Yes, referees make mistakes. Television is a merciless judge and Saturday night's Match of the Day pointed up several bloomers that were painfully obvious once replayed several times, slowed down and given the perfect camera angle that shows an incident in all its glory.
The usual cause of referees' mistakes is quite simply that the offence has not been seen. It's either a matter of being in the wrong position or simply that an incident has happened too quickly to register.
I had such an incident in the penalty area of the home team yesterday. The ball was fired against the bar, it bounced down to the line (did it cross or not?), an attacker dived in to head home from two yards, only succeeded in heading the ball sideways and took a boot in the face (penalty or not?); another attacker's shot was blocked on the line and yet another attacker shot wide. All this happened in between 5 and 10 seconds.
I was perfectly positioned and believe I got it right in that I didn't give anything, just a goal kick. The ball didn't cross the line, the player who was kicked in the face had dipped his head to a couple of feet off the ground. He complained afterwards that he should have been given a penalty but I gave him short shrift and told him he should have scored.
But the point is that the incident happened so quickly I barely had to register what was going on, let alone make a clear decision.
Sometimes these footballers are too good for their own good!
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