Howard Webb orders brutal clampdown on Premier League refereeing decisions with fewer penalties set to be awarded
REFS chief Howard Web has told Premier League officials they MUST clamp down on players waving imaginary cards.
PGMOL boss Webb has also reiterated the need for refs to enforce directives penalising dissent.
And in a further statement of intent, Webb wants VAR officials to step in if “soft” penalties are wrongly awarded.
The former World Cup final whistler laid down his demands at the scheduled gathering of officials at their Loughborough base ahead of this weekend’s Prem resumption.
Webb pointed out that the early season directive to book – and if a second offence, send off – players showing imaginary cards after fouls appears to have been forgotten in recent weeks.
That inconsistency has been a complaint from fans up and down the country.
And his message to the referees was that a policy that was put in place in August has to remain consistently applied throughout the campaign and in future years.
Webb is equally keen to ensure the strong line against dissent continues – as a way of enforcing better behaviour from players and managers alike.
This season has seen 88 Prem bookings for dissent, with Fulham top of the bad boy charts on 11 cautions for words or gestures.
Three players – Chelsea’s Nicolas Jackson, West Ham’s Lucas Paqueta and Sean Longstaff of Newcastle – have been cautioned on three occasions.
Bosses behaving badly include Manchester United’s Erik ten Hag and Fulham chief Marco Silva, also each yellow carded three times.
But PGMOL and Prem bosses believe the strong push will improve player behaviour as they realise they will be punished for speaking out of turn.
Webb told club chiefs at Tuesday’s “shareholder” meeting that this season has so far seen NO incidents of mass confrontation, compared to eight such melees at this point last term.
New added time rules have seen the average match length rise to 101 minutes and 41 seconds, three minutes and 17 seconds longer than last season.
The ball has also been in play for 58 minutes and 29 seconds, up 223 seconds, nearly four minutes more, per game.
Webb also told clubs that he wanted a higher bar for penalty offences and planned to instruct VARs to intervene and recommend overturns when that threshold was not met.
The PGMOL boss has already publicly admitted Wolves were wrongly penalised twice in successive weeks when first Newcastle and then Sheffield United were given spot-kicks that should not have been awarded.