Anthony Taylor is one of the best football referees in the world right now. From Premier League, to the World Cup, Taylor has officiated on the biggest stages for many years.
Last month he visited Jersey for a seminar with local referees, prior to the event he exclusively sat down with Dan Andrade of Sportscast Jersey and spoke about his career. From the scrutiny of the job, to what it is like to take charge of big finals, his opinion on VAR and the way the media report on officiating. A lot was covered in a rare open conversation with an elite referee.
‘When I first started, being a professional referee was never a natural option.’ Taylor said. ‘In the mid nineties when I originally took my referee course, which was triggered by me moaning about refs when I watched Altrincham in the Conference, professional referees didn’t exist. It is only as I made my way through the system that it became a viable option and even then when you are officiating in the football league it still seems quite a long way away. Compare that to now, it is a very viable career path not just for youngsters but also for ex players. It is a world which is full of opportunities if you are prepared to put the hard work in and if you have the skills that you need to be a top level referee.’
Taylor first took charge of a Premier League game in 2010, a match between Fulham and Portsmouth. ‘Your first game at a new level is always important to you. It comes with a lot of trepidation as well. It is very hard to describe the levels of scrutiny at the top level of the game, and not just externally from the media but internally from the stakeholders, such as the competition themselves and as well as the PGMOL where everybody is willing to have an opinion. That is a big psychological challenge that some people are not always ready for.’
Taylor went on to say that even before top level referees step onto the pitch itself, ‘Part of your preparation of working in elite sport is not just deciding if something is a foul or a red card. The role of a referee is to control people, but also to influence people. That is all about dealing with and managing individuals, so we are not preparing properly if we don’t try and understand the people involved. When you take somebody into a high pressure situation, which is the same for a player or a participant in any sport, when you are under immense pressure, in the heat of the moment you lose a sense of what is going on around you because you are that focused on doing what you need to do. In our case, we are that focused on trying to get the decision correct you almost lose what is happening around you such as the stadium noise and what players say, unless someone is right in front of you, which is rarely the case with the speed of the game now. Of course some teams will be coached to surround you and we have certain things in place where we can deal with that. A lot of the time you are that focused in the moment and processing decisions that you aren’t conscious of the noise.’
Taylor has been performing at the top level for years, which means he has officiated many finals including two FA Cup Finals and last year’s Europa League Final. ‘The finals, domestically and internationally are matches that as a team you work towards. It is not something that happens on the basis of one good season. There is a definite excitement for those games. The sense of being proud as well. Then there is also the realisation that these are really difficult games and there are only a small number of top officials that are able to handle those situations as a team. That is also a big compliment as well. You then obviously want to make sure you do a great job. You have to be realistic and know that in those games it is very rare that they go by without somebody putting some sort of blame on you.’
When asked what his favourite game that he has been involved in has been he replied ‘It is difficult to pinpoint one game because each context is different. I could say the first FA Cup Final in 2017 was the best because it was a full Wembley, a London derby but then the Europa League Final last year was immense as well because of the stadium it was in, how big it was and the intensity that a Spanish team playing an Italian team brings to the occasion. Every single game is slightly different so it is really difficult to isolate one particular game.’
Now for the topic everyone is talking about. ‘VAR is a really interesting thing to reflect on because people wanted it introduced to solve big errors. Four or five years later we are in a place where people don’t like it because they are always searching for the perfect decision. When people discuss VAR now, be that clubs, media or spectators they are looking for every single decision to be 100% correct. They complain about not wanting the game to be delayed but then sit and discuss wrong decisions expecting the perfect game. That unfortunately doesn’t exist. That is reality. Another example is, before it came in we used to see TV companies drawing the ”mythical line” across the pitch to show how somebody’s big toe was offside and they used to criticise assistant referees. Now that we have used technology to disallow those goals everybody has gone crazy the other way.’
