Graham Poll's Official Line - FA failings put burden on referees

This week the FA, getting tough and supporting referees, gave Steve Clarke, the Chelsea assistant manager, a £5,000 suspended fine for abusing the match officials following a game at Manchester United.

Clarke admitted the charge so there is no question of guilt and yet he has effectively got away with the abuse which is damaging the game.

Last weekend David Moyes had every reason to be disappointed with Mark Clattenburg after the Merseyside derby.

I can accept Moyes moaning after at least one legitimate penalty claim was ignored, while Dirk Kuyt's high kick should have resulted in a red card, but he has questioned the integrity of the official and that is unacceptable.

He suggested that Clattenburg deliberately favoured Liverpool due to a desire to preserve friendships made at the Asia Cup in the summer. The response to that ludicrous claim from Moyes? Nothing.

Referees have not been helped when their own boss, Keith Hackett, publicly shamed Rob Styles, one of his senior and most experienced referees. In doing so, he opened up a can of worms.

By suspending Styles after his performance in the Liverpool v Chelsea game in August, he opened up his team of elite officials to demands for their suspension after any perceived error.

In Clattenburg's case, the situation was more complicated in that he was already appointed to referee a UEFA Cup match in Moscow on Thursday evening.

He had then booked a well-earned, and no doubt much-needed holiday, following his ninth European game of the season.

Due to the Styles suspension, it was widely reported that Clattenburg only escaped a ban as he had prior commitments. The damage was done by Hackett's poor handling of the first major controversy.

So another week passes and referees must now be asking themselves why on earth they do it — no support from the FA, a manager who has scored a massive own goal, and another high-profile game on Sunday when the scrutiny of Howard Webb at Liverpool v Arsenal will be almost intolerable.

What a mess.

And all the time it becomes harder for a referee to get on with the job.

Poll's Poser

The ball hits the post from a corner and rebounds to the taker who crosses again and the centre forward heads it in. As the referee, do you:

A) Award a goal.

B) Order the corner to be re-taken.

C) Award a free kick to the defending team.

ANSWER: C is correct; the player taking the corner has played the ball twice and therefore an indirect free kick MUST be awarded.

Yes - They got that right:

Arsene Wenger, in his handling of the development of English talent Theo Walcott, who is a fantastic player, an incredibly polite young man and clearly developing well under Wenger's tutelage.

No, they got that wrong:

Managers complain enough at being sacked after a few bad results but Gary Megson seems to have overlooked the fact that he left Leicester City, who plucked him from a year in the wilderness, to take over at Bolton Wanderers.

The Referee's Clinic

Q: Colin Wood has a rather topical question this week: Cole floats a very high ball in from the wing and Heskey lifts Owen up on to his shoulders (similar to lifting a player up at line-outs in rugby), who nods it down into the net. Is it a goal?

A: Intersting question and, unsurprisingly, the goal would not be allowed as the actions of Heskey would be deemed unsporting. Therefore, a free kick would be awarded to the defence, and a yellow card for Heskey.

Watch out for...

. . . the appointment for next weekend's top-two clash at the Emirates. With Howard Webb at Anfield tomorrow, he is ruled out.

Alan Wiley has Manchester United this week, while Clattenburg, Styles and Dean are still recovering from previous big matches, leaving the way open for either Mark Halsey or an inexperienced referee to be exposed in the biggest test of the season.

EMAIL GRAHAM POLL AT g.poll@dailymail.co.uk