Despite Tottenham penalties fiasco referees’ hyper-secrecy still not being questioned by media

By Tony Attwood

There is a headline in the Telegraph which reads, “Exclusive: Premier League under pressure for independent inquiry into referee Jon Moss’s handling of penalty award.”

Leaving aside the inaccurate use of the Saxon genitive to turn “Moss’ handling” into the completely ungrammatical “Moss’s handling” the issue which relates to the match between Liverpool and Tottenham last weekend is of some interest.

Then it emerged that Mr Moss had had a chat with assistant referee Ed Smart and the fourth official for the match Martin Atkinson which was picked up by the microphones connecting the men.  Mr Moss is heard saying, “Martin, have you got anything from TV?”

Such a request is completely against the laws in place at the moment.  The only time a referee can ask for assistance from cameras is when there is an official VAR live match trial going on.  The referee can’t even ask for camera evidence when there is a “preliminary” VAR trial in which the VAR system is being used to monitor the game, but is not being made available to the ref.   There are a few such matches at the moment as the PL gears itself up to doing what other Leagues in Europe have already done – introducing VAR to all games.

In terms of the laws of the game, as I understand it, the referee had been asking whether in the incident (the first of two penalties that ultimately allowed Tottenham to get a draw against Liverpool), Lovren had played Kane onside when he tried to clear the ball.

There is nothing wrong with this, although the length of the consultation was highly unusual.  We are quite used to seeing referees go across the assistants to ask for an opinion, but normally this is a very quick exchange.  One imagines the referee saying to the assistant, “was he played on?” to which the assistant says “yes” or “no” or “couldn’t say” and the referee wheels back to the centre of the pitch and then points to the penalty spot or the position of the offence or the centre circle as he feels is appropriate.

But it has been made completely clear that when VAR preliminary trials are being held just to test the technology or when there is no VAR, the referee cannot make use of TV footage for the simple reason that it is not standardised across the league.

Clearly the referees know this, and to have “forgotten” this and so asked for information from TV by “mistake” would have been a huge lapse of focus by the referee.

But in this case that is not all that would have had to have gone wrong.  Because the length of the consultation and the eventual award of the penalty suggests very clearly that neither the fourth official nor the assistant referee said to the referee, “excuse me boss but you are not allowed to ask that question”.

This in turn suggests either wholesale ignorance of the rules by three very highly paid officials, or collusion to breach the rules.  And this, of course, is where we come back to the issue we have highlighted so often for so many years on Untold: the hyper-secrecy of PGMO – the organisation that oversees refereeing in the PL.

If PGMO were an open body which made its rulings clear, did not act in secret, held press conferences and did not behave in a way that is contrary to refereeing in the rest of Europe by having a very limited number of referees (meaning that some referees oversee matches of the same club time and time again), then it would come forth and explain the situation, and if needs be (as seems likely) reprimand its official.

As it is PGMO has simply said that the behaviour of its employee was  “misguided” but has not explained how none of the other PGMO staff who saw and heard what was going on intervened to help the referee overcome his significant error of judgement.

Matters are made more secretive by the fact that PGMO works hard to persuade all its retired referees to maintain a vow of silence on refereeing matters after they have retired, in return for huge payouts from PGMO.  Only a couple of ex-PGMO referees have turned these payments down, and although they have been cautious in their criticism of the secret society, we did have on this occasion Keith Hackett asking for an independent investigation into what happened.

This is very unlikely to occur because it would need PGMO to reverse its fundamental approach to football which is that it should remain secret in all its affairs and never at any time be open to public scrutiny.  Further it would require the media to break its collusion in the PGMO vow of silence, by properly questioning what PGMO is up to.  Very noticeably in running its article, the Telegraph does not once suggest anything is amiss with PGMO, for to do so would endanger its licence to publish fixtures.

In a separate article in the Telegraph however Mr Hackett stated that he would have suspended Mr Moss for such a clear and obvious breach of the rules if he had been in charge, although he made no reference to what he would have done to the other two officials involved in what appears clearly to have been a case of collusion or collective inability to remember the rules.

