Howard Webb voted worst referee in English Premier League

EPL fans have spoken in our poll and voted Howard Webb as the league’s worst referee.
Howard Webb has been declared winner of the RedCardTheRef online poll for the English Premier League’s worst referee.Howard Webb has been voted worst referee in the English Premier League by RedCardTheRef.com readers.
Webb defeated competitor Chris Foy by just 11 votes when the polls closed on Wednesday May 30.
A total of 876 votes were cast with Webb earning 276 votes to Foy’s 265 (see the end of this article for complete voting results).
Foy gained most of votes his in the days following his failure to spot Chelsea defender David Luis’ stomp to the midsection of Sergio Aguero in an FA Cup semi-final match.
Even though the competition is not part of the English Premier League schedule, Blues fans voted en masse against him.
Webb and Foy were neck-and-neck in our poll for over six weeks but in the last week Webb eventually surpassed Foy in our referee title race.
A former Yorkshire policeman and easily England’s highest profile referee, Webb casts a long shadow as some controversial decisions from previous seasons likely did much to tip the balance in his favour.
He has long had a reputation as a stern disciplinarian with the proof in the pudding when he took charge of the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and Holland and issued a total of 14 yellow cards and one highly controversial red card to Holland’s John Heitinga in extra time. Spain went on to win the match while Webb was roundly vilified by the Dutch for his performance in Johannesburg.
In April our winner was demoted to League One action after his performance in the Sunderland-Newcastle derby had both Black Cats and Magpies fans up in arms.
A few weeks later Webb gained more ground in our poll after sending off Manchester United’s Rafael for kicking out at David Luis who could have won an Oscar for his portrayal of a dying Swan. After Webb pulled out his cards, Luiz could be seen smiling on television cameras.
Mark Clattenburg came in third with 160 votes, likely carried over after allegations of racial abuse against Chelsea’s John Obi Mikel last October.
The biggest surprise in our online voting was that referee Mark Halsey did not receive more votes for his failure to spot Wigan forward Callum McManaman’s horror tackle against Newcastle defender Massadio Haidara.
Halsey – a cancer survivor - received death threats and even abuse from his peers after the incident with former EPL referee Graham Poll telling Halsey to get out of the game.
If we were announcing an award for best EPL referee - which we are not - Simon Beck may well fit into that category. Beck accumulated just nine votes from fans making him the least criticized among our eligable officials. Newly installed referee Robert Madley (four votes) only began officiating EPL matches last month so he can really not be considered the winner of this honour.
Also this season, we lost the touchline presence of one of our greatest referee critics when legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement earlier this month. His team were the victims of some harsh decisions this year, including the sending off of midfielder Nani, which derailed the Red Devils Champions League hopes in their Quarter-final match against Real Madrid.
Once on a trip to England in 2009 I found myself sitting in the upper tier of Old Trafford where from over 100 yards away, I witnessed the skin colour on Fergie’s face turn a beat-red as he yelled at referee Alan Wiley and the fourth officials during a match against Sunderland.
I swear I could see steam coming from his ears! Love or hate United, Sir Alex and his colourful criticism of our match officials as manager of one of the world’s most famous clubs will be missed by all of us.
The 2012-2013 EPL season was one where match officials captured headlines for all the wrong reasons. Nevertheless, we were delighted with the interest in our newly launched website and look forward to serving soccer fans in years to come.
RedCardTheRef was launched in February 2013 and we have already registered over 6,000 visitors since our launch.
Thanks for your support. Tell your friends about us, share this post and follow us on social media. We would also like to hear your thoughts on who you think should have won this year’s award in our comments section below.

POLL RESULTS
Who is the EPL’s worst referee?
Total Voters: 876

• Howard Webb (32%, 276 Votes)
• Chris Foy (30%, 265 Votes)
• Mark Clattenburg (18%, 160 Votes)
• Kevin Friend (9%, 79 Votes)
• Mike Dean (8%, 70 Votes)
• Phil Dowd (8%, 68 Votes)
• Mark Halsey (5%, 45 Votes)
• Martin Atkinson (4%, 39 Votes)
• Lee Probert (4%, 34 Votes)
• Lee Mason (4%, 34 Votes)
• Andre Marriner (3%, 28 Votes)
• Neil Swarbrick (2%, 17 Votes)
• Roger East (2%, 15 Votes)
• Mike Jones (2%, 15 Votes)
• Michael Oliver (2%, 14 Votes)
• Anthony Taylor (1%, 13 Votes)
• Jonathan Moss (1%, 11 Votes)
• Simon Beck (1%, 9 Votes)
• Robert Madley (0%, 4 Votes)

7 thoughts on “Howard Webb voted worst referee in English Premier League

  1. Love how the fans know so much about “bad” referees.It’s one of the toughest jobs around and impossible to please people. I did a little and wanted no more of it.

  2. This is utter nonsense. Howard Webb has only been voted first because of armchair glory hunting fans who seek to blame on the few occasions their team lose.
    He’s constantly in charge of big, challenging matches and so inevitably gets noticed far more than the rest. I personally notice him because he is one of the few outstanding officials in the game.

    His handling of the 2010 world cup final was first class with perhaps one booking being missed or wrongly given. He was dealing with an atrociously ugly performance from the Dutch and did everything he could to keep 22 men on the field (even overlooking De Jong’s legendary ninja kick). If he was vilified by the Dutch for his performance, why were they so ashamed of theirs, dropping De Jong specifically in relation to that for a long time after and acknowledging that they had approached the game in a manner that was far beneath the class of Dutch football?

    Luiz cheated, as he does so well/irritatingly, but Raphael still deserved to go.

    Howard Webb is the Premier League’s worst ref? Someone had better tell them that before he spends the next decade being first choice for their showpiece occasions and no doubt appearing at the World Cup in Brazil. I know you’re basing this on a poll but if you want to write a decent blog, you’d do well to acknowledge the absurdity of the vote rather than justify it in my opinion.

    • Thanks for your input Doesitmatter. It looked like Chris Foy was going to win the poll right until the final couple of weeks - when he was overtaken (or is that undertaken) by Webb. Not my call but is up to the fans and the hundreds of votes they cast. You might even think others including Clattenburg and Halsey had a good shot at our first annual crown but there is always next year. As the blogger, I agree with you - Webb had some solid performances this year but others including Newcastle fans would beg to differ with that - as they always will. Looking forward to continuing our coverage next EPL season which is just around the corner.

    • He is always called in to ref United’s big games. Why is this? It’s the same rules as any other game of football. Why not Dowed or Marriner. He is the FA’s man in my opinion. If they want bias they call Dowed. Ba’s kick in the face. Torres getting his shirt pulled over his shoulder and the Aguero stamp are my obvious examples of his cheating. I expect fans of other clubs have their own.

  3. Why blame the red when the rules of soccer are so third world from FIFA on down. Soccer compared to excellently called and reffed American sports is atrocious. So much of soccer is about interpretion of the rules and it seems the rules encourage “getting away” by doing something bad. Hence so much play acting biased refereeing and othe assorted rubbish coz no accountability and no retro action unless red has missed incidents how dumb is that.

  4. coward Webb allowed tonight AC milan to play like in the scala as real comedians
    and he dared not to send a second italian out with a red card-ballotelli

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