“The abuse against Michael Oliver is shocking”

Christina Unkel explains the causes and consequences of a toxic judicial culture when she shares a quote from Spider-Man. “With great power comes great responsibility,” she says. “One of my law professors used that in a discussion once, and I thought it was brilliant, that quote is just so powerful.”

Unkel is a former FIFA referee and qualified lawyer who joined ITV as a refereeing analyst for their Euro 2024 coverage. She is widely acclaimed for her accurate, focused and refreshing analysis of big decisions.

When given more time to speak than the three to five seconds she has on air to explain complicated refereeing decisions, she had plenty to say about the “damage” done to the game when managers treat referees like punching bags after games.

She looks back at the promising careers of female referees in men’s football, her surprising criticism of England referees Michael Oliver and Anthony Taylor at the Euros and how VAR training helped her prepare for the pressures of being a referee analyst on live TV.

But first, it’s worth learning a little more about a figure little known to the British public before the tournament who has grand ambitions to change the way they perceive referees.

Unkel first started officiating at age 10, when her team coach, who was also a referee, told her to stop yelling at the referees, that she didn’t understand the rules and that she should either keep quiet or take a refereeing course. So she took one. “Now I was yelling at more educated referees,” she says.

If it’s surprising that someone who would later become a pioneer of refereeing would shout at them like players, then her reasoning makes sense.

She’s already noticed that some referees will just be there to collect a paycheck. “The young soccer players and college players I played for didn’t have the best referees,” she explains. “That turned me on.

“Even if you made mistakes and tried your hardest, I would leave you alone. If it looked like you were doing it because it was the girls’ team, I would have mounted you. I would have called them out for it.”

Unkel went on to become a litigator and professional FIFA referee with MLS, and she had no idea how much her VAR training from 2017 to 2019 would prepare her for a job as a referee analyst on live TV.

“Whenever I work with a new videographer, I say, ‘We’re going to treat this like it’s a VAR room,’” he says.

In the studio, Unkel is paired with a videographer, and whenever a big decision is made on the pitch, they scour the video feeds for the best angles so Unkel can quickly try to explain what the officials are going to do and why. “The training helps me break down the clips really quickly,” she says.

She once hesitated when she heard the suggestion that, unlike commentators and pundits who meticulously prepare, she could just show up and do the job.

“I may not make beautiful graphs like Clive Tyldesley, but there are a lot of things I have to do in my brain to be ready.

“It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. They get me in at some of the most critical moments of the game. I’m lucky if I get 10 seconds — usually it’s three to five seconds of sound. It’s pressure, you don’t have the opportunity to make a mistake because the world is alive with every single decision.”

Unkel joined Twitter, now called X, only to further her overarching mission: to bridge the gap between the refereeing world and the rest of the world. She was shocked to learn that while she was working for FIFA as a referee, “high-level” coaches viewed referees as a separate faction from their own.

“There was such a huge disconnect,” he says. “Football is a chair with four legs. The chair can’t stand on all four legs unless they’re strong. The legs are the players, the coaches, the fans and the referees. Without all four, there’s no competitive game.

“The hardest thing is to see other officials being destroyed on social media, by journalists, by pundits. Even destroyed for making the right decision.

“They tell them they’re terrible, they leak information about their family. And they don’t have an organization or individual representative who can speak on their behalf because officials can never speak on their own behalf.”

I told her that the toxic culture surrounding referees in the Premier League was largely down to managers such as former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp and Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta, who often criticise refereeing decisions and are aggressive towards those on the touchline.

It is then that he quotes Spider-Man to emphasize that these famous managers should be more aware of the power they wield and its consequences.

“That’s one of the things that really hurts from a sports integrity perspective because when the people who have that voice say it in a press conference, they stir up trouble and blame the referees, maybe they’re thinking about themselves and what’s happening directly, but they don’t realize how much damage they’re doing to the sport as a whole.”

A side effect of this incident is the fact that English referee Michael Oliver was in position X when he disallowed Denmark from scoring due to offside and then awarded Germany a penalty for Joachim Anderson’s handball in the round of 16 match.

“It was mind-blowing for me at the Euros when I heard that Michael Oliver had all the key match incidents correct in the game, but when I saw social media attacking him and the referees for the handball against Anderson and Denmark, that was the right decision. You turn on your referees, and they were right.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Michael Oliver in the semi-final based on his performances here. But to see his own country tearing him apart because he’s a Premier League referee and to see that trend…”

Unkel notes that the constant attacks on referees by influential managers often unfairly damages the reputations of some of the best referees in the world, but also makes it harder to get into potential positions.

“England have two refereeing teams at the Euros, that’s not a mistake or that they are favourites for the host country, it depends on results.

“For me, looking at the Premier League and the relationship with referees and senior managers – the Premier League is visible all over the world – the knowledge that they are attacking referees, whether it is for self-gratification or to shift blame, people who watch home games, not just in England but further afield, see these managers doing that and guess what they do?

“They’re going back to basics, replicating the players and coaches. Parents and spectators are replicating what they see in the Premier League at a local level.”

When Unkel first stepped down from the bench, she took a position as Florida’s judicial administrator, overseeing 5,000 judges and spending much of her time dealing with judicial abuse and violence.

“People imitate what they see, and now you’re talking about people under 18 being verbally and physically assaulted. You’re abusing minors. And for some reason in football it’s acceptable. There’s nothing else in society that’s acceptable.”

“It breaks my heart. That’s another reason I’m here. To bring awareness and understanding to people.

“The No. 1 question I get is: Will a referee be thrown out or penalized for a mistake? Will he lose his job? You come in with pitchforks and fire – OK, but if you take Michael Oliver and Anthony Taylor out, who do you replace them?

“People say that means there’s shitty development. You want to know why there’s shitty development? Because there are people yelling at grassroots judges.”

One reason Unkel has caught the eye in Germany is that it is rare to see a female referee analyst working for a British broadcaster or officiating on the pitch. She is pleased – if a little surprised, based on her own experience – with the gradual emergence of female referees at the highest levels.

In December, Rebecca Welch became the first woman to referee a Premier League match. Stephanie Frappart became the first woman to referee the men’s World Cup in Qatar 2022. In 2020, Tori Penso became the first full-time female referee in MLS history.

“When I started out refereeing in men’s football, some bosses told me the players and managers weren’t ready for me yet,” says Unkel.

“If I made a mistake and my peer made a mistake at a men’s game, it would be my fault for being a woman and theirs for being a shitty referee. At least show me the respect to just call me a shitty referee! That really hurt.”

However, when she passed the qualifications, she was told that although she had refereed men’s soccer matches during training, she would only referee women’s matches.

“That’s when I decided to have a baby,” she says. “At one point, there were two guys on the U.S. Soccer refereeing committee who were talking about not giving me a badge the next year when I had a baby because they didn’t think I’d want to be a referee and just be a mom. That wasn’t that long ago. My baby was born in 2015.”

She says decision-makers who hold deeply ingrained misogynist and sexist views have slowly been replaced by others who are not afraid to change perceptions and directions. She credits Kari Seitz, who was FIFA’s head of women’s refereeing for three years, as her influence.

“The world has changed. People are starting to forget that they are women and are starting to look at them as athletes who can get the job done, and that’s all we asked for was to be seen that way.”

As Unkel’s fame and power grew, she knew exactly how to use it.