To try and deflect attention (successfully thus far as it turns out) from the collusion between the officials involved, Geoff Shreeves who was working as usual for Sky Sports chimed in with the comment that the referee could not have seen the Sky pitch side monitor with its replays.

This was an interesting intervention as Shreeves recently fell foul of Wilshere and Mustafi by asking Jack, “Another game under your belt, are you back to your old best yet?”

Mustafi replied, “They love that question,” while Jack added, “every week.”  It was an exchange symptomatic of the position of Shreeves vis a vis Arsenal as opposed to Tottenham, and so his intervention in supporting the referee and thus Tottenham came as little surprise.

Meanwhile Jürgen Klopp has said that the referee admitted after the game that he made a mistake.  Klopp also accused the officials of colluding with TV to reduce the amount of additional time allowed when Liverpool was beaten by WBA.   This again is an issue that is starting to arise in more than one place – we saw it in the match at Arsenal Stadium last weekend when only two minutes additional time were awarded in a half which self-evidently (because of substitutions and injuries) required four minutes minimum and more likely six.

Klopp’s allegation that the limited additional time due to the requirements of TV was quite possibly correct, given that this is something that seems to be cropping up in several places, although not being widely reported.  The comments I have heard is that the TV companies are concerned that as a game moves into additional time, they lose the part of their audience that is not committed to either team,  and thus the numbers watching the subsequent adverts is greatly diminished.  So they are asking for less additional time – and on the evidence so far, getting it.

Since the event PGMO has done what we would expect.  It has sought to deflect all debate about the request for TV footage by focusing only on the Laws of the game saying that the referee’s interpretation of the laws was correct.

However even on these grounds PGMO ran into trouble as Hackett referred to an IFAB document which said the player is offside if he “makes an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball,” adding that “the actions of Kane standing in an offside position interfered with the actions of Lovren.”

Certainly that clarification is needed, but we also need clarification on the fact that although the rules forbid the use of TV to help the referee when the match is not an official VAR game, not only did the referee make the “mistake” of asking for TV evidence, but neither of the officials the ref asked corrected him.

One official forgetting the rules for a moment might readily be understandable.  But all three forgetting the same rule all at the same time?  If that is the case then some urgent mass retraining of PGMO officials is very much overdue.

If that is not the case then something else was going on, and we are back to the old issue of Type III match fixing in which a team above or below Liverpool and Tottenham might have favoured a draw to help their own position.   This was, of course, exactly the approached used in the Italian match fixing scandal.

But this is PGMO, the ultra-secret organisation.  The chances of us knowing anything are slim.  After all we don’t even know why (because the media refuse to enquire) PGMO alone among refereeing bodies in major European leagues, has to be so secret.   But I suppose the reason is… well, a secret.

43 Replies to “Despite Tottenham penalties fiasco referees’ hyper-secrecy still not being questioned by media”

  1. Despite the overall result probably being a fair one and most pundits agreeing that both decisions were legitimate there is still a lot of whimpering by scousers who frankly should be used to controversial penalty decisions over recent years, just not necessarily seeing them go the other way.

    Notwithstanding, this piece does raise some very interesting points. The unchallenged TV reference does suggest that that there may be some trialling of VAR or something involving a TV referral being played out behind the scenes.

    I have no doubt that the TV networks do and will continue to continuously lobby the Footballing Authorities with a view to getting more opportunities to slot in adverts. One way is to get breaks in the game to show an ad whilst a video/TV referral is taking place.

    Naturally there will be pressure for greater accuracy which of course translates to more stoppages and therefore more revenue for the TV companies some of which will find its way into the Footballing Authorities coffers.

    The sums involved almost certainly mean that the nefarious, underhand and machiavellian will all feature in driving more bang for buck – a course which will only be worse for the game and of course us!

    Calls for TV assistance in games has been around a while and its found its way into the coverage of many sports, generally those where the revenues have needed a boost; this has legitimised it and various spokesmen have been advocating it using other sports as examples

    We have all plodded along and bought into the concept, but isn’t the game about the controversies? The discussion on a Monday morning at school or at work will no longer have the grey debating area incidents being proven by TV and everything in Black and White.

