Quotes & Sayings About Referees

Referees don't come down here with a particular flavoured shirt on. — Steve Coppell

I did think there were one or two referees who had a personal thing against me. It wasn't them versus Celtic - it was them against me! I just think they wanted to take me on. — Gordon Strachan

I want to congratulate again Mike Dean. I think his performance was unbelievable and I think when referees have unbelievable performances, I think it's fair that as managers we give them praise. So fantastic performance. — Jose Mourinho

It's a game of integrity. There's no referees out there. We all respect each other. — Jordan Spieth

What American people and what the markets want is a fair and level playing-field, where the rules are clearly elucidated, where the referees are competent, and where we know that the game is not rigged. — James Chanos

How I hate the Beautiful Game! I hate its cry-baby players and its gruff, joyless managers, its blokish supporters and its sinister owners, its whistle-peeping referees and its chippy little linesmen, its excitable commentators and - perhaps most of all - its unpluggable 'analysts.' — Craig Brown

I JUST GET ON WITH MY GAME AND LET THE REFEREES DO THEIR JOB. — Lionel Messi

The objective of a referee is not to get mentioned. I tell a lot of young referees that not being mentioned is king. If you can achieve that, that then it has been a pretty good game. — Alan Lewis

I want fifteen referees at this fight ... because there ain't no one man who can keep up with the pace I'm gonna set except me — Muhammad Ali

I lost count of the number of referees who came to me both at Derby and Forest and said, 'I'd just like to express my thanks. I love matches involving your team. We never have any trouble with them. — Brian Howard Clough

(The Revsons apparently did not like a young psychologist named Joyce Brothers, who appeared as an expert on boxing. Thus the questions given her were exceptionally hard - they even asked her the names of referees - in the desire to get her off the show; their strategy had no effect: She became the second person to win $64,000.) — David Halberstam

I'm aware that the World Cup is probably the greatest spectacle in the world of sport, and that's despite the referees that have been found to have fixed games specifically. — David Stern

From my own point of view, I hope everybody would realise that people who work in Scottish football - referees included - are always under terrific scrutiny. — Walter Smith

The human race is the most stupid and unfair kind of race. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water.
Some runners are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side.
It's not surprising a lot of people have given up compeating altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk and shout abuse.
What the human race needs is a lot more streakers. — Banksy

After referees negated a line change that led to Tampa Bay"s winning goal in the Stanley Cup Playoffs: After all these years in the league, am I that stupid that I would put four forwards and one defenseman in a 3-3 tie, in the third period? I think everybody that knows me here knows I"m not that stupid. I might be halfway stupid, but not that stupid. — Pat Burns

Profit by your own mistakes and profit by the mistakes of others. The referees were calling ball handling violations like they were getting commissions. — John Kessel

Referees and linesmen are killing teams. — Ashley Cole

Referees are only human, I think. — Phil Kearns

Even as they are now pointing to God and praising God for that victory, something terrible happens; there's a demonic spirit now that referees, and the officials, and they say Oh did you see that? He just referred to God. We need to stop that and we need to disqualify them! And they're punished for their righteousness by the demonic spirit that's inside the referees. — Gordon Klingenschmitt

The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game.
— Bill Shankly

Rinaldo Barlassina, one of the most prominent italian referees at the time, was the victim of stone throwing during a match at Casale. After refusing to give a penalty, Barlassina used an umbrella to protect himself and he emerged unhurt. Ghirelli comments that 'it is unclear if this was thanks to his stoicism or to the fact that the stones had run out'. — John Foot

We talked to the referees before the game; there's always new situations to adjust, for the refs and for us as well. Even on the ice, it's good for players to talk and interact with the referee. — Peter Bondra

Although people rarely died playing Quidditch, referees had been known to vanish and turn up months later in the Sahara Desert. — J.K. Rowling

Stanton closed the top drawer, opened the second one. "Maybe I'm new, maybe I'll get more jaded. But the law cleared this guy. Period, the end. If you don't like that, change the law. We in law enforcement need to be impartial referees. If the speed limit is fifty-five miles per hour, then you ticket a guy going fifty-six. If you think, nah, don't ticket until he's going sixty-five, then change the law to sixty-five. And it works the other way too. Following the rules, the judge freed Dan Mercer. If you don't like that, change the law. Don't bend the rules. Legally change them." Walker — Harlan Coben

All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset, I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try. — Ray Bradbury

More important, there was a very painful thought in my head: those young Communists on the block were right! The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you. — Howard Zinn

I loved the glamour and excitement of the games and, in particular, knowing the names of each and every one of the referees - that's because my mom, a former basketball player, would yell at them from our front-row seats for making bad calls! — Hannah Storm

The coin toss takes place at the center mark and involves not only the team captains, but also the referees. They all shake hands and smile like they're going to be getting along and they're all gentlemen. The reality is that this is a formality, and within a short span of time, the players will be yelling at the referees and each other. Most likely with some colorful language throw in. — Larry Edwards

I went into umpiring at age 16. I got into officiating because of the fact that I could not stand the referees that worked our basketball games. — Doug Harvey

Damn referees, I'll miss them less than anybody. — Abe Lemons

Violence never settles anything should be debated by the ghosts of Hitler and Stalin, with the city fathers of Carthage as referees. — Robert A. Heinlein