Taylor continued, ‘In terms of how it affected us when it first came in, of course if anybody said ‘you make a decision in front of 80,000 people and someone else is going to say you got it wrong and we expect you to change it, and look really happy about it’, again it goes against human nature. The challenge really centres around making sure the officials on field are still making positive decisions. VAR is meant to be a safety net, it is not there to take the main responsibility when it comes to decision making. That is the main thing my team and I still try to make sure we do, make the positive decision on the field. On the balance of probability you are likely to have seven plus big calls, and one of those is going to be wrong on the balance of probability. That is a simple fact of human nature. A lot of people have unrealistic expectations.’
Dan asked Taylor how he copes with the critics in the media. ‘The easiest thing is not to read or watch. There is a lot of white noise out there, not just about us but about players and managers. If you are choosing to read or listen to that you must be a ridiculously strong personality and you don’t care what anyone thinks but I think that only works to a certain degree. You have to be really controlled on that side of things. Officiating is all about your confidence levels, so as a starting position you have to accept that there are plenty of people out there who will try and knock your confidence. These could be ex referees in the media, clubs, spectators and all of this can chip away at your self confidence so if you are listening and engaging in that it will have an affect on your future performances. It is important to get straight back into games again if you make mistakes and don’t listen to those negative noises.’
‘We are not meant to be and don’t want to be centre of attention in games. There are, of course, going to be situations where you have to be strong with certain individuals and personalities, and that can be a challenge in itself. Again, that comes down to the individuals involved. In international football, body language and eye contact is a lot more powerful than what you actually say to somebody. As a referee you want to balance everybody’s emotions.’
On the team he gets to work with week in week out and the current Premier League referees Taylor said, ‘I am fortunate. There are only a small number who get to work with the same assistants every game. We have been together for seven years since 2017. We are friends off the pitch as well as knowing each other so well on it. If you take the group of Premier League referees we have this season, in terms of number of games it is now a relatively inexperienced group. There is only myself and Michael Oliver who have officiated over three hundred Premier League games. Then there are only two or three who have done over two hundred. Everybody else is under one hundred. It is really important that as senior members of the group you try to help the other guys deal with the challenges. We have referees who are talented and are performing well in their early years but they will have many situations to come where things don’t go well and it is really how they bounce back from that which will demonstrate whether they can really make it at this top level. There is plenty of potential but it is how we equip them for the challenges ahead. The next five years in Premier League football will be totally different to the past five years. In the last five years the speed of the game has increased by nearly 20%. It might not increase by that much again as it is already pushing the boundaries of physical performance but law changes might come in which will affect how the game is played. It is difficult to predict the future of refereeing as we don’t know how the game will evolve over time.’
When asked about the media and football fans criticising the standard of officiating Taylor responded ‘You only get these arguments because they are trying to compare officials from different eras. The game has moved on. In the era people are saying that had the best referees, there was only one camera on the half way line. Context is everything and it is really easy to say that they don’t think current officials are good enough, unfortunately for them the stats don’t back it up in terms of how our independent panel judge the on field performances of current referees. That will always be a cheap shot.’
On what his advice would be to those who want go far in officiating he said ‘The three key things for me would be that hard work underpins everything, being honest and be humble. They are the most crucial aspects. You have to be prepared to make sacrifices and really work hard on not only your physical fitness but your technical aspects as you can’t rely on talent alone as that will only take you to a certain level. Honesty is really important because as soon as you learn to accept you made a mistake, the sooner you can learn from it and reduce the possibility of making the same mistake again. The humility aspect is so important for me because as I said, it is not about us, so people are not interested in you talking about yourself all of the time and when we are dealing with big personalities that humility goes a long way to not only gaining their trust but also calming those emotions down.’
So what is next for Anthony Taylor? ‘I am now in the situation whereby I am passed the age limit for international football. I am currently on the shortlist for the Euros and the next World Cup so I am able to continue until then. I probably only have one or two seasons left before I need to think about what the future holds. That is a long way off though because if you think too far down the line it takes your focus away from what you need to do in the short term, and the short term has enough challenges without needing to worry about anything else!’
