Ian Wright delivered a flat, derisory “No.” Gary Neville’s obtuse response was to ask if a goalkeeper “has to move out of the way to allow the player a free shot”. When the law was explained further, Wright continued with his occasional “No” and even a “Wow!” in the background, and when the verdict of “It was a foul” was delivered, the former England striker dismissively spat out his own riposte: “It wasn’t a foul.”
Peter Walton was banging his head against a brick wall when asked to talk viewers through the referee’s decision-making on Tuesday night as Dominik Livakovic’s foul on Julian Alvarez helped Argentina to a 3-0 win over Croatia in the World Cup semi-final. He must wonder why he bothers.
When asked by ITV presenter Mark Pougatch what Livakovic could have done to avoid conceding a penalty, Walton was succinct and forthright. “Well, win the ball for the first thing! If he’s challenging for the ball and he misses the ball completely and catches the player, what he’s done there is he’s been in the path of the forward and he’s impeded his progress so it has to be a foul.”
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That’s when the gang of former footballers started with their put-downs, their shaking heads and their witless questions the likes of which you’d expect to hear from a stroppy teenager. It was entirely unedifying stuff as Wright and Neville showed a distinct lack of professionalism towards somebody who is employed exactly because he knows the laws of the game which they were debating. Roy Keane thankfully kept his objections down to a vigorous nod of the head as an exasperated Neville continued to struggle with what he’d been told.
Who is the bloody expert here? Walton was not some beacon of witty repartee as a referee, which might have made him a shoo-in for a life of punditry once he’d hung up the whistle. He was a decent standard Premier League official who BT Sport and ITV later decided would add something to their coverage thanks to his ability to explain why certain decisions had been made during a game.
So why is it that former footballers just won’t accept what is in the law book? Which of the four pundits has actually read it, after all? Ian Wright, the guy who thought a two-footed stamp on Peter Schmeichel was fair game back in the day? Neville, who spent half his career in the ear of referees and once half-volleyed a ball into the crowd at Everton and expected to get away with it? Or Roy Keane, with his 11 red cards as a Manchester United player alone and history for taking the law into his own hands?
Walton is the one asked to outline the decision-making process. Yes, he rarely sides against the man in the middle, but do we really want to hear a retired official’s subjective opinion or do we want to know the ACTUAL LAWS which influenced the decision being made? Obviously, the second is handier to the everyday fan even if the first makes for good Twitter bants.
❌ The pundits say no.
✅ Peter Walton says yes!
🤔 Is this a penalty for you...?
#ITVFootball | #FIFAWorldCup
Asking a former ref in to give a verdict only to then have three ex-pros rubbish what he’s said is a ridiculous state of affairs. Tuesday night’s half-time episode of ITV’s ‘Shout at the Ref’ was the latest example of retired footballers delivering the ‘I know better, I’ve played the game’ line. If everybody who used to play the sport had a perfect grasp of the rules, the likes of Walton, Dermot Gallagher and Mike Dean would never be invited onto our screens.
Referees never get a fair crack of the whip. Nobody stands up for them in phone-ins or on punditry panels because no one has a vested interest in them. You have to go easy when slating one team or the other or else their fans will take umbrage, but referees don’t have supporters.
So when an actual former ref comes on the TV and sticks up for a decision, which in all honesty was pretty self-evident to everyone outside of the ITV studio anyway, pundits seemingly don’t know how to respond without coming across like a kid who has just been told they can’t have their ice cream until they’ve eaten their main course.
Referees are valuable commodities in the world of football, and now that we’ve taken to having their decisions contextualised on TV it would be helpful if we could have more than 24 milliseconds of absorbing the explanations before Ian Wright jumps in with his ill-thought-out verdict based on his *CHECKS NOTES* zero seconds of refereeing experience.
Somebody download the ex-pros a Laws of the Game PDF for Christmas.
*18+ | BeGambleAware | Odds Subject to Change
