The same should happen in football, the disrespect to officials from both players and managers is absurd and sets a terrible example for youngsters. If a referee has a sh*t game then that should be investigated after the match but during the match the players and managers should be respectful to the referees.
It's a different culture.
A rugby ref is seen as authority. A football ref is seen as an inconvenience. Someone to intimidate, influence, con, and (no matter how right he is) always wrong. Coaches hold him responsible for everything from bad results to serious injuries, while fans say he's biased against them. Just look at the foolish behaviour from 2 senior players last week during the chat over the penalty decision, and the reaction to the penalty the week before.
One of the few positives to come from the FIFA scandal was Platini's downfall. With him, there would be no VAR, what I described above would be allowed to continue, and the game would still be a cheaters charter. With VAR the game will be cleaned up. In 2 years time, diving will be non existent, calls made will be correct, and protesting decisions will be pointless. Like in rugby, we will have to wait a bit for decisions to be confirmed, but we will have a cleaner sport and the ref will be respected a lot more.
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