In an exclusive interview with SafeBettingSites, former Premier League referee Peter Walton gives his opinion on refereeing decisions from the Liverpool game in which he believes Mac Allister was right to get a yellow card for imitating the yellow card gesture towards the referee.
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Interview Highlights:
- Trent & others will catch on when they start accumulating yellow cards for time wasting
- It’s a good thing players like Mac Allister get shown a yellow for yellow card gesture
Full Transcript
Question: Trent Alexander-Arnold was booked for taking too long over a throw. Correct decision? Will we keep seeing this happen?
Peter Walton: “Well, I think when you see the accumulation of yellow cards and players teetering on the brink of having a suspension for having 5 or 10 yellow cars in the season then, the brain will engage, and they’ll realise that this is not what they should be doing. I was at a match last weekend where a player got cautioned for kicking the ball away, quite rightly. And then within three or four minutes one of the opposition kicked the ball away and the manager of the opposition went apoplectic at his player, remonstrated with him, just saying, look, you just see the referee caution one of our opponents three minutes earlier. What are you doing that for? So there is this learning curve to go through and I think if the authorities, that is the referees, if they continue their stance on this, we will see a change of attitude towards players in just knocking the ball away to delay games.”
Question: Mac Allister and Jackson were both booked for making the yellow card gesture within minutes of each other. Does it surprise you that players are still doing this? Is it a cultural thing?
Peter Walton: “I wouldn’t use the word culture. But I do think that in certain areas of the world, players are allowed to do certain things that maybe we would think of as being the right thing to do. If you can go all the way back to Jurgen Klinsmann. People said that Francis Lee used to dive when playing for Manchester City all those years ago. But Klinsmann took it to the next level and suddenly we had diving in our game. Now in terms of imitating the yellow card, that’s been going on for many a year. And I thought, even when I was refereeing that the authorities had picked that up and were clamping down on it, which we started to do. But we went into this lull again where we completely ignored it, and it didn’t become the norm but more and more players were using that to again show their frustration at referees and or trying to influence a referee into making a decision. And again, it’s something that’s unsporting in terms of the law and ought to be picked up and he’s now being picked up. I don’t think it’s a cultural thing. I think the game is a worldwide game and unfortunately what we see on TV replicates itself throughout the game. It’s a good thing and players should get used to the fact that if they ask for a caution they will get one themselves.”
