Skinner’s anger at referees boils over
Rehanne Skinner’s frustration at the state of officiating spilled over after West Ham’s 2-0 loss to Chelsea and she called for all WSL referees and their assistants to become professional. Skinner’s team were denied an equaliser against the champions after Honoka Hayashi was incorrectly flagged offside, but it is what she sees as repeated wrong calls that pushed her to demand change. “Last week there were two goals that were scored against us, neither of which should have stood, which is another point for us,” she said. “Tottenham game, we get an apology after the game for a goal that should never have stood for offside. I’m getting a bit sick of it to be honest … We just cannot keep having those types of mistakes because it completely ruins the game.” VAR is one solution but Skinner also added, more significantly perhaps, that WSL officials need to be full time. Currently only 50% of WSL referees are working on a full-time basis. “A lot of people are talking about VAR and things like that and if that’s what we need to do to get results right then that’s what we need to do,” she said. “Ultimately the referees still aren’t professional in this game so they’re not actually in a situation where they are solely focusing on these games and I think that has just got to change.” Suzanne Wrack
