Are Premier League Referees The Worst In Europe?

Referees in England are widely considered to officiate matches poorly. Premier League referees specifically receive a lot of hate for bad and wrong decisions that end up costing the impacted club, the game. This would then cause managers speaking about it publicly in the media, which influences the thoughts of many supporters who may not have even watched the game and makes them think badly of a referee.

In this piece, we will be taking you through why Premier League referees make the wrong calls, and why many believe that they are so poor, that they are the worst in Europe.

Why Are Premier League Referees Criticised?

There are many different factors and reasons as to why Premier League referees get caught up in it all and receive hatred and criticism. For example, the pressure of being a Premier League referee. Having the honour to officiate in the best league in the world, these referees may feel pressured highly. These may lead to many human errors, especially in big games, when the home crowd is roaring, referees may fall into the trap of being influenced by a crowd and potentially make the wrong decision. Being influenced by a crowd also leads into inconsistencies. Although, many of these “inconsistencies” may just be 50/50 decisions, however, with football fans, nothing is 50/50 and no matter what decision you make, you will always receive hatred from supporters you gave the decision against. An example of these inconsistencies occurred when Leandro Trossard received marching orders after kicking the ball away against Manchester City, when after the match, this sparked debate considering there were other incidents where City players appeared to do similar things yet went unpunished.

Was Michael Oliver right to send Leandro Trossard off? And should Jeremy Doku have seen yellow too? 🟨

Ref Watch take a closer look 🔎 pic.twitter.com/stNMNwzTJn

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) September 23, 2024

Another criticism that referees receive is within the impact of VAR. This has a significant impact in the manner referees officiate games. Referees will tend to take much longer to make their decisions, as they will be afraid of making the wrong choice. This in turn, also has an impact on the flow of the game. Especially for offside calls, you may notice how linesmen take so long to make the call, that a goal has already been scored. Now, we know many fans dislike VAR, however, as much stick as it gets, the screenshot below thanks to ESPN, shows that VAR errors have actually been halved. In comparison with last season’s first 19 matches, there were 20 VAR mistakes, compared to just 10 this term.

(Original Source: ESPN)

The third and final piece of criticism we shall talk about in this section, is the influence of external factors. Many referees may be heavily influenced by past wrong decisions they made which were considered unacceptable by pundits, commentators, and also even managers. Managers are always in the media criticising referees and so when the official next referees that team, they will either be influenced in a way that makes them not want to be wrong, or to just be against them throughout, which will infuriate supporters.

Worst In Europe?

Now that we have gone through several reasons and ways that Premier League referees get criticised, let us now take a look to see if it is the worst of the top five leagues.

In La Liga, VAR has caused a lot of debate, with Real Madrid at the centre of it all. They have had many decisions go against them this season. Without VAR in La Liga this season, and therefore with just the referee’s call to depend on, Madrid would actually be top of the standings, with Barcelona eight points behind. Another side who have been substantially impacted by VAR are Alaves. If we just relied upon the referees to make decisions, they would sit in 13th, however, they will feel hard done by, as they are facing relegation instead.

(Original Source: Diario as) (Data taken excludes past three match weeks)

Moving onto the Bundesliga where their situation with referees and VAR seems much better than in the previous two leagues mentioned. In January, they even introduced the decisions so that all VAR interventions are announced to fans by referees with reasoning for said decision. This was introduced to cut back on all the stick referees would get, however, referees will always come into the fray, where the Mainz manager, Bo Henriksen, was shown two yellow cards within a matter of seconds after questioning the amount of injury time at the end of a game against Bayer Leverkusen back in January.

Next, we move onto the Serie A, and perhaps the league known most for controversial decisions. For the past two seasons or so, they allow audio to be heard between the referee and the VAR. This is another way for there to be more transparency between officials and supporters within the decision-making process. However, sometimes it sparks debate over some decisions, such as the one below, where the referee does not believe Kalulu’s challenge on Castellanos was a foul, then a minute later pulled out the red card for the Juventus defender.

‼️ | OpenVAR, the audio from referee Massa during the Kalulu-Castellanos contact: “There’s nothing there, come on. Taty, you committed the foul and then he touched your face. I’m not calling for this kind of thing. I only stopped play because he’s on the ground.”

Then they show… pic.twitter.com/5eygo58m4C

— Juventus News Live (@juvenewslive) May 12, 2025

Lastly, we head to France, where there are also many refereeing mistakes. Marseille coach Roberto De Zerbi finds himself in the mix of it all, as two months ago the club were threatening to leave the league to join the Super League. The ex-Brighton manager was criticising the officiating that his team were receiving throughout the match, including a controversial sending off of Derek Cornelius. The De Zerbi rant on the officials reminded us of this gem last season.

🗣️ "I don't like 80 per cent of referees in England"

Roberto De Zerbi speaking after he was booked and Mahmoud Dahoud sent off in Brighton's 1-1 draw with Sheffield Utd ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/LUTP5XuBqt

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) November 12, 2023

After looking through all of this, it appears that Premier League referees do not actually seem to make a substantial number of wrong decisions more than other leagues, however, they just stand out in comparison because they are officiating in the ‘best league in the world’.