The Premier League is the worst competition in the world for young referees to refine their skills and learn from their mistakes, former top-flight official Peter Walton has told ESPN FC.
Retired official Keith Hackett tweeted this week that "this is the worst group of professional refs in the life of the PGMOL [Professional Game Match Officials Limited]" and that "no accountability exists" for errors.
"The Premier League is the worst in the world for [criticism], because of the exposure they have, because of the publicity it affords, and because of the rewards on offer for successful teams and individuals," Walton, who refereed in the Premier League from 2003 to 2012, said. "Of course, people want the best all the time and they have the best.
"However, there will be times when people make mistakes, and those are magnified in the Premier League unfortunately."
Before a ball was kicked I said that the Premier League had made a huge mistake not introducing VAR. Sky Sports News listed 10 huge mistakes made by referees. This is the worse group of Professional Refs in the life of the PGMOL. No accountability exists. Some need to go- now
— KEITH HACKETT (@HACKETTREF) November 20, 2018
Of the 17 Select Group One referees who have been assigned Premier League matches this season, seven have experienced fewer than 100 top-flight games, and Walton said they must be given the opportunity to get better in much the same way as players are.
"You don't just go into Waitrose and pick a can of ready-made referee from the shelf and plop them into the Premier League," he added. "We had a really good crop of very experienced referees not so long ago.
"What we have now is a mixture of very young, inexperienced referees and some older referees, and it's because of that we're seeing some mistakes happening. Those mistakes would happen anywhere in the world, but because of the freshness of our referees at the moment, we're probably seeing a few more than we are probably used to.
""We've got referees who lack a little bit of experience at the top level. We need to see that through. How do you get experience?
"You get it by exposing people to the Premier League, and that's what the PGMOL are doing at the moment. Why do clubs invest so much in academies, in youth football?
"In the last few years the PGMOL have been investing in younger people, in Football League referees, along with the FA at grassroots levels, and it takes time for these people to come through. We're starting to see the green shoots."
Hackett also claimed the Premier League had made a "huge mistake" by not introducing Video Assistant Referee [VAR] technology in time for this season. The system has instead been trialled extensively ahead of its implementation from the 2018-19 campaign.
"What the Premier League have done, I think correctly, is to ensure that before they introduce it, the officials, the referees, the operators know exactly what to do with it, what the tolerance levels are, so there is consistency in the new technology that's being introduced," Walton said. "Throughout the world there have been inconsistencies in its use.
"The Premier League have been clever to take a hit today for a reward tomorrow, and what I hope we'll see is that the work being done behind the scenes this year will bear fruit for next year. If you layer that on top of the new referees we're seeing in the Premier League, VAR can only be good, because if a referee makes a mistake, VAR will, in nine out of 10 occasions, correct that fault.
"The decision will be corrected and the referee will learn from it. No referee wants to be corrected by VAR; every referee wants to get every decision correct first time. But because we have technology and it can help get the correct decision at the end of the day, then so be it."
Walton, who has been general manager of the Professional Referee Organisation for the football leagues in United States and Canada since 2012, also thinks better communication will help improve the atmosphere around referees.
"What we're seeing now is referees talking to clubs and players outside the cauldron of match day," he said. "I think that's really important to cultivate a relationship between the playing side and the officiating side, so that when Saturday comes they don't just see this guy turn up with his black kit on to spoil the game.
"We found that in America, where if we cultivate that type of relationship, there's more tolerance shown to a person you know than a person you don't. Over a period of time that's put us in good stead.
"The more clubs and officials work together to understand the game from each other's perspectives, to understand the frustrations and pressures they're under, it's better for the game."