Dear Mark Shield
Sydney South
New South Wales 1235
Dear Mr Shield,
I am writing on behalf of all A-League fans to ask you to reconsider your decision to hang up your whistle. You are by far the best referee that has graced the A-League and you are not prone to countless mistakes like the others (although several thousand Central Coast Mariners fans and a certain Danny Vukovic may be beg to differ).
We as a nation of football fans are not ready to cope with the prospect of Matthew “its all about me” Breeze being Australia’s number one referee. The man didn’t have the balls (pardon the pun) to send that pesky Joel Griffiths off for hitting a linesman in the nether regions. I bet that red card of yours would have been out quicker than a Sasho Petrovski appeal for a free kick. I think he also has a bit of an inferiority complex knowing that you are a better referee. How else would you explain all those headline grabbing decisions.
I admit that there is some hope for Messrs. Green and O’Leary, but in my opinion they aren’t yet ready to be the number one. Further to that O’Leary is a New Zealander and we can’t have one of those being our top referee, and I don’t care if he has been once a fourth official in a English Premier League match.
Then there is Mr Williams who often forgets that he is refereeing a football match and not a rugby match. I also suspect that he sleeps on the job as well. How else would he have missed that hit by Tiatto on that lovely Vargas fellow? I also have a funny feeling that the FFA video guy accidently hit the erase button on that game or else he is a Queensland Roar fan, but that is a whole other matter that I won’t trouble you with at this time.
There is also that Chris Beath guy who forgot that a yellow comes before a red card. I suppose he had the common sense to admit that he had made a mistake - take note Mr Breeze and Mr Williams.
I promise that if you should return to the ranks of referees I shall try to not question any decision that you make (unless it affects my beloved Melbourne Victory unjustly) and will also refrain from calling you a yellow maggot or any similar derogatory terms.
Yours faithfully
Neil Zimmerman
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You must be kidding!
He must be the worst referee I’ve ever seen!
After 15 minutes of any game in which he officiates, he would have handed out 3 yellow cards already.
The league suffers when our star players are forced to miss games ( there are only 21) because of dickhead refs like this bloke who hands out yellow cards as if he’s throwing confetti at a wedding.
I’m glad to see the arse end of him and would encourage a few of his mates to join him.
Our referees are not good enough.
We should bring in refs from Asia to complement the ones we have to try and raise the standard.
We get the same refs week in week out, and they are crap!
Good luck Mr Shield……….please don’t come out of retirement.
My tongue was a tad in my cheek with this post, Alan but all honesty Mark Shield is/was streets ahead of all other referees in this country. When you now think that that Matthew Breeze and that Williams guy are our two FIFA refs, you have to worry. I don’t think the solution is Asian referees, as most of them aren’t up to scratch either. New referee advisor Mario van der Ende, has recommend the use of European referees for big games. I think this is a better option but they would need to get acclimatised to our style of football before being dropped into an all important match.