SWANNY'S WORLD OF SPORT: Our referees are beyond help

But excuse me if I don’t get too excited. The same offenders who regularly make ridiculous judgements on the field now will be the ones studying video evidence high in the stands.

And I wouldn’t trust them to make the right decisions with the help of lie detectors and FBI standard freeze frame technology.

It has to happen though if only to embarrass the current batch of ‘top’ referees who consistently determine the outcome of matches with their mood swings and guessing games.

Just look at the horrible refereeing errors committed in just one weekend.

You tell me how bright young thing Michael Oliver sends off Coquelin the Clown and not Eric Dier in the North London derby?

Two more blatant red card offences it would be hard to find and yet only one player was sent off.

It’s that sort of inconsistency that helps cheating players believe they can con officials at will, which they do far too often.

I’m also intrigued as to how a fifth official high in the stands would have ruled on the last-minute penalty for Liverpool at Crystal Palace last weekend.

Muscle-bound hulk Christian Benteke felt the slightest of touches so dives to the ground.

He wins a penalty for that and yet examples of far greater physical contact (i.e the wrestling that goes on at every set-piece) is routinely ignored.

I watched Posh defender Ricardo Santos get sent off at Bury last week when one of his yellow cards wasn’t even a foul. The same referee managed to ignore Bury’s regular tripping, shoving and blocking of Marcus Maddison.

Not every piece of contact is a foul, not every foul is a yellow card, even those committed in the penalty area, but currently our referees just officiate on a whim. It’s often a case at what takes their fancy on the day.

They don’t apply the law, they decide which bits to apply in any given day.

Did you see the penalty save from West Ham ‘keeper Adrian at Everton last Saturday? He’s five yards off the goal-line when Romelu Lukaku takes the kick.

That’s against the law and easy to spot so what’s the dozy assistant, who has one job at a penalty, doing? What’s he watching? Has he been entrusted with another game this weekend?

Do you all remember when Posh ‘keeper Joe Lewis was penalised twice for moving inches off his line at Millwall when saving penalties. But that was little old Peterborough. The laws can be strictly enforced against them.

Anyway how are video referrals going to work? I presume it will be up to players/managers to make a protest in which case it will just become one more excuse to waste time.

Last minute of the game? Want to take the sting out of the match? Make up a referral and we’ll waste 30 seconds while one man with suspect eyesight helps out another.