‘I was a Prem referee – I’d have been sacked if mics heard what told players’
Ex-Premier League referee Jeff Winter has joked he would be sacked if he was mic'ed up when officiating today.
Premier League officials are now fitted with a microphone before games, with the audio occasionally released to the public by PGMOL. Howard Webb, PGMOL's technical director, is aiming to use the audio to convey to the public why certain decisions are made.
However, when speaking to Ladbrokes Fanzone, Winter has joked he would have been sacked if he was still officiating. He said: "These conversations between officials being recorded in today's game…
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"I can tell you now, if some of my conversations were recorded, then my career would've been over by the end of that match! I come from a generation where we used man-management to control football matches, and we spoke to players in their language.
"It wasn't necessarily abusive to the referee or player directly. You know, no player will say "oh, dear me" when they've been caught with a late, high tackle.
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"And, you know, when you're talking to players on their terms, it helped you to control the game."
Winter was the man in the middle for Premier League games in the early days of the competition until 2004 – his final game as an official was the 2004 FA Cup final between Manchester United and Millwall, retiring after the game.
He did pick up his whistle again for the hit Sky Sports show Masters Football.
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