Page 134 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

When a referee is working in front of 44,000 at Anfield, or 76,000 at Old Trafford, and he gives a
goal that goes against the home team, and the crowd scream, it does affect a lot of them. That’s
another distinction: the ability to make decisions against the tide, against the roar of the crowd. The
old saying that a referee was ‘a homer’ does apply. It’s not to say a ref is cheating, more that they are

influenced by the force of emotion in the crowd.
Anfield was probably the hardest place for a match official to be objective, because it was such a
closed-in, volatile environment. There is an intimidation factor, from fans to referees, not just at
Liverpool but across the game.
Forty years ago, crowds were not frenzied the way they are today. So perhaps it would serve a
higher purpose for the referee to attend a press conference with his supervisor alongside him and
explain how he saw it. For instance, I would have found it interesting to hear from the Turkish referee

who handled our Champions League tie against Real Madrid at Old Trafford in March 2013, and
listen to what he had to say about Nani’s sending-off, which was appalling.
A brief referee’s press conference might have been a step forward. You can’t stop progress. Take
football boots: I was totally against the modern boot, yet manufacturers were pouring money into
football and therefore could not be challenged. The level of gimmickry is now very high, to get young
kids to buy pink boots, orange boots. A lot of clubs use the kit manufacturers as part of the deal to sign

a player: we can get you a deal with Nike or adidas, and so on. They have to get their money back,
and it’s through boots.
As an audience we are never ever going to be satisfied with referees, because we are all biased
towards our own teams. But full-time referees have not been successful, except in terms of man-
management. It’s impossible for a person to do his normal job and still follow the kind of training
programme referees are assigned. So the system is flawed. There should be full-time referees who
report to St George’s Park every day. You may say – how are they going to travel from Newcastle to

Burton-upon-Trent every day? Well, if we signed a player from London, we found him a house in
Manchester. Robin van Persie, for example. If they want the best refereeing system, they should be as
professional as the Premier League clubs, with the money the game now has.
Mike Riley, the head of the Professional Game Match Officials Board, once claimed they lacked
the finance to take such steps. If he is right, it is incredible that football lacks the resources for proper
professional refereeing, with £5 billion in revenues from television. That is ridiculous. Think of the

sums available in parachute payments to clubs relegated to the Championship. If referees are going to
be full-time, the system should reflect that. It should be done properly.
In Europe, Champions League referees have an arrogance about them because they know they won’t
see you again the following weekend. I was in four finals and there was only one where the referee
could be recognised as a top official: Pierluigi Collina, in the Barcelona final of 1999.
I’ve lost two important European ties to José Mourinho, not because of the performance of the
players but because of the referee. The Porto game in 2004 was unbelievable. The worst decision he

made that night was not the disallowed Scholes goal that would have put us 2–0 in front. When
Ronaldo broke away with a few minutes to go, he was brought down by the left-back. The linesman
flagged for a free kick but the referee chose to play on. Porto went up the park, got a free kick, Tim
Howard parried it out and they scored in injury time. So we had plenty of experience of bad decisions
against us in Europe.
I was at an AC Milan–Inter game and a senior Inter official said to me: ‘Do you know the

difference between the English and the Italians? In England they don’t think a game can ever be
corrupt. In Italy they don’t think a game can not be corrupt.’