Stoke´s Pulis blasts ´appalling´ referee decisions

The coach of English Premier League side Stoke, Tony Pulis, on Monday blasted a raft of “abysmal” decisions he says referees have made against his team and demanded a system of promotion and relegation for officials.

Pulis said “six or seven” games had been directly affected by decisions against Stoke this season – notably when a goal was disallowed in a home loss to Tottenham, a handball going unpunished against Bolton and then on Saturday, Sunderland player Lee Cattermole’s apparent handball on the line not leading to a spotkick.

“The thing that we found this weekend is for the first time, people outside Stoke-on-Trent have actually said what is going on there is wrong. And that’s the first time it’s happened,” Pulis told Sky Sports News.

“Don’t kid yourself that this hasn’t been happening in the first two years we were in the Premier League. We’ve had decisions go against us that have been absolutely abysmal, and I mean abysmal. But we’ve kept our grace and just got on with things.

“We know we’re not going to get certain decisions that other clubs are going to get. I think that has been made blatantly obvious over the past few games. But there has to come a time when you have to stand up and say `this is not right’. And it’s been pretty appalling.”

“I think being constructive I’d say we should put in place a system where every Premier League club has a vote at the end of the season on referees, and the bottom three referees should be relegated to the Championship and the top three in the Championship should be promoted.”

That is unlikely to happen as the 16-strong elite group of referees also officiate at lower levels in the Football League as well as in the FA Cup, Carling Cup and Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. An appraisal system furthermore already exists.

Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher told Sky: “The referees are accountable. The best referees do the best matches, in-form referees do the matches a bit like the rotation systems at the clubs.

He added that the best officials from the second-tier Championship did progress to the Premier League.