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It's true that I dislike Ashley Cole more than most people. If the truth be told I never liked the guy when he was at Arsenal. When he snuck off to a hotel somewhere in the west end to see Chelsea after he'd decided that the 55k a week he was offered by Arsenal wasn't good enough for him, my loathing for him increased to the levels usually only reserved for Tottenham players and staunch republicans.

Paradoxically though people, I didn't really have much of a problem with his derisive ridiculing of Mike Riley this week following his mistimed but certainly not malicious tackle on that Tottenham no-mark (if people can make this argument for Martin Taylor I can make it for Ashley Cole).

I looked deep within myself after that incident and to be fair to Cashley, I think I'd have behaved the same way if I was in his position, how could you not? It's just so hard not to have less respect for our pitiful band of Premiership referees than for Premiership footballers. With the possible exception of Robbie Savage.

They're all just so weasely. Their obsequious please be my friend approach to dealing with Premiership footballers makes me dry wretch. Referees are not employed to be arse-chums with the players, they're there to blow their whistle and point at the appropriate times.

A concordant approach is not realistic. The relationship referees are trying to develop is not possible because that form of respect has to be earned and these refs are so utterly un-respectable. Discipline has to be imposed on the players.

Players have proven they're not capable of behaving professionally, respecting the officials and preserving the integrity of the game. They need to be dictated to until they can show they've learned how to behave. It's just like raising nippers really. Primary school kids don't call their teachers by their first names.


You don't see the same level of disrespect from the players when they play in the Champions League. The referee's are made of sterner and much cooler stuff across the channel. My research shows that players respond positively to either uncompromising authority or European chic.

Continental referees tend to look healthier and fitter and have enough hair to be able to use gel and those that don't look mentally unstable and not worth messing with.

They also wear cooler shirts; reds and luminous yellows and so on instead of black which is a colour not conducive to the harmonious relationships our refs are attempting to nurture. The European refs that do wear black do so because they don't want the players fucking around with them.

Premiership referees look like unfit red-faced used car salesmen and puff and pant their way through matches narrowly avoiding serious coronary collapse each 90 minutes. They also have names like Clive and Kevin instead of cooler monickers such as Pierre and Johan.

If the FA is serious about tackling this issue of respect they either need to instruct referee's to approach games in a far more draconian manner and abandon their desperate desires to be liked by the players, or simply find some cooler or crazier referees. It's basic psychology.

Footballers are essentially acting as bullies, the way to stop a bully from forcefully removing your lunch money is not to hand it to him before he attacks you, it's to attack him back, or simply be too cool and imposing looking that he won't target you in the first place. Oui?