MadJohn wrote:
All I want is competence. If someone makes consistently good decisions I don't care if that person is male, female, or bewildering. If you gave me a choice of a female lino who got everything right or some of the chumps we get saddled with I know who I'd prefer. And the same goes if you gave me the choice of a competent female referee or Mike Pike.
I don't think insisting on having exclusively male officials has anything to do with wishing to maintain traditional values, but even is that really was Newell's motivation (

) it's a flawed idea. If tradition was the deciding factor we would never make progress in anything.
officials are going to make mistakes whether they are male or female and mistakes will always be made in the game. I'm with Newell on this one, football should be exclusivly male, male players, male refs and managers etc. Women want to be in at everything these days, is nothing sacres?