The Impossible Job: The Unbelievable World of Soccer Referees By William Ralston (WW Norton)*
When I touted my idea of a book chronicling the woes of an amateur soccer ref a few years back, publishers assured me that “no one buys books about refereeing.” Thankfully, journalist William Ralston has found someone who disagrees with that inane perspective. In a research-fueled volume pregnant with ideas and insight, he travels the world to talk to the world’s top officials and watch them in action. He sits in a VAR booth to find out how hard it is to make a snap decision. And he gamely takes the plunge into low level refereeing to see just what it feels like to be out there on the field “on your own. No assistants, just a whistle and a field full of players.”
How did his first game go? “It felt like a public shaming with the threat of being punched. If this was what a quiet park in Kent could feel like, what happens when the whole world is watching?” Well, according to the retired Jon Moss, being a professional referee is like being “a shit celebrity.” Moss should know – the vinyl shop he runs in Leeds was stormed by Huddersfield Town fans incensed at a decision that didn’t go their way in a playoff final at Wembley.
Ralston says his book is about “the paradox of rising standards and rising fury,” an attempt to examine the game’s rules and how they can be better applied or adjusted to make everybody’s lives less stressful, especially for referees who regularly receive death threats from a public hyped up by the self-interest of a sports media that wants us to believe that nothing’s more important than a game of soccer. He talks to Anthony Taylor about what it felt like to be publicly vilified by the unhinged Jose Mourinho after the coach blamed Taylor for Roma’s defeat to Sevilla in the 2023 Europa League final. The blameless Taylor and his young family were subsequently abused and threatened by baying Roma fans as they headed home via Budapest airport the following day. Was Mourinho banned for life? Sadly, and inexplicably, he was not.
Ralston divides his book into 17 chapters, one each for the individual “Laws of the Game.” He admits that in some chapters the thematic link is tenuous, but that doesn’t matter because over the course of the book he thoroughly analyzes every important question facing today’s game. With the accumulated knowledge of referees who’ve seen, whistled and suffered (and triumphed too — see the magnificent final chapter tracking Poland’s Szymon Marciniac on the day he refereed the 2022 World Cup final), he nails down the issues that urgently need rational discussion, and pinpoints possible ways forward. From start to finish, the book is balanced, intelligent and entertaining —there’s not a single wasted word.
Take former Arsenal chairman David Dein on stoppage time. “America put a man on the moon in 1969, but we still don’t know how long a football match lasts,” he tells the author. No sooner do you nod at Dein’s sane argument for a controlled clock, as used in the U.S. college game, than you find yourself assenting to the contra-argument to keep things as they are. Why? Because the uncertainty and the subjectivity of added time are part of the game’s lure, its tension and its heritage. All that’s needed are simple measures to sanction time-wasting.
In another chapter, Ralston examines, and talks to, the Chelsea fans who genuinely believe that Anthony Taylor is “against” their club, and who, en masse, express their unequivocal rage at his perceived bias. And yet, statistics prove his bias is, of course, nonsensical and non-existent, boiling down to a small handful of decisions that didn’t go the club’s way. Has Taylor made the odd error while refereeing Chelsea? Almost without doubt. Is he part of a Chelsea-hating cabal whose only goal is to destroy the club? Only if you’re the kind of soccer fan who’s likely in need of a richer and more varied life (or therapy).
The author also sits in the Premier League’s west London VAR room and, presented with game situations, repeatedly makes the wrong choice. So, should we abolish VAR? Former Swiss referee Urs Meier tells the author that VAR “risks making referees complacent, tempting them to dodge big decisions and neglect basics like positioning.” Yet Italian referee Marco Guido cites an incident where he missed a handball before Roma scored against Milan — VAR “saved me!” he says, because the public reactions in Italy to such erroneous decisions are unforgiving, extreme, and often violent. Keep VAR, it might save lives!
In the chapter on the offside rule, Ralston recalls how the benefit of the doubt used to work best on marginal decisions. Now, though, thanks to VAR, “goals vanish for infractions that bear no resemblance to the abuses the offside rule was introduced to prevent.” Never has the catastrophic transformation that video evidence has imposed on offside decisions been summed up in such a perfect and succinct sentence. Meanwhile, revered former German referee Felix Brych points out that making correct calls is no longer possible without VAR “because interpreting possible fouls” has become too difficult. His compatriot Tobias Stieler “fears the game has exceeded referees’ physical and cognitive limitations.”
Ex-Premier League ref Moss points out that refereeing “is not an exact science, but it’s measured as such.” Anthony Taylor tells Ralston that “nobody chooses to recognize that the result of a football match is hugely multifaceted,” and that it only takes one mistake “for it all to come crashing down.” When elite officials sit down with UEFA to examine fouls, says Stieler, there is regular disagreement over borderline incidents “more or less all of the time.” And former ref David Elleray, of FIFA’s rule-tweaking International Football Association Board (IFAB), categorizes referees into ‘policemen’ and ‘conductors.’ “Policemen apply the laws rigidly, blind to the spirit,” he says. “Conductors use the laws’ flexibility to give the game rhythm and flow.” Top French referee Clement Turpin adds that if he doesn’t find “all the elements” in the rulebook, “then I need to find the other elements somewhere else.”
It is precisely this gross contradiction between what the “Laws of the Game” say and what referees actually face out on the field that shapes soccer’s fascination. That there is vast room for improvement in the way that officials are guided or instructed to manage the game is evident throughout every page of this timely, necessary and diligent work. It covers way more than can be summarized in one review, and should be read not just by referees, but by every last sociopath who yells at them — either out on the field, from the sideline, or from the stands.
Norwegian professor of sport philosophy Sigmund Loland points out that “chasing justice in football is a fool’s errand, because the game throws up too many different scenarios.” We must “embrace uncertainty” and accept that luck and injustice are part of the beauty of a game, which is “not a scientific experiment or a court of law.” And referees should not be subject to witch hunts and trial by media. As much as we need to look at the “Laws,” it’s even more imperative that we take a protracted and exhaustive look at ourselves and the way we engage with sport.
Soccer America rating: 10/10
* The Impossible Job: The Unbelievable World of Soccer Referees has just been published in the UK by Viking. It will be published in the USA on January 5, 2027, by WW Norton. Available for preorder.
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• Author Ian Plenderleith was an amateur referee in the United States and Germany for 17 years. He quit last summer to protect his mental health and in despair at the lack of support for referees from within the game. He is the author of Reffing Hell: Stuck in the Middle of a Game Gone Wrong.