Earlier, the NCAA women’s
basketball saw the number 1 side Iowa Hawkeyes take on the third-ranked Connecticut Huskies in a pulsating affair. The match was a proper humdinger with Iowa eeking out a win at the end with a slender margin at 71-69. The talk of the match however was stolen by a refereeing controversy in the final quarter of the match. Late in the match, the referee handed a controversial offensive foul against UConn shifting the momentum to Iowa’s favour. This irked fans across the community including Travis Kelce’s ex Kayla Nicole . Kayla Nicole, who started off as an NBA journalist, took to “X” earlier today to lodge her protest against baffling referring decisions. Such incidents are growing at a rapid rate across the sporting leagues and Kayla hence suggested on “X” that referees should be fined for such misconduct on their part. If the players are held accountable for every single action, so should the match officials. Kayla Nicole’s suggestion to penalize the match officials is an interesting solution. Normally, what happens in leagues worldwide is that the referee gets suspended or demoted down the pecking order preventing them from officiating further matches. This can be detrimental at times because sometimes, the mistakes are very genuine or simple cases of miscommunication. Something similar was seen with referee Brad Allen recently in the NFL. Brad Allen’s “Inexcusable Mistake” In The Lions vs Cowboys Game Earlier this year, the Dallas Cowboys had a controversial 20-19 victory over the Detroit Lions completely flipping the NFC playoff picture. The Cowboys’ win ensured their first place in the NFC East while allowing the San Francisco 49ers sole control at the top of the conference. The implications were extreme then and things wouldn’t have been like this had referee Brad Allen properly deciphered that tackles Taylor Decker was eligible and not Dan Skipper despite the latter screaming in Allen’s face that it’s not him who is eligible but Decker. Allen somehow missed it and penalized the Lions for Decker’s ineligibility and prompted by an unsuccessful penalty conversion, the Dallas Cowboys somehow emerged victorious in the final seconds of the match. The referee’s decision sent shockwaves across the league keeping the stature of the game in mind. An anonymous AFC GM also told Jori Epstein of Yahoo that the GM made an “inexcusable mistake” but it wouldn’t matter much as the league is very defensive about their officiating. This is not the first time that the NFL world has seen such shocking officiating. From the famous
music City Miracle featuring a non-call on the illegal forward pass to the botched coin flip on
Thanksgiving in 1998, the league has seen some wild refereeing decisions. But the real question is, how are the referees being held accountable? As of now, there is no system of per-match fines for the referees. In the NFL, referees who perform best get to officiate the post-season matches. The ones who mess up like Brad Allen don’t get playoff matches. The ones who perform the worst in the season are subjected to a demotion or a remediation. Firing a referee midseason has only happened once in the
Super Bowl era when Judge Hugo Cruz was fired for a blatant false start in the Week 6 match between the Browns and Chargers.