Can We Shoot The Referee?

Being a football fan can sometimes bring the greatest highs. Sometimes the opposite but usually it is the players that cause most of these feelings.

Lately though it is not the sublime skill shown by a Ronaldo or Rooney that has set our tongues wagging and pulses rising. Nor is it the really horrible mistakes made by the likes of David James that have set our tongues wagging.

No it is the horror show we are seeing week after week being performed by our referees. Players commit offenses and get away with more and more often. Somewhere someone will finally get seriously maimed and why? Why won't the authorities clamp down on these transgressors.

I am a Southampton football club supporter. This makes me (supposedly) a fanatical anti Pompey fan who will laugh and enjoy their discomfort. Well guess what, there are fans all over the country who will have been appalled by the incidents seen recently on the field of play in matches where the blues have been playing.

Steven Gerrard a couple of games ago was involved in an act of brutal cowardise. He blatantly elbowed a Pompey player in the face in a cold calculating way and could have done some damage to that player.

So after watching another Pompey game last night, I have this feeling that a question asked after the Gerrard incident, needs asking again.

Last night Pompey played another of the so called big four teams, Chelsea. Chelsea played at Fratton Park and we saw another horror show where this time the attacks caused injuries.

First we had an arial attack where Florent Malouda blatantly went for Ricardo Rocha. Any other explanation for the way he jumoped into Rocha with his eyes on his target and elbow cocked is fanciful wishy washy rubbish.

Two whole minutes later we sae Danial Sturridge elbow Tommy Smith in the face. Again after being shown the incident from different angles one has to believe that this was another deliberate act.

Rocha had a suspected fractured cheekbone and is likely to be out for the rest of the season. Tommy Smith has had his nose broken and lost a lot of blood.

Malouda was given a yellow card for his cowardly attack and Sturridge was not even booked. Yet a player in other games will be sent of for a tackle from behind when no damage is done.

How the Authorities allow these things to happen scot free is beyond me. Someone somewhere has to stop these acts of brutal cowardice. These players have to be taken to rask and have to be punished.

When a player is injured in a genuine tackle I don't have a problem with it. Even if a little bit late. Where a player is injured in a blatant act of violence then the aggressor should be banned at least until the injured party is able once more to play.

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.