Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett has said he’s ‘concerned’ that Michael Oliver could leave English football for good, in the wake of him taking charge of a game in Saudi Arabia this week just four days prior to being on duty for Liverpool’s match at home to Nottingham Forest.
The 38-year-old was the man in the middle for the clash between Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr in Riyadh on Tuesday, with the former defeating Cristiano Ronaldo’s side 2-0.
It may have seemed a surprising appointment to have been taken to a domestic league outside Europe in a week where he could’ve been assigned to a quarter-final tie in one of UEFA’s own competitions, and one former whistler is worried that the Northumberland native may leave England permanently.
Hackett told Football Insider in relation to Oliver’s midweek trip to the Middle East: “He will have sought permission from his boss, Howard Webb – and from the FA. Webb himself was in charge of referees in Saudi Arabia for a time, so that link probably helped them out.
“Oliver has done a World Cup, and he’s in line for the next World Cup too – he’s our number one. But I’m concerned. Both Webb and Mark Clattenburg went over to the Middle East on a full-time basis. There is a risk there of the Premier League losing a world-class referee.”
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If Oliver does move away from English football for good, some of the more cynical members of Liverpool’s fan base mightn’t be overly disappointed.
We haven’t won any of our four games when he’s refereed us this season, with that winless record stretching back to the 1-1 draw against Tottenham in the latter weeks of 2021/22 (Transfermarkt).
He was also the man in the middle on the day that Jordan Pickford inflicted a season-ending injury on Virgil van Dijk in October 2020, an act for which the Everton goalkeeper wasn’t penalised in any way, shape or form (BBC Sport).
However, as one of just two Premier League referees selected for last year’s World Cup (FIFA), and a long-serving member of UEFA’s elite group of officials, it’d be fair to regard him as one of the better exponents of his profession in the English top flight.
While his midweek assignment in Saudi Arabia may have seemed a peculiar one, Liverpool fans won’t mind so long as he does his job competently in what’ll hopefully be a victory for the Reds on Saturday.