Read all the highlights from Anthony Taylor, the elite football referee’s, visit to Sky View for the latest Meet for Good event.
Premier League footballers are a divisive bunch.
Loved by one corner of the colosseum – loathed by the rest. A balance based purely on where in the world their tiny shinpads are being slid on.
A few players have managed to transcend the Premier League’s petty fanaticism. N’Golo Kanté is the low-hanging fruit. Jay-Jay Okocha, Morten Gamst Pedersen, Son Heung-min and Miguel Almirón have strong claims to stake.
Through the way they carry themselves, the things they do on and off the pitch, and Almirón’s endearing smile, they’ve made themselves very difficult to dislike. Pop that on your next CV.
But what about referees?
If you’re a football fan, the name ‘Anthony Taylor’ will conjure up a menagerie of memories and emotions.
But none of you grew up with posters of him on your bedroom wall.
Ruthlessly scrutinised, inevitably controversial, the role of an elite level football referee can seem a thankless one, with customer appreciation levels to rival a traffic warden – and far higher stakes.
So, when Anthony took to the stage at our Sky View office for the latest Meet for Good event, with a heady mix of football fans in attendance, we knew we were in for a treat.
On the agenda: performing under pressure, embracing fear and bringing the best out of yourself and your team, wherever that may be.
RISK. SCRUTINY. AND LEADING THROUGH BOTH
With the Premier League beaming out to 920 million households across the globe every weekend, the scrutiny referees face outweighs almost every other job role in society.
And with 12 years as a prison officer before picking up the whistle full time, Anthony Taylor knows how to navigate high-risk, emotionally charged environments.
“There are definitely parallels between being a prison officer and a referee,” he shared. “They’re both people-facing, and you have to influence people and convince them you’re right, even when you’re sometimes wrong. In prison, people are going through a lot more than a footballer ever has. You need to be sympathetic, empathetic, but still have boundaries in place.”
“Standing on a Premier League pitch is like getting in the ring with Tyson Fury,” he added. “Everyone thinks they can do a better job than you, but no one is willing to do it themselves. The Premier League is a worldwide phenomenon with huge profile, so how do we cope with this? How do you prepare for scrutiny?”
“It starts with being realistic,” he continued. “You will make mistakes, perfection doesn’t exist, but to be the best under pressure, you need to bring out the best in your team.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking Anthony was a one-man band, dishing out cards and lapping up disdain on his tod – but that’s far from the case. Together with assistants Gary Beswick and Adam Nunn, his team has officiated countless high-profile clashes, including multiple domestic and international finals since they joined forces in 2017.
“In people-oriented environments, we often get obsessed with outcomes and winning and neglect the people,” Anthony shared. “But it’s helping your team to become better and looking after them that significantly increases our chances of being successful. If we invest in people and show we understand them and what they’re about, their excellence evolves.” A standpoint with obvious crossover into the business world, and one we support wholeheartedly at CP.
“As leaders, we have to show vulnerability,” Anthony said. “Embracing fear but not being fearful of failing. Every Saturday is like jumping out the back of a Chinook, so we have to feel invincible, and when you need help, use the expertise in your team to help you.”
In the second leg of the 2022 Champions League semi-final between Real Madrid and Man City, Pep Guardiola had, in Anthony’s words, “wiped the floor” with Real’s manager, Carlo Ancelotti. And heading into the final minutes of the game at the Bernabeu, Man City were two goals ahead on aggregate.
“Ancelotti admitted he was out of ideas on that occasion and asked the subs bench what they’d suggest,” Anthony said. “Rodrygo, the substitute they recommended came on and scored twice in the 90th and 91st minutes, sending the game to extra time where Karim Benzema secured Real’s victory with a penalty. Ancelotti showed vulnerability, and he used the skills available to him to be the most successful.”
“As top-level referees, of course we can have good or bad days, just like a player, a coach, or a CEO of a FTSE 100 company,” he continued. “How we deal with challenges effectively rests on sticking together and all trying to be the best version of ourselves.”
CURVEBALLS ON THE BIGGEST STAGE
“An elite referee team works towards targets like any business,” Anthony told us. “And a big one of those is representing England in major tournaments. We’d invested a lot into trying to be selected for Euro 2020, then the decision was delayed by 10 months because of COVID. In an elite sport world, that’s difficult to cope with mentally. Tournaments are a chance to show how well prepared you and your team are, and if you have one bad game, you’ve had a bad tournament.”
