Former Premier League refereeing chief Keith Hackett agrees with Marco Silva that Darren Bond should not be refereeing in the Premier League next season.

Silva was incensed with Bond’s performance in Fulham’s draw with Ipswich Town at Craven Cottage in January, when the Portuguese head coach believed the Tractor Boys should have been reduced to ten men and Fulham could have had further penalties given.

Hackett has endorsed the Fulham manger’s assessment, telling Football Insider:

“On the day I watched that game, I thought the referee had an awful performance. At what point do you suppress the manager’s contribution? As a former referee, I was disappointed by Darren Bond’s performance, and not for the first time. I have to say, he’s one of those referees who are borderline. If I were the boss of the PGMOL, he wouldn’t be refereeing in the Premier League next year.

It’s as simple as that. He’s just not got it in terms of levels, but he’s not alone. There are two or three. Managers have always got to be careful because there are lines of communication. It’s difficult to take passion away. In my era, there was no suppression of managers’ opinions. They would often say, ‘I’ll be calling Keith Hackett on Monday morning’. We’d often have those chats.”

Hackett also called for more transparency regarding the regulatory process with Silva’s sanction for his savaging of the current Premier League refereeing standards shrouded in mystery.

“The regulatory panel have a line of punishments, and that first line could be, ‘Can we have your observations about what you’ve said?’, followed by a warning letter and a slap across the wrist.

There are channels for managers to voice their frustrations. I think because he’s had a decent record, he’s had a warning letter rather than a sanction. That might have just come with a fine, but it wasn’t published. Maybe we should be asking for greater transparency of the regulatory panel, on a week-by-week basis, based on what you’ve seen and what the outcomes were. I’m all for transparency.”