Paying referees could be best way to improve quality of officiating

The 42

2 days ago

WE FOUND OURSELVES as referee of an U13 Gaelic football league game in Meath recently.
It's a lottery most weeks whether an official ref is appointed, so when needs must a mentor who holds an Award 1 coaching credential can fill in.
So it was that we were thrust into activity for Division 3 rough and tumble. The amount of incidents to adjudicate on, from lunging tackles, clean pick ups and dodgy hand-passes, to whether the requisite number of players were in either half of the pitch, to the scoring arc, to score-taking and substitutions, was head spinning.
At one stage, while quickly checking on a player's welfare after a collision, an incident occurred out of our view which drew outrage among the visiting support behind the wire. We hadn't seen a bit of it. The linesman offered no input. We threw the ball up and restarted play. One half of the assembled parents lost their mind. Afterwards, we needed a lie down.
Natasha Barton / INPHO Natasha Barton / INPHO / INPHO
So we approach the issue of refereeing with nothing but admiration for those who do it week in, week out – particularly hurling refs.
Approaching the half-way point of the hurling Championship, we've already torn through a squadron of them, highlighting their errors and inconsistencies.
Michael Kennedy, for example, shouldn't have awarded Dublin their ghost goal against Wexford and Colm Lyons probably should have dished out at least one red card to a Galway player last weekend.
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Waterford manager Peter Queally was critical too of Johnny Murphy in the Deise's loss to Cork last Sunday, saying they were 'very disappointed with a lot of' his decisions. In camogie, Tipperary were denied a place in the Munster final because Karen Kennedy's late goal, when the ball hit the net and flew back into play, wasn't given.
The list goes on, prompting Dónal Óg Cusack to claim on The Sunday Game at the weekend that 'one of the biggest problems we have in the game is the standard of refereeing'. He too began from a starting point of acknowledging that refereeing can be a thankless task and that, without refs, there'd be no games.
The former Cork goalkeeper suggested bringing in 'some sort of technology' to help. But refs would still have to make their own calls around hand-passing. Was it a throw or a perfectly executed pass with the most minimal of hand contact? It's nearly impossible to know.
"One of the biggest problems that we have in the game is the standard of refereeing"
Dónal Óg Cusack discusses what could be done to up the standard of officiating in hurling
📺 Watch #TheSundayGame live - https://t.co/AKAre5FHdN pic.twitter.com/mR47vYRzm1 — The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) May 25, 2025
There is a clear move too in the game, particularly among the top teams, to leave as much as possible in the tackle. The hits are bigger and harder than ever before. Which only adds to the referee's decision-making workload. As ex-ref Brian Gavin put it in the Irish Examiner on Monday of this week, 'There could have been four red cards in Parnell Park' last weekend, instead of none.
Adding a second referee is a possible solution. But there is a lack of match officials as it is, and would Lyons' decisions last weekend, for example, have been any different with a second ref in the other half of the pitch? Probably not.
So what about an alternative solution – how about throwing money at the problem?
How would refereeing at the very elite level look if they were being paid, say, €500 a game for their services?
Fergal Horgan, who refereed the 2017 All-Ireland senior hurling final, noted in 2020 that 'a lot of people think referees are getting paid. We get absolutely nothing for refereeing above in Croke Park – only 50 cent a mile from Tipperary to Croke Park and home. €120 for the day, and we're gone at 10 in the morning and home at 10 at night'.
With a clearly defined, attractive, match fee to aspire to, the amount of energetic, savvy young GAA members looking to get into refereeing would surely increase from a trickle to a steady stream. And, in time, with greater numbers would come greater quality.
There is no inherent suggestion that the current panel of Championship referees aren't fully invested in what they do. It is a lifestyle choice for them as much as it is for players. But by increasing the attractiveness of the position, in the form of a substantial payment for those who make it to a high level, surely the quality of the candidate increases too.
It may even be enough to bring former inter-county players to the refereeing table. The GAA, in modern times at least, has never been able to crack that one and to get top players to view refereeing as a credible option after inter-county retirement.
The referees' lot has improved somewhat in recent seasons. A portion of their gym fees are paid. They receive a €250 boot voucher every second year. County refs also have access to a counsellor and a sports and exercise psychologist. But, truth be told, it still comes across as a most unattractive proposition to many.
Adopting the capitalist principle that by sweetening the reward you improve the output, would be an interesting path to go down. And the better the ref, the bigger the games they get.
Paid up professionals are producing stunning returns in other areas of the GAA. Like Croke Park Ltd returning record turnover for 2024 of almost €60m. An army of coaches throughout the country are paid for their valuable services too. What they all do is considered a necessity. So is the work of referees which is fundamental to the smooth running of the entire playing calendar.
We recently stumbled across a column which was written in 2017 for The Longford Leader newspaper by their then columnist Mattie Fox, aghast at how little referees were both appreciated and invested in.
'The minimum paid to a referee for inter-county games should be €500 plus travel costs, plus proper food for their umpires,' he wrote. 'That's the absolute minimum. For an All-Ireland, or All-Ireland semi-finals, or provincial finals, the very minimum should be €1000, plus expenses.'
It would make for an interesting and, surely, improved inter-county landscape.