Should We Punish the Innocent?

To put this in context, take a look at, "Keep the heat on cheats", from Mirror Football.

It details that to wrongly book players who may not be actually cheating is alright, so long as it is done for the "right reason" of doing so for The Game.

I'm not so sure I agree with this personally.

Trust me, I get that a referee can make mistakes. I have made whoppers throughout my career from the local U6 match, all the way up to the international friendlies I was involved in. Making mistakes in a match is unavoidable, and I found an attitude of "try your best, and fix the rest" was particularly helpful. One can always get better.

There is nothing wrong in my estimation to book a player for something, like a dive, when you genuinely believe in your heart of hearts the player dove. In my career I found myself asking these players often, after the match, if it was, or was not a dive. Some answered honestly, some did not, some declined to answer fearing it would taint my opinion the next time I saw them. In all cases I was trying to learn what goes into a good dive.

If however you are not sure, bringing out a "speculative caution" is a big risk. It alters the management of the match in a big way, and if not really earned, places an undue burden on the cautioned player. Let's face it, a player generally plays differently when playing with a caution, than without.

This also does not take into consideration, at some levels, fines, sanctions, or even suspensions that can occur to a player who has accumulated "points" by so many cautions. Is that fair to punish a player for something they may or may not have done?

Where I believe however, this is at its most dangerous, and referees will not go, is if a player is already under a cation in a match, and commits an offence that, without the previous caution, would have resulted in one, but now with a caution already, a "speculative caution" will likely fail to appear. I just don't think referees will go there.

Where is the consistency there? If a player should be booked, book them. Even if this "speculative booking" should take place, send them off. Right?

I don't think they will because a send off materially changes the match, and to speculate, even for noble reasons, about a players motive, is not appropriate.

In short, the ends (of eradicating diving in players by cautioning) do not justify the means (of speculatively cautioning, or sending off these players).

It's a laudable goal, but I think to guess, and have a handy excuse from the league, is intellectually lazy in this case. If you think they dove, caution them. If you don't know, let them be. If you make a mistake in judging, shame on the player, not the referee. But, the referee should learn form it, not just duck under a handy made excuse.

Now, in speaking out the other side of my mouth, there are times when I think this IS appropriate. Particularly, in offside decisions that are just that close.

We have heard it before, if there is doubt, leave the flag down. This is to promote the attacking nature of The Game.

One in the same? Maybe.

One big distinction to me is that a speculative caution causes harm to individual players that is unrecoverable in the course of the match, where allowing a goal can certainly be harmful to a team, but is generally recoverable in a match.

A fine line distinction ... yes. One I personally can live with though as I have a very difficult time justifying booking a player when I am not really sure if they did it or not.