I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat. — Ron Atkinson

I would say the referees have the toughest game to call. I would say that there's a lot of officiating done by announcers, local announcers. Sometimes you should listen to a game from both feeds, and you'd think you were listening to completely different games. — David Stern

The pressure for conformity is enormous. I have experienced it in editors' rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous referees. The replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science. — Julian Schwinger

Referees need help. Players are getting faster and fitter and too many referees are making decisions from behind the play. They see a tangle of legs, they are asked to make a decision with one, often obscured look at high speed. — Andy Townsend

Time is only linear for engineers and referees. — Craig Ferguson

Referees are the law. They have a whistle. They blow it. And that whistle is the articulation of God's justice. — Harold Pinter

As all of us with any involvement in sports knows, no two umpires or no two referees have the same strike zone or call the same kind of a basketball game. — Herb Kohl

This fight should be dubbed, 'No Excuses.' If Carl Froch beats me, there won't be any excuses. I beat Carl Froch, there shouldn't be any excuses. No judges, no referees, no nothing. May the best man win. — Andre Ward

The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit. It is an indictment of our game. You see referees abroad who are as fit as butcher's dogs. We have some who are fit. He wasn't fit. — Alex Ferguson

No, we discuss it as fans. When we see the game, we talk about what we thought was a call or a foul or no foul. We just have to deal with that in the game. There's gonna be plenty more of those. Referees are humans, so it's not a problem. — Tim Howard

Pele really had everything - goalscoring ability, a great passer, good in the air, quick, he used both feet, almost the perfect footballer. Many words have been written about Pele but his record speaks for itself -more than 1,000 goals and three World Cup victories. He also played at a time when attacking players were not protected by referees as much as they are today. — Osvaldo Ardiles

China manufacturing was a game played on a field without referees. — Paul Midler

I don't understand referees. It appears like some players can't even be touched, but in my case, everyone can hit me as hard as they can. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Don't you think it's strange how many referees work at Footlocker? — Jim Gaffigan

He does not depend on insider tips, crooked referees, or other sorts of hustles to make his bets. Nor does he have a "system" of any kind. He uses computer simulations, but does not rely upon them exclusively. — Nate Silver

A person who has a criminal mind and would be punished by the referees and they will remain in isolation from others as an opportunity for them to reform. When he or she get released from his or her referees' custody, he or she would have a better understanding about the ethical and moral values of his or her society and not make the same mistake again. — Saaif Alam

In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.
All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try.
And no one can help me. Not even you. — Ray Bradbury

The fact is that everybody around a college basketball game - the coaches, the announcers, even the referees at a lower level - calculates when the game is really over. They calculate it with intuition and guesswork. — Bill James

Fighters today are much bigger, stronger and quicker and not only that but referees, judges and doctors back then were very strict and if your head got busted up the fight would be stopped. — Larry Holmes

Most of us are referees at heart; we like to call throws and errors on someone else. — John Kessel

To tell the truth, I don't really understand the causes behind my runner's blues. Or why now it's beginning to fade. It's too early to explain it well. Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about it is this: That's life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what's going on. Like taxes, the tide rising and falling, John Lennon's death, and miscalls by referees at the World Cup. — Haruki Murakami

As far as she could tell, basketball involved a herd of impossibly tall men racing up and down a polished wooden floor, passing a ball back and forth until one of them forged ahead to the basket to try to score. It seemed that whenever the contest became interesting, the referees would blow their whistles and everything would come to a grinding halt. She couldn't understand why the referees chose to wear zebra-striped shirts, either, since it wasn't likely anyone would confuse the short, balding men with the players. — Debbie Macomber

Fifteen referees. I want fifteen referees to be at this fight because there ain't no one man who can keep up with the pace I'm gonna set except me. There's not a man alive who can whup me. I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked. — Muhammad Ali

On how to make the game more exciting - Eliminate the referees, raise the basket four feet, double the size of the basketball, limit the height of the players to 5 feet 9 inches, bring back the centre jump, allow taxi drivers in for free and allow the players to carry guns. — Al McGuire

If the referee happens to be in the way you just yell, 'move or I'll break your ankles!' which I used to do with referees. Some refs will stop and watch the fight it drives you crazy. — Harold Lederman

We all believe we have found the finest of diktat that applies our perfect future, but do we believe the world needs referees. — Rudolf Hess

You can win the rat race but you're still a rat.

The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water.

Some runners are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side.

It's not surprising a lot of people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse.

What we need in this race is a lot more streakers. — Banksy

Pardew has come out and criticized me. He is the worst at haranguing referees. He shoves them and makes a joke of it. How he can criticize me is unbelievable. He forgets the help I gave him, by the way. The press have had a field day. The only person they have not spoken to is Barack Obama because he is busy. It is unfortunate but I am the manager of the most famous club in the world. Not Newcastle, a wee club in the North-East. I was demonstrative. I am always demonstrative. Everyone knows that. I am an emotional guy but I was not abusive. — Alex Ferguson

The sport has changed so much since 2004, it's incredible. If you look even at me, the way I'm fencing now compared to 2004, it's a completely different sport. They've changed so many things just with what [the referees] are calling, they've changed the timing of the [scoring] lights. You always have to be evolving as a fencer. The Olympics is interesting because it's such a small field compared to what we're used to. This world championships, I think we had a hundred and something [athletes]. The Olympics is going to be less than 32. — Mariel Zagunis