When the FA launched its Respect campaign demanding civility towards referees, many questioned why it was being started at the grass roots rather than the top.

In the past 48 hours, we have found out why. Faced with the snarling players and incandescent managers of the professional game, the FA feared its calls for better behaviour would last about five minutes.

To be precise, it has taken three months for the leading managers to rise up in indignation with a chorus of “what about respect for us?” Yesterday they met in Coventry to discuss their grievances and came up with the idea that a former manager should sit on the board of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the organisation that controls referees. If they do not get their way, they will seek to oust Peter Heard, the chairman, and Keith Hackett, the general manager.

Somehow — and this could happen only in football — a campaign designed to seek co-operation and better behaviour is in danger of escalating into a power struggle in which jobs and reputations are on the line.

It is worth reminding ourselves here that the FA campaign does not impinge on a manager's freedom to earn vast sums of money while haranguing from the touchline. All it demands is an acknowledgement that, as the referee goes about a difficult job, he should not have to put up with being publicly ridiculed, professionally undermined and, in the worst cases, threatened.

Yes, the man with the whistle may love the limelight, a trend begun by Graham Poll, and he may make the odd decision that flabbergasts all of us. Take a bow, Rob Styles. And it has not helped the FA, Hackett or the officials that there has been a run of cock-ups this season.

But until someone comes up with a clever plan for improving standards — and there was no sign of that from the League Managers' Association yesterday — referees will continue to make mistakes just like managers and players, the difference being that managers and players enjoy an unfettered right to reply.

Managerial frustration is understandable, and has existed as long as sheepskin coats, but it comes to something when there is unease at a campaign with no other agenda than asking for decent behaviour.

A campaign seeking simply to prevent more episodes such as the infamous Wayne Rooney rant at Poll when he used the F-word 27 times.

The managers say that they will give respect when it is deserved, but they gathered only 24 hours after Joe Kinnear, the Newcastle interim manager, had blasted the entire refereeing profession on the basis of a foul away to Fulham that neither I or any of my press colleagues spotted during the game.

At least his four-letter rant at journalists — which earned the Newcastle United manager a new nickname of JFK - contained moments of humour. Kinnear's attack on Martin Atkinson was plain boorish and all too typical of the managerial custom of deflecting attention from their own failings.

“You can't banter with them any more,” Kinnear said, but then how would he know? He did not even approach Atkinson before comparing him to Mickey Mouse.

The heart of the problem is that managers are used to being slapped on the wrists for such outbursts rather than properly punished. If the FA made a mistake, it was in not establishing serious sanctions for those who speak out of line. Now, emboldened by a few wrong decisions by officials, managers believe they have right on their side.

Some of their complaints about PGMOL may have foundation but it was only last season that, after publicly apologising to managers for referees' mistakes, Hackett was criticised for being too craven.

What will it say about the people who are running the game if he is now sacrificed?

Arsenal fans should beware of game of 'what if' with Wenger

Of all the many employment offers received by Arsène Wenger, the chance to follow Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United must rank as the most intriguing. Little known, but true, is that Wenger was wanted at Old Trafford when Peter Kenyon, then chief executive, thought that he was going to lose Ferguson to the joys of collecting fine wines and gardening in 2002.

Playing the “what if” game of history — What if William had not conquered? What if Hitler had won the war? What if Robbie had stayed with Take That? — it is intriguing to wonder whether Wenger would have managed United with the same single-mindedness that has been the cause of such debate around the Emirates Stadium.

Would the Frenchman have relied on youthful talent or would he have deployed the full financial might of United?

Would he, like Ferguson, have spent £30million on a centre half or would Wenger have stubbornly insisted that he could transform Philippe Senderos into the equal of Rio Ferdinand?

Would he have bought Wayne Rooney or preferred to nurture a promising teenager from the Ivory Coast? Could he have gone three seasons without a trophy? And what would the fans have said if he did?

A combination of Wenger's coaching abilities, United's rich history of attacking football and the club's resources would appear irresistible, but Wenger made it clear that he would stay at Arsenal and Kenyon turned his attentions to chasing Sven-Göran Eriksson - only for Ferguson to change his mind about retirement.

Wenger takes his contracts, and his loyalties, seriously, which is why many of us regard him as the most cherished manager in the Premier League, even if he is not the most successful.

Those Arsenal fans who have questioned Wenger's stewardship should learn to count their blessings by pondering that “what if?”

Global madmen all at sea

The first solo skipper had to return to port this weekend less than three hours into the Vendée Globe. He should stay there and enjoy a chocolat chaud.

Dominique Wavre will not, of course, because he is a madman like the rest of them. To understand just how mad, read Derek Lundy's Godforsaken Sea.

This marvellous, terrifying book is unsurpassed as an account of the 1996-97 race in which, famously, Tony Bullimore had to be lifted off the hull of his upturned yacht and Pete Goss sailed back into Southern Ocean storms on an heroic rescue mission. There were capsizes, demastings, broken rudders (quite a problem for a sailor). Tragically, one competitor was lost, the wreckage of his boat washing up months later off Chile.

“There are only a few places left on earth where merely getting across them is an achievement,” Lundy wrote of the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties. Not for the squeamish is the bit where Goss takes a scalpel to his own inflamed elbow.

Read the book, and follow the fortunes of this year's Vendée, warmed by central heating and a mug of tea - and be glad that others are willing to risk their lives at the wildest frontiers.