Anthony Taylor has retired from Premier League refereeing after 16 years, and he has spoken out about the "culture of fear, disrespect and shame" that he says is fueled by former officials commenting in the media.
Taylor, who officiated 668 matches in English football, including every major domestic cup final and 163 international fixtures, retired last month after appearing at his second World Cup. He and Michael Oliver have been leading referees for years, but that brought increased scrutiny and heavy analysis of their decisions.
Former officials' commentary criticised
A number of ex-referees, such as Keith Hackett, now write columns for media outlets and freely criticise referees and their decisions. Taylor admitted this had a detrimental impact on the environment officials work in.
Asked by the BBC whether such commentary bothers him, Taylor said: "Yes, it does personally, because it doesn't have any balance to it a lot of the time. It's just part of the focus that comes with football. When we're dealing with supposedly objective analysis of matches, whether that be an expert ex-player in a studio or an ex-referee, that should be balanced and fair. If it's all one-sided criticism, that creates a culture of fear, disrespect, shame."
Pressure and scrutiny
Taylor, who will now lead referees in Turkey, acknowledged that officials are human and affected by outside noise. "Any referee will be lying to you if they said that pressure or that scrutiny did not bother them," he said, "because that's a natural human reaction. One of the challenges that referees face at every level is actually understanding the challenges that we face."
He added: "Fear of making mistakes, external opinion, spectators, managers, parents, media, colleagues. All these things feed into creating self-doubt, lacking confidence, and then things can spiral out of control and you lose the ability to actually have any confidence in what you're doing on the field."
During his career, Taylor faced questions over a high-profile error in a game between Burnley and Swansea, which came just days after his stag do in 2017. Taylor admitted it was a "terrible" call, but said the timing of his trip was irrelevant.