When the tournament eventually went ahead in 2021, Anthony and his team were responsible for officiating the Group B tie between Denmark and Finland which, as you may remember, was overshadowed by Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen suffering a cardiac arrest.
“That evening was impossible to prepare for,” Anthony told us. “As Eriksen went to control the ball from a throw-in, he fell flat on his face, looking straight at me. The only time I’d seen that expression before was when people were hanging in their cells in prison.”
“Simon Kjær, the Danish captain, started CPR immediately while the doctors came on with a defibrillator, and he comforted Eriksen’s wife as he was taken to hospital. As a refereeing team, we created time. It was our call as to whether the game continued. We brought both teams off the pitch and spoke to them individually to get their feelings on the situation, and eventually, Christian was confirmed alive. He said he wanted the Danish team to carry on, and we did, with a two-hour delay to kick-off.”
“Some players were not in a good place,” Anthony shared. “Kjær said he couldn’t carry on after giving CPR and went off with tears in his eyes. I had to give a penalty later on. It was an emotional rollercoaster of a night, and its magnitude only hit us when we got back to the hotel that night. Six days later, we refereed Portugal vs. Germany in Munich. It was no way near long enough to decompress and debrief what we’d been through. Tournaments are brutal situations to deal with.”
“We survived that because, as a team, we were pulling in one direction,” he continued. “We understood each other, teamwork is the most important thing, and the people around us were key to how we dealt with it.”
Another example is the European Championship qualifier between Serbia and Albania in 2015. The game, which took place in a highly charged political climate, was one of the first times Anthony had seen the national anthems get booed. Then, 42 minutes in, a pro-Albanian political banner was lowered into the stadium, sparking a pitch invasion from the Belgrade crowd who attacked the Albanian players.
Martin Atkinson, a fellow English referee, led the players off the field to safety, and, after a 30-minute delay, UEFA confirmed the match had been abandoned.
“It was like a summer sale in B&Q with all this plastic furniture flying around and players getting attacked by fans,” Anthony told us. “These challenges come up sometimes, and building a robust team is so important to deal with them.”
MENTAL STRENGTH IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY
Another key trait for any leader, and one which Anthony had to summon in spades following the 2023 Europa League final between Roma and Sevilla, the “most difficult” game in his 26-year career.
After an ill-tempered affair in Budapest, Jose Mourinho, Roma’s manager, pinned the blame on Taylor as his side lost 4-1 on penalties. Somehow, Anthony’s phone number was leaked and shared on social media by Roma fans, opening the door for, quite literally, thousands of threats and abusive messages.
These threats weren’t alien to Anthony. Out of all the referees in England, himself and Michael Oliver consistently rank as the #1 and #2 for threats received, with abuse and death threats even coming from fans of the winning teams.
“Police investigate threats and abuse through social media,” Anthony shared. “But there’s a warped perception that horrible behaviour is okay on a football pitch,” citing stories of Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis spitting at a referee’s feet, and Preston’s Milutin Osmajic biting Blackburn’s Owen Beck in September this year.
“The expectation of refs is to be 100% perfect every time,” he continued. “Realistically, that’s not going to happen. We probably get 90% of decisions right over a season. Far more than a top player’s passing rate and higher than rates in other businesses, but there’s a toxicity in the sport that pins the blame on refs.”
The aftermath of the Europa League final took this toxicity to new heights. Anthony and his family were hounded by a group of intoxicated Roma fans at Budapest Airport who threw a chair and a bottle at them. Thankfully, Taylor and his family were escorted to a lounge before boarding their flight safely, but criminal proceedings were launched against one of the men involved and Jose Mourinho, Roma’s manager, was charged by UEFA for ‘insulting/abusive language against a match official’.
“Emotional control is so important,” Anthony told us. “On a football pitch, in a prison, in a business.”
UNIQUE INSIGHTS FROM A UNIQUE EVENT
It’s not every day a Premier League referee walks into your office, and it was these stories from the frontlines of elite sport that made Anthony Taylor’s visit to CP a memorable one. After a free-flowing Q&A, covering everything from VAR and preparing for scrutiny to adapting his refereeing and some of his best bits of advice, he left us with this:
“Being the best you can be, collectively, individually, embracing fear, asking for advice – these things create a cycle of growth and they’re the foundations for a true high-performance culture. My challenge to you, whatever you do, is lead, motivate, be resilient and always push people to be the very best they can be and strive for excellence.”
A fitting end to a brilliant evening. Thanks again to Anthony for sharing his stories and advice, and all our guests who kept the good-natured back and forth coming thick and fast.
