Football: Full-time referees on cards
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Your support makes all the difference.CLUB CHAIRMEN will decide today whether to introduce full-time referees to the Premiership next season.
The move is being recommended by a working party of club representatives and the Premier League's own referees' officer Philip Don.
If the 20 Premiership chairmen give the go-ahead then a pilot scheme would take place from next season. This would involve the nine leading Premiership referees currently on the Fifa list being offered the chance to give up their day jobs and be paid for concentrating solely on officiating at the highest level.
Graham Poll has already indicated that a majority of the group of nine would be in favour, given the difficulty of combining a profession with their commitment to high standards of refereeing.
The working party of Don, David Pleat, the Tottenham director of football, Graham Mackrell, the Sheffield Wednesday club secretary, and Everton's club secretary, Michael Dunford, have considered the change.
At today's meeting, they will point to the fact that full-time referees would be likely to improve standards and to be better prepared to deal with the growing pressures in the game.
Full-time officials would also be able to spend time training and developing other referees, as well as building closer links with clubs, players and managers.
Some chairmen may feel that the move could lead to a two-tier system of full-time and part-time referees, and would be keen to investigate the cost which would be involved.
Leading referees, such as David Elleray, a teacher at Harrow, may be unwilling to give up their professional careers unless a long-term refereeing contract is on offer.
However, Poll has said that his willingness to take such a supposed gamble "underlines how confident we are that, given the chance, we could make full-time refereeing work and benefit football."
If the move is approved and the pilot scheme proves a success, it is likely that it would be extended to introduce more full-time officials.
Another working party due to report back to the club chairmen is the one which has been set up to examine the contracts awarded to the former BSkyB executives Sam Chisholm and David Chance.
There have been some calls for Peter Leaver, the Premier League chief executive, to resign over his decision to award them lucrative contracts to conduct future TV rights negotiations without properly consulting the clubs in advance.
The working party have met with Chisholm and Chance this week with a view to renegotiating the deal offered to them but early indications were that it would be unlikely that a final vote would be taken on the issue or on Leaver's future at the meeting as further discussions between the two men and the working party are planned.
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