Not a week seems to go by without a referee being exposed for having made a serious cock-up
Football League chiefs have stuck their necks out by appointing Anthony Taylor to take charge of Sunday’s Capital One Cup final between Chelsea and Tottenham, who has history this season with Jose Moruinho.
One day everyone in football will look back and wonder how shockingly bad decisions were ever allowed to stand.
Just like we do now when we recall how football was once played on bog-like pitches with a heavy, laced ball capable of knocking down a brick wall if kicked hard enough.
Yet the fight goes on to resist the use of video replays.
The need for them was highlighted again with Chelsea’s Nemanja Matic’s sending-off for reacting furiously to a nasty challenge from Burnley’s Ashley Barnes last Saturday.
Matic won’t be on the pitch at Wembley as punishment, while Barnes is free to play against Swansea tomorrow.
You can’t help wonder how Manchester-born Taylor will be feeling as he approaches Wembley and a first encounter with Mourinho for two months.
He was the man who sparked Mourinho’s initial outcry about a “campaign” against his team, after booking Cesc Fabregas for diving in Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Southampton in December.
Mourinho always goes in to see the ref after every match to tell him whether his performance was good, bad or ugly and after the Saints game, Taylor admitted he got it wrong and apologised for not awarding a penalty for the Fabregas ‘dive’.
Taylor also sent off Swansea’s Wayne Routledge last month for his furious reaction to a heavy tackle from QPR’s Karl Henry, a decision which was overturned by the FA.
The point about these two controversies is that obviously, after a quick look at the replays, it was easy to see Taylor - who has shown six red cards in the last dozen games - had made a mistake.
So why can’t the game introduce a tennis-style system where each team is allowed say three video appeals against decisions, something Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger called for years ago.
Much guff is written about it holding up the game and affecting the ref’s authority.
Nonsense.
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