Football fans don’t blame referee

It was first for the history books today, after thousands of Manchester United and Arsenal fans agreed that last night’s game was “totally fair” and that the referee did a “marvellous, simply excellent job” of ensuring a clean, even match.

“The game was absolutely fair and unbiased,” said one fan, Shirley Reff, who emailed us without once using her CAPSLOCK key or any exclamation marks. “I would just like to congratulate the referee on doing a great job of the overwhelming task of making sure that a soccer match is objectively controlled, fair and utterly impartial.”

Reff explained in more depth.

“Let’s take for example his offsides call at about the 32-minute mark,” she said. “Excellent! What acuity! It was quite clearly offsides, no two ways about it. And that tackle between Santi Cazorla and Ander Herrera? It was fair and clean: his foot clearly hit the ball first. The referee was right to exercise his play-on discretion.”

Pictured: Most referees

Fans now say that even when there were questionable moments replayed in slow-motion where the referee missed a call or didn’t issue a penalty, one had to be understanding.

“We can’t expect him to see everything,’ they said, quietly drinking their beers in a calm and orderly fashion while seated and not taking off their shirts or hurling abuse at the Plasma screen. “It’s a huge stadium, lots of noise, lots going on. He’s just human. We’re bigger than being childish ranting lunatics.”

Experts in the act of guys kicking around a bag of air have agreed with this reaction, saying it “only makes sense”.

“Really, if you think about the utter meaninglessness of the world and the impossibility of our existence, and the overwhelming and terrifying fact that we live in just one tiny shard of space-time, an insignificant blink in history’s eye in which we’re all definitely going to die alone and unloved one day, with all our life’s works and struggles reduced to a forgotten and trivial collection of futile acts in the face of our own inevitable mortality, then getting worked up about one missed call in one inconsequential football match just feels dumb,” said Refereeologist Blou de Vissle. “Unless we’re talking about last weekend when that fucking blind dick ref missed that totally obvious handball by Suarez right outside the goal line. I mean, how could you miss it? The useless myopic fuck.”

F1 fan, 34, singlehandedly guides Hamilton to victory

Fans of watching bunches of million-dollar deathwagons blurring around the same stretch of tarmac for hours on end were surprised this morning, after a-bunch-of-times winner of Formula One Grand Prix Louis Hamilton attributed his latest victory to the unfailing and sound advice of 34-year-old Devonshire man and part-time Formula One strategist, Harold Cress.

According to Hamilton, it was Cress’s brilliant strategies and race advice, yelled across the stadium to him from seat G-127 in the public grandstand, that led him to victory.

“Listening to the megadecibal roar of thousands of people yelling their support, which one would assume is drowned out by the relentless shriek of thousand-horsepower jets on wheels screaming across the track, you’d think that we drivers wouldn’t be able to hear a word you’re saying,” said Hamilton, "but nothing could be further from the truth.”

Hamilton, whose race got off to a shaky start when he slipped into fifth behind a nameless Italian man whose name would be important if he could just win this season, says it was Cress and Cress only who paved the way to victory.

“When I heard him shout out, loud and clear, above thousands of others, telling me ‘pull left, come up fast and pass him low on turn four’ I thought ‘Jesus, why didn’t I think of that? It’s brilliant!’”

The incredible news comes just weeks after similar reports credited Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Liverpool to part-time mechanic and part-time professional FIFA referee Shirley Reff.

“All the time while we were playing, in spite of the drone of ten thousand spectators, we heard Miss Reff’s commentary and guidance, which was graciously beamed telepathically to us by the television camera people who had installed a microphone in Shirley’s favourite pub earlier on that day,” read Chelsea’s statement. It went on to say that she first caught their attention after local scouts reported her ‘brilliant acuity and quick tactical thinking, especially after three beers’.

Following these announcements, however, professional referees have been told by FIFA to issue a series of formal apologies to Reff and countless other part-time professional referees across the globe, after realising that match officials had missed countless penalty offenses, fouls and rules violations. Officials, however, have remained obstinate, saying that the lack of a TV on the field hampers their ability.

“Because we have to be there live instead of seeing in 1080p HD with slow-motion replays, we can’t do our job properly,” they said, adding that it probably didn’t help that they were always obviously biased against whatever team you were rooting for.

Fans of Muse and Abuse wishing to contact us regarding this post should scream at their computer screens for ninety minutes.

Rugby ref union to introduce new measures

The International Rugby Board (IRB) Panel of Referees (PR) has caused a stir among fans of the beautiful game this morning after announcing that it would be introducing more stringent controls to the reffing union, as well as hiring more "fair and unbiased" officials from smokey and packed bars to watch over future games.

According to head of the panel, Ray Fourie, the panel will now be drawing from the rich abunandance of highly qualified part-time referees that watch international and club games in bars across the country.

"It all started last weekend, when I was watching the New Zealand - South Africa game," said Fourie. "There was this tackle that may or may not have been high, and then everyone in the bar started shouting, 'That was clearly high! Come on, Mr Ref! Are you blind or something?' I was astounded. I never knew that bars were full of people who were professional and knowledgeable match officials pretending to be just spectators and fans. I mean, these guys were calling every mistake and foul there was. They even called a few that not even I or the ref saw happen."

This is not the first time the IRBPR has caused controversy in the beautiful game of rugby. In 2011 they made headlines after a decision to further their equity employment and empowerment policy saw them hiring blind and visually impaired people as referees. Some of these new referees even went on to ref very notable games, such as the 2011 World Cup game between South Africa and Australia. 

"We've always been very transformative and forward-thinking in our hiring policy," said head of Public Relations for the IRB Brad Desizhuns. "We're evening thinking of scouring Mental Asylums for our next batch of employees."

This came around just after the scathing furore caused by a damning 2010 report by the South African Polices Services, which found that some 72 referees were found with massive stashes of psychedelic, dissociative, deliriant and other such hallucinogenic drugs in their bags. 

"Copious quantities of psilocybin and mescaline were discovered in the match officials' bags just before the matches. In that 2011 World Cup game, you might as well have renamed LSD as 'Brycie in the Sky with Diamonds'," said the report.

The new referees will be put through a new training regime, consisting of a few draught beers and perhaps a brandy and coke.

"Most normal referees are put through an intensive and grueling eight-month course and develop their acuity and skills over a lifetime of passion for the sport," said new head coach and refereeing skills training overseer Ray Charles. "However, new data has shown that the same level of mastery and intimate knowledge of the game's rules can be garnered after just a few pints."

The IRBPR also said that they would be installing "Fourth Official Discontentment and Disagreement Monitors" in bars across the country.

"That way, if our new referees miss something, all those leftover professional referees will be able communicate with our on-field officials by way of their discontended yells, tuts, mutters and held-up-in-the-air-in-disbelief hands," said Fourie.

Repeated calls to get in contact on the telephone with the IRBPR for further comment have, however, proven to be unsuccessful. But that's okay. 

We're guessing it's not the first time they've had 200 missed calls in 80 minutes.