Lee Dixon: Changing game bringing greater challenges to the modern referee

Grin and bear it, Lee! our man is sent off in Arsenal's FA Cup semi-final win over Spurs in 1993

No-one gets more stick than the ref in football these days, but Lee Dixon pleads for a little more understanding of the pressures on the current crop of referees

With the allegations against Mark Clattenburg still being considered by the FA, it's very hard to comment on the incident specifically.

But I can talk about changes to the game since I played, how I dealt with referees and what I think of the current situation for officials.

I always tried to speak to referees when I played. I wasn't trying to influence the game, but I liked to have a joke or some sort of dialogue with the men in black, almost to break the ice if you like. They're human beings after all!

And while some of them were happy to talk back, there was clearly a line that you didn't cross with others.

In the former camp was Paul Durkin. We'd have a bit of banter throughout a match and I like to think we genuinely got on, not that it would have influenced any decisions he made on the pitch of course. In the opposite camp was David Elleray, who very much lived up to the headmaster role (which was his job away from football). You could only say so much to David.

The pressure on referees has always been enormous but it can only have got worse in recent years as Premier League football has grown and changed into its current guise.

I really feel the game has got more serious in recent years and that's down to a number of factors. There is far more money involved, so decisions seem to carry more weight and the ramifications are greater if a ref gets one wrong. There's more at stake, and potentially more to lose. It's a different playing field and the job is harder for the officials, especially with the never-ending gaze and chatter of media, both traditional and social.

In this new era, the modern referee has to adapt his own game. The increase in foreign players has changed the nature of chat both on and off the pitch, it certainly did in the Arsenal dressing room for instance. When the game was dominated by home-grown players, there was less opportunity for misinterpretation as we shared a common language. That has changed. There are players from all corners of the world in the Premier League now and, in every game, things must get lost in translation or not understood at all.

We don't know what was said on Sunday - and, if true, the punishment must reflect the seriousness of the allegation - but let's not pretend the referee's job is an easy one in this day and age.