English FA and Referees: Harden up a bit

I just got through reading a soccernet.com article in which it says that Rafael Benitez might be charged with improper conduct for taking out his glasses suggesting that the referee in their match against Tottenham might need them (Rafael Benitez facing FA rap for removing his glasses). I am quite sick of the English FA holding refs hands and coddling them. They should be held responsible for their actions like the players and managers who gets charged for improper conduct. I don't hear many stories about referees who made the wrong calls or are un-fit to handle a Premier League game.

Now I understand that if you do charge referees for their mistakes then you might bring some of the games in disrepute by saying that he clearly affected the game. However there needs to be the same responsibility passed upon them that every club has to deal with. I also know that they will be graded at the end of the year for their performances but if they have a one off game in which they've clearly made mistakes then they should be punished for them. Refs make mistakes like all others but I don't think you should charge managers or players for words that they say after the heat of battle when they've poured their souls out for their respective teams. Now if it's a couple of hours later when they say these statements then obviously you can charge them for criticizing the referee because they've had time to think about what they wanted to say and none of it was spur of the moment.

I think there's one concrete instance where you can charge managers or players. This instance is when they say that the referee is favoring teams or protecting certain players. That goes into something altogether, this is saying that these games could possibly be fixed to help the favored team. And it goes straight to the FA because they appoint the referees to the games, so what you are indirectly saying is that the FA is fixing results basically because they appoint these refs who favor certain teams or give more PKs to one team rather than the other. Those are statements that should be stamped out.

I don't think that this coddling of refs will stop because even if they do get charged for making blatant mistakes then it won't protect them from the abuses that they'll receive from fans, players, and managers who think from then on that the refs will always make mistakes. Other the other hand, you can't charge those who don't have a favorable opinion of the men in black. They shouldn't be protected from that standpoint unless they talk about favoring teams in which there's grounds of charging because you're saying that the whole thing could possibly be rigged.