Yesterday the big furore over the Sky Sports sacking of Andy Gray, and the resignation of Richard Keys, filled the back pages of the papers. Apart from the unpleasant suggestiveness of some comments off screen, which were then broadcast, there seems to me to be more than adequate grounds for sacking them both on the grounds of sheer gender prejudice. And alleviation or mitigation on the excuse that this was merely dressing room banter is beside the point and both ethically and culturally puerile.
But also yesterday, a research project Vrije University shows that some decisions are impossible for the human eye to call. It requires the assistant referee to be looking at two different places at exactly the same time. So a good assistant referee is likely to get 90% of the decisions right and 10% wrong. Male or female. And also, the female assistant referee in question did indeed get the crucial decision right, demonstrated conclusively by technology which she didn't have available to her.
Now would the ex Sky pundits say that men would get the 90% right but women less than that? Or are men so omnisciently endowed and so intellectually quicksilver that they could improve on the 90%? And if men are so technically and physiologically gifted of eye and brain, particularly brain, why would male pundits fall for such a spurious and prejudiced viewpoint in the first place. Don't they SEE their own prejudice? Or are they unable to interpret the rules of the game we call human life, community and respect for others?
The photo is of the assistant referee whose skill, athleticism and knowledge of the gaem, got her in the right place, at the right time and making the right judgement.
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