he believes his colleagues are tough enough to take the flak and, indeed, expect it.

Equally, there is no doubt he has a dark view of the attack by his old nemesis Fergie on Atkinson which has led to an FA charge for the Old Trafford manager.

He said: "Ask any referee anywhere and they will tell you the same - the one thing they can't abide is when their integrity is attacked.

"They will take all the other stick, but it is plainly ridiculous to imagine that, for example, a referee sees a penalty but then decides not to give it for another reason.

"Our officials are the match, if not the better, of any in the world. We did the Champions League and World Cup finals last year. What more proof do you need how highly regarded they are?

"In this country, you hear some pundits calling for European refs to do the Premier League.

"In Serie A or La Liga, do you know what they are saying? 'Why aren't our refs as good as the English?"

By Martin Swain