no. its a standard test that anyone who is relatively fit should pass.
my mate is Croatian and a lovely bloke but an awful referee. he didn't understand offside despite being close to football league level! yet he kept getting promoted way past his level. was it because he was Croatian? I don't know but plenty thought he did

Your homophobia isn't the suggestion that Child is incompetent because he is gay. Your homophobia is suggesting that Child is held to some lesser standard because he is gay and that he is afforded special and preferential treatment because his gay. It is your using his sexuality to demean his achievements. The foundation of that is you are unapologetically doing that.

Yes, you both clearly and obviously have. You do it in this post. Child becoming and staying an SL referee is a product of his competence and is an achievement he owns. Like every other referee, not a product of his sexuality.

There you go again with your unwarranted accusations. Can you not give reasoned answers? No wonder people constantly take the mickey out of you on the VT with similar sort of posting from you.

The fact that I would be happy to see more Homosexuals reffing our game, so that this sort of thinking can not be a logical reasoning, does that now make me homosexual? The point is the person not producing should be handled like any other.

I'm curious.

What drove you to link his continued employment as a full-time match official with his sexuality, even tenuously?

Of course you are happy to see more homosexuals reffing our game, as long as they somehow prove to you that they aren't benefitting from preferential treatment because of their sexuality.

Why is his consistent (and this is what needs to be taken on board here) incompetence ignored by his employers, despite dealing with it with others?

Smokey TA has continually proven throughout this thread what would be thrown at the RFL if they broached this incompetency subject with Child.

The notion that the RFL would protect Child's position out of fear of the flak they'd receive were they to dismiss him is utterly ridiculous. Within the game, they get flak for everything they do, whether ill-conceived or not. In the wider world, I'd be surprised if the story would get even half a column inch in the nationals. I find the suggestion bizarre, to be honest.

Yet two posters on here suggesting it has instantly seen them branded homophobic and bigots repeatedly without those people labelling them so being able to explain how Child gets gigs in big games when he's never ever looked good enough to referee them.....so not totally ridiculous.

You do realise that this what you are explaining here is homophobia right? that to assume because you don't think he is good enough, and you don't know why he gets games, that he is somehow the recipient of beneficial and preferential treatment on the basis of his sexuality is a homophobic assumption right? You know that to assert in the absence of evidence disproving it, we should assume that Child has been judged to a lower standard and promoted above his competence as a sop to equality because of his sexuality is homophobic right?

And this is exactly it, Smokey TA has proven throughout this thread the very argument we are saying, and he can't even see it.

I would have more respect for someone to actually pipe up and defend Child, the poor bloke. But no one is doing that, everyone is accepting he isn't doing his job to standard.

Oh didn't you know, as Smokey pointed out I'm a big massive homophobe. If I see a gay couple on the street I run over and spit on and kick them. When a gay man moved in a few doors down I smashed all his car and house windows with bricks because I hate them so much.

No, really.

Oh and because their seems to be some confusion with a few posters. I haven't questioned his employment of said he shouldn't have a job, but I have questioned why they often throw big games (like Leeds vs Saints) at him when he's never put in performances that warrant getting such a high profile game live on Sky cameras. I mean for the love of god this thread was started by a Wakey fan who had sympathy for us in defeat (when does that ever happen) because he (and most SL fans) have always rated Child as ridicioulsy poor and not good enough.

No it doesn't make me homophobic, I just don't have my head in the clouds. Are you going to sit there and pretend that in today's world people aren't getting jobs/roles because they tick a certain box of equality rather than if they are the best person for the job.

Yes, it does.

and no, I don't believe that other people who are different from you are being gifted things you are not.

ATEOD Child is a pi$$ poor Ref yet he continues to get regular SL games and within that very big fixtures ala friday night.
Now personally i don't see how or why questioning the RFL about his continual selection for such games makes those asking the question homophobic but the simple fact is the question needs asking full stop.