Being a top level referee has got to be one of the most thankless jobs on the planet.
You spend years studying the game. You train hard every day. You do course after course to keep up to speed with rule changes. And you spend a large part of your working life running backwards like a deranged emu.
It's a career based on effort, dedication and sacrifice as you do everything in your power to ensure you are on top of your game during the game.
But, despite it all, come the end of the 90 minutes you can rest assured that at least one manager, 11 players, five substitutes and 20,000 fans will consider you a moron.
That's just the way it is. And the way it has always been.
So what I can't understand is why there is suddenly such a media frenzy about referees not getting the respect they deserve?
Since the dawn of time, managers, players and fans have treated referees like something you might scrape off the bottom of your shoe. It's utterly wrong, but totally normal.
And this lack of respect is not limited to those men in black at the peak of the game either. It is prevalent at all levels of the beautiful game. And here I speak from experience.
A few years back, in my five-a-side prime, I was involved in a league. One of the rules of the league was that on match nights, a player from one of the teams involved in the first game would referee the second, and vice versa.
On this particular occasion I drew what turned out to be an incredibly short straw and found myself taking charge of a top-of-the-table clash in the magnificent theatre of dreams that is Luxol.
The first half went swimmingly. It was a hard but fair encounter and was quite entertaining to watch, which is, in all honesty, what I spent most of my time doing.
However, midway through the second half it all went horribly wrong when an over-exuberant player from one team went in for a two-footed challenge on an opponent.
It was the sort of challenge that could have caused serious Eduardo-like injury and I was left with little choice other than to fix the culprit with a Collina-like stare and fish out my red card.
At first it seemed like the perpetrator of the horror tackle would accept his dismissal in good grace. But as he started to walk off the pitch he suddenly turned round and went for me. Still not an entirely unmanageable situation, but it rapidly became just that when he was joined by the rest of his team, including subs. Never having been trained in the fine art of refereeing and now being bustled by an angry crowd, I did the only thing I could think of and waved my red card at everyone in the blindly optimistic belief they would be scared by its power and flee.
Sadly, this only served to upgrade them from a 'crowd' to a 'mob' which, as mobs tend to, began to chase me round the pitch in a scene not entirely unreminiscent of Benny Hill. At this point I threw my cards, whistle and dignity in the air and ran for the relatively safety of my car and drove home to hide in a cupboard.
Unsurprisingly, the league itself collapsed when it was subsequently discovered that nobody was even remotely interested in refereeing any more matches. At least not without armed guards.
So what's my point? By the very nature of the job they do, referees will never be truly respected by all people within the game.
You will always have idiots like Ashley Cole who go in for a challenge that can break a leg and then throw a tantrum at the referee when he books him for it. The Coles of this world have always been around and, sadly, always will be.
You only have to cast your mind back to Paolo Di Canio's time at Sheffield Wednesday when he famously pushed over referee Paul Alcock. Not much respect in that particular action.
Then there were the Roy Keane days at Manchester United when you would regularly see the Irishman and his cohorts surrounding officials when a decision went against them in a clear attempt at intimidation. And, let's be honest, an angry Roy Keane is top notch intimidation material.
A quick browse on the Internet will bring up hundreds of 'comical' videos showing referees around the world being chased, pushed and punched by players and, occasionally, even fans. And these aren't just recent incidents but ones dating back decades.
Obviously, all of this behaviour is totally unacceptable. But I have to admit when you see the standard of some of the referees that are imposed on football, it is understandable that the reputation of the men in the middle as a whole is brought into question.
Every week we see officials make absolutely outrageous decisions and, thanks to television, they can't get away from them any more. Penalties awarded for nothing, players sent off for sneezing provocatively, goals disallowed for offsides that never were.
Only this week there was yet another example of a referee making a decision so poor it brings the entire profession into disrepute.
In the Arsenal vs Liverpool Champions League quarter-final Dirk Kuyt brought down Alexander Hleb inside the box. It was as blatant a penalty as you are ever likely to see and the ref was just a couple of yards from it. The only way he could have been closer to the incident would have been if he had committed the foul himself. His view was perfect. He only had one option and that was to point to the spot.
Yet he gave a corner.
Decisions like that are just plain awful and it is inevitable they will erode confidence in, and respect for, the men in the middle (especially when you find out the ref and Kuyt are, coincidentally, from the same village in Holland).
In short, referees the world over do deserve to be treated better. Yes, players, managers and fans do need to do something about their attitude towards match officials. And any authority backed promotional campaigns aimed in that direction will definitely help.
But, ultimately, the best way for refs to get the respect they crave is to make sure they earn it on the field of play.
Your say
"While your acknowledgement of Liverpool's failure to challenge for the League title has been spot on, Liverpool supporters do not criticise Rafa Benitez unduly as they are aware of the following facts:
"What did Sir Alex Ferguson achieve in his first four years at Manchester Utd (1986-90)? Just one FA Cup win and an abysmal record in the league. What is Sir Alex's record in the Champions League? Just one extremely lucky victory in almost 15 years of competition. Victory materialised after the 90th minute when Bayern Munich completely dominated the final and hit the woodwork three times.
"Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho were also successful in the Premier League but failed to win in Europe. Considering all three managers had far better teams and cash at their disposal than Benitez, this speaks volumes of the latter's strengths.
"On the issue of money spent: Man Utd and Chelsea have at least seven players each who cost in excess of £15 million while LFC have just two. This clearly shows that this is no level playing field. It is far easier to buy the Rooneys, Tevezes, Drogbas, etc., and achieve the desired level of consistency over 38 games.
"When Rooney is injured, Man Utd still have Saha (£11 million) and Tevez (£25 million+) while when Torres was injured, LFC could only afford Crouch (£7 million) or Kuyt (£8 million). Can you get it wrong if you spend £30 million for a defender (Rio Ferdinand)? Liverpool's costliest defender is Martin Skrtel at just £7 million. Is this the same?
"Some err by quoting just what Benitez had spent. However, one doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that the net purchases of players is much less when the sales proceeds of players are deducted from the gross figure. It is futile to state that Benitez had spent £140 million gross when the net spending figure should be reduced by at least £50 million.
"LFC too wanted Ronaldo and Tevez but could not afford them. Man Utd are copying Chelsea by buying their way to success.
"One may state that Arsenal's case is different and, in part, it is. However, Wenger had at least six years of building the current side and also afforded to pay £8 million for 16-year-old Theo Walcott and promptly put him in the reserves for two years, while in 2006, Benitez needed the chairman of LFC to loan the club £8 million to purchase Kuyt as LFC did not have more than two first team strikers!
"Three years ago I would have preferred the purchase of Anelka than Morientes, and I also agree that Kuyt is not worth the £8 million but who criticises Man Utd and Chelsea for Veron, Barthez, Shevchenko and Ferreira?
"I would definitely give Benitez more time even if he fails in this year's Champions League - after all, Agger, Skrtel, Mascherano, Alonso, Babel, Leiva and Torres are all young and full of promise.
"All are Benitez purchases and the way forward is adding to these three more quality players who can share in the number of goals scored. More so, it would be interesting to know the full potential of the younger generation of LFC players, who have won their respective league for the past two years."
Martin Brincat, via e-mail: sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com