MARK HALSEY TALKS FOOTBALL: All referees should get Premier class help

I kick off by talking about a subject I know especially well, referees, and the issue of trying to improve standards.

It’s about time clubs in the Football League stopped feeling like second-class citizens and got referees who were 100 per cent ready for the job.

It amazes me to see the demands placed on officials who are not professionals, yet they are dealing with games every bit as important as those in the Premier League.

The top flight has got its own problems – and I might just delve into those in a future column.

But the simple truth is that referees in the Championship, League One and League Two are not getting enough help to make sure they are as good as they can be.

When I started refereeing, before they formed the Select Group in the Premier League, I was a manager in a packaging firm.

I’d drive from Welwyn Garden City, where I lived, up to Liverpool, do the game, get back home at 3am and be up for work again at seven.

When they made us professionals it enabled us to prepare like the players. We’d be able to relax before a game, focus on what we were doing.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t make mistakes. We’re not unlike the players in that respect, too. But it helped to improve the general standard.

The Football League’s argument is that they don’t have the money. But they play the same game, and you’re not telling me that something like the Championship play-off final isn’t as important? It’s worth more than £100million.

I’d introduce a scale of pay for referees from League Two to Championship level. It would give an incentive to improve and, more importantly, attract young people into refereeing as a career.

I’ve seen games at League Two level and I admit the standard of refereeing has not been good. Often you get young lads plucked from the Conference and nerves play a big part.

Are they really being coached the right way? I think there is an answer to that – and it goes back to Sam Allardyce’s days at Bolton Wanderers.

Back then I’d go in most mornings at the training ground to do a bit of work and interact with the players and staff.

It continued when Gary Megson and Owen Coyle were there but then ended when Dougie Freedman came in.

I thought it gave me, as a referee, a good insight into how the players worked, how they thought. Equally, it meant that if someone questioned a decision, I could give them advice on why a situation was handled a certain way.

I’d make that a mandatory thing for one or two mornings a week.

Even if it was to referee a training game, the benefit to younger referees to get a real look at a football club would be invaluable.

That coaching side isn’t working at the moment, and both the Premier League and the Football League are struggling to get referees through the system who are really good enough.

I genuinely think the standards are lower now than they were a few years ago.

The evaluation system they currently employ tells them when they have made a mistake but it doesn’t tell you how to make it right.

You look around the Football League and it is not easy to pick out the next one who will join that elite group.

I looked at Paul Tierney, who took the Nottingham Forest v Derby County game – a real tough fixture – and I think he did well. But it’s slim pickings elsewhere.

I’d love to see free-kick spray appear in Football League

ISN’T it funny how the magic spray was good enough for the World Cup but not for the Football League?

Referees are crying out for help and whether it’s video refereeing, goal-line technology or just a can of foam that makes sure players don’t encroach, I’m all for it.

The Premier League said “no” to magic sprays until UEFA bought into it and France, Germany and Spain followed. It has been a tremendous success. But what do the Football League say? We’ll try it in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

Give me strength.

You had the world’s best players adhering to the laws at free-kicks better than ever in the summer and yet somehow the lads in League Two don’t get the benefit.

It’s crazy.

No matter how many right decisions you make, it's the one you get wrong that people talk about

NOTHING annoys you more as a referee than being in charge of an exciting game of football then turning on the TV in the evening and having the main talking point be a decision you have made.

We saw it in two big Premier League games at the weekend, with two very good officials.

Manchester United were cruising at 3-1, but talk about a game-changing decision for the Leicester penalty that made it 3-2 to United!

Mark Clattenburg is one of, if not the, best referee we have in this country and yet I think when he looks at it again, he’ll probably admit a mistake has been made.

In my opinion, there is definitely a foul on Rafael by Jamie Vardy, but after he doesn’t give that one, he can’t give the penalty.

The easiest thing to do would have been to call it back for that first foul. It would have diffused the whole thing. Play it safe.

It was a fantastic game to watch and I think Mark had a good game on the whole but nothing annoys you more as a referee to see people discussing one decision you have made.

Refs can make 300 decisions a game, yet it’s the one they get wrong that people want to talk about.

It’s like being a goalkeeper. You can be brilliant for 89 minutes and then make an error in that last minute and everyone thinks you’re terrible.

They say you have to be mad to be a goalkeeper; we’ve got that in common as well.

Mike Dean is another top, top referee and yet I watched the Manchester City v Chelsea game and felt he made a mistake by setting his level of tolerance far too low.

If he had got hold of Pablo Zabaleta after the first challenge and given him a rollocking, I think we could have kept 22 players on the pitch.

The second yellow I have no problem with, it was a silly thing to do when you’ve already been booked.

But in the end you start questioning his consistency when you see Cesc Fabregas and Andre Schurrle get away with challenges that were worse than Zabaleta’s first caution.