Referee Rob Styles has been dropped from officiating in next weekend's Premier League games because of his absurd penalty award to Chelsea against Liverpool on Sunday. Apparently Styles will call Liverpool to offer his apologies, it goes without saying the Merseyside Reds would rather have had the two points instead of words of sympathy.
Styles poor penalty award was the main officiating talking point of the weekend, so much so that it has overshadowed what many Reds view as an equally poor decision by Mark Clattenburg in the Manchester derby when Corlucka hacked down Patrice Evra when he was clean through on goal - that decision, or lack of it to be more precise, has been largely ignored by the media.
Personally, I'm not sure that dropping referees by way of punishment is the answer, surely that will just add to the pressure on Styles for his next game. Why not just fine them heavily?
Having made his grovelling apology will Styles feel obliged to level things up next time he takes charge of a Liverpool game? Human nature would suggest that will be the case, so no doubting many in the media will be keeping a close eye on the next Liverpool game when Styles is in the middle.
The standard of refereeing over the weekend was absurdly terrible. They made more headlines then the players themselves, whether they intended to or not. Surely a league so well financed, as termed as the 'best league' in the world cannot be beset by such an atrocious standard of refereeing. The problem seems so fundamental. Very soon we might have high-level court cases with referees as well, or maybe even the FA, as the money and hence, the stakes in the game keep getting higher and higher.
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