Sports Letters: Whistlers turn to whining

Bill Trumble
Wednesday 17 February 1999 00:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sir: How depressing and predictable that referees should whine about their powerlessness to disallow that Arsenal "goal". Everyone knew the goal should not have been allowed and the referee should have used some initiative and common sense and ruled it out. I would have thought that unwritten rules could be enforced using unwritten powers. Any referee with a real feeling for the game would have used them.

Failing that, the referee as the sole arbiter of fact could have ruled the throw-in a foul, or the scorer offside, or deemed that the ball never crossed the line. In fact I am surprised that this solution didn't occur to him, as referees seem quite happy to defy objective reality on other occasions.

Replaying the game is preferable to allowing the result to stand, but it would have been a lot better if the referee, players, and management had done their duty and sorted things out at the time.

BILL TRUMBLE

Oxford

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in