No prizes for guessing who’s back in Poll position as England’s most hated football referee. Yes, Graham Poll - the only man to have booked a player three times before sending him off - has caused more fury with his sending-off of Everton’s James McFadden early in Wednesday night’s Carling Cup defeat by Arsenal.

Poll reckons McFadden called him a ‘’f***ing cheat’’ and if that is the case, then McFadden can hardly complain at receiving for the red-card treatment. However, McFadden and Everton boss David Moyes insist the Scottish forward was merely describing a Poll decision as ‘f***ing shite’’ (that’s faeces in Glasgow parlance, in case you didn't know).

Now it may well be that Mr Poll misheard McFadden’s words. But the fact is that both expressions are offensive and represent gross abuse of the referee. And that, to my mind, justifies the official concerned using the ultimate sanction in his power.

If a rugby player said that sort of thing to a ref, he’d probably be flattened by one of his own team-mates before he trudged off to face a six-month ban. But soccer’s way of dealing with the abusers and the dissenters is for everyone to join in the haranguing of the man in the middle.

Whatever you think of England’s most controversial ref, the fact is that Poll and other officials have their hands tied when it comes to dealing with prima donna players who think they can treat them like dirt. Unlike other sports run by forward-thinking authorities, FIFA and the FA won’t allow sin-bins, video playbacks of controversial incidents or referees to reverse decisions. All they can do is show the villain a red card and hope the authorities don’t cancel the automatic ban the sending-off should entail.

Poll has a reputation for showering players with cards like confetti - and grabbing more headlines than the people he controls. There are other refs you hardly notice - the sort of guys who opt for the quiet life, limiting their cards and their whistling and working on the basis that offences even themselves out for both sides over 90 minutes.

The latter are the guys everyone wants running the game and the inconsistencies dividing officials like Poll from the quiet ones is one of the reasons refs become embroiled in so much controversy.

Everyone wants consistency, be it firm or be it lenient. Some years ago, there were calls for civilian referees to be replace by ex-players because people reasoned that someone who had kicked a ball professionally could better assess when a tackle was dangerous and when a cheating forward was diving.

But Sky TV shot that one in the foot by putting so much into the game that wages went through the roof. I mean, can you imagine any retiring Premiership player taking a 99 per cent pay cut to suffer the brickbats of refereeing? For that matter, can you imagine any retiring Premiership player working for a living?

The reality is that football refereeing is lumbered with both the Graham Polls and the quiet men nobody notices. What we want is one or the other - and for every ref to work from the same rule book. And that means giving every player who steps out of line the no-nonsense treatment they deserve.