I don't want to get into this too much now, but one of my long time beefs in professional pool has been when I watched a match being refereed by someone who obviously knows little about what he's doing. I've got to see something like this on many occasions and could see disaster lurking as they were in the wrong position to make a call. When a ref is standing at one end of the table and the contact will happen at the other end that is a recipe for disaster. I've often inquired of said ref why didn't you go down there close to the shot so you could better see what happened and he responded he didn't want to get in the player's line of sight. HOGWASH! You stand where you need to stand to properly watch the shot, period!
Oftentimes a good referee will be standing directly over a shot that a player is shooting/kicking at because that's where he needs to be to properly observe it. I've always said, "get in position and stay still!" Players understand this and I've rarely had a problem with any player questioning me about where I was standing. Sometimes you may have to block a camera to be in the right position and I say, "so be it." Let them shoot from a different camera angle when that happens. Plain and simple it's the referee's job to be in the best position possible to see the outcome of the shot. Why else is he out there? Of course it also helps to know the rules!
Bottom line, I've seen so many so called referees make so many ludicrous calls and decisions that it has dismayed me to even be present to it. Afterwards people might ask me what I thought about what I just saw and I have to tell them that's not my job if I'm not working that event. I don't know how many times players have asked me to come out of the stands and make a call and I have to tell them that I can't. I'm not on staff for that event and you will have to call one of the tournament officials to do it. And I can see they're reluctant to do that for obvious reasons. They prefer to have their opponent make the call instead.