Former Premier League referee Peter Walton has shared his thoughts on the state of refereeing going into the 2023/24 season.

Walton breaks down Arsenal’s victory over Manchester City in the  Community Shield, the introduction of new conduct policies and the importance of consistency throughout the season.

The Community Shield refereeing will set the scene for the rest of the season

“I think the Community Shield should always set the scene for the upcoming season and Sunday’s was a case in point where referee Stuart Atwell clearly understood and implemented the new guidelines. The guidelines, in terms of giving a caution for kicking the ball away, is in regard to time wasting, which we’ll no doubt talk about later but also respect for the game. What we saw yesterday was two players who were being petulant by just knocking the ball away and delaying the restart and thus time wasting. So Stuart took the new initiative to the Nth degree and said enough is enough.”

Manager’s like Arteta getting booked for protesting is a good policy

“This is really aimed more at the nature of the game and the spectacle of the game. What we’ve got to realise is that the professional game has a duty of care to our brothers and sisters at grassroots level. What you see on a Saturday on your TV screen you’ll see replicated on a Sunday morning at your local parks. So one of those issues is the behaviour of managers in the technical area and we’ve seen on a number of occasions last year quite high profile cases of managers getting themselves into trouble for remonstrating too much and unfortunately that is mirrored down the pyramid. So in order to make sure the grassroots players and managers realise this behaviour is not acceptable, even at the professional level you will see managers getting themselves into trouble if they overstep the mark as Mikel did yesterday and I think it’s a good policy. As Arteta said post match he’ll have to amend his reactions.”

Consistency of the laws is needed to then pass the message throughout the pyramid

“I was speaking to members of the PGMOL who actually implement these new initiatives and laws just this week and the word consistency often cropped up in that conversation. What the management team is looking at is having a consistent application of the laws. So if you ask me this question again in December I’d like to give you the same answer but time will tell. Clearly what we like to see is less need for application of the laws because managers and players are taking the new directives on board and changing their approach, meaning that the message is seeping through the system and then on a downward trajectory throughout the pyramid.”

Go to BettingSites.co.uk to watch the full interview with former Premier League referee Peter Walton

Photo: Twitter @LFCVine