    To think that TV companies have not already engineered this to bring us all this far is surely niaive. To think the Footballing Authorities (known of course for their ethics, competence and ability to resist a nice bung) are not looking at how they can bring in more money, regardless of the effect on the overall integrity of the game, is also equally foolish.

    I fear for the game as money takes over and tramples the Golden Goose underfoot.

  2. Anybody would think that spurs hadn’t pi$$ed all over Liverpool in the second half and should have won. I suppose people do grasp at straws to make themselves feel better.

  3. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of the English players were called to the diving team . I’ll bet you they’d impress everyone !
    All except the refs at the WC ,where they would have to curb their enthusiasm1

  4. Jacky Treehorn
    What a stupid comment.
    How is the fact that Spurs played better than Liverpool in the second half in any way relevant to the serious points raised in the article?

  5. To be added soon –
    – The ‘arry Kane ‘Fosbury flop’ .
    – Lamela sniper shot fall.
    – The Sterling ‘bird flight’ .

  6. @ Jacky,

    So what’s your point ? The refs decide in the last minute to change the result because one team pi$$ed all over the other but did not score the goals necessary ?

    Great comment, great contribution, great suggestion of general rule change of the way football works.

    Kind of like boxing. The officials give out an evaluation and the winner is computed by addind all numbers.

  7. Am I right in thinking it’s incredibly rare to hear a conversation between officials like that? From that camera angle which I presume was right behind them on touchline- i.e. very close.

    I remember the same one for Sol Campbell’s sending off vs Utd, when again you could hear everything, but nothing much since.

    It seems a reasonable assumption therefore that the cameramen are probably instructed not to get so close, or maybe the studio guys are not meant to go with that camera.

    The reason for not doing it is pretty damn obvious : they don’t want us hearing, in case they say anything which doesn’t sound right, or, as in this case, really doesn’t sound right.

    If I’m correct about that, and it was a real rarity for the camera to be where it was, that makes what was picked up all the more incredible. What are the odds,eh, on one of the only times you’ll ever hear (some)of their communications, that they were so messy and that a ref ‘misguidedly’ asked in a very casual tone for something completely off limits!

    Maybe they’ll vet their cameramen and technicians better in future to make sure none have a sneaky Liverpool affiliation or something.

  8. Tony

    “However even on these grounds PGMO ran into trouble as Hackett referred to an IFAB document which said the player is offside if he “makes an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball,” adding that “the actions of Kane standing in an offside position interfered with the actions of Lovren.”

    That is the exact law I referenced yesterday in the

    ‘Wenger protest, Chairman booed, anti-Spurs comments, Wilshere going, Big Sam’s instructions, Aubameyang warned’

    thread.

    It is explained perfectly well on the FIFA site I referenced in my post which I’ve reproduced here:

    Nitram

    05/02/2018 at 7:23 pm

    Knobby

    I know, it’s absolute bollocks, because even if they are worming out of this by saying Lovren deliberately played the ball, rendering Kane on side, he still should of been blown off side under the INTERFERING WITH PLAY law, which states:

    See Illustration 17 on the following FIFA link:

    https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/afdeveloping/refereeing/law_11_offside_en_47383.pdf

    INTERFERING WITH AN OPPONENT

    —-Making a gesture or movement which, in the opinion of the Referee, deceives or distracts an opponent.

    (which is exactly what Kane did)

    The opponent must be reasonably close to the play, so that the blocking, deceiving or distracting makes a difference—-

    (which Kane certainly was)

    I don’t think there’s any denying that Lovren must of seen Kanes run in to the box, in which case it MUST of distracted him.
    Lovren must of been aware of Kanes presence behind him and as such it affected what he did.

    It would be a perfectly legitimate argument for Lovren to say, given it obviously wasn’t a shot, that he would not of even gone for the ball had Kane not been where he was. He would of let it run through to the keeper.

    That “KANE MADE A MOVEMENT THAT DISTRACTED THE OPPONENT” is irrefutable.

    In short:

    If Lovren touched the ball accidently kane is off side as shown in illustration 25.

    If Lovren played the ball deliberately he did so due to his knowledge of Kanes run into the box, so is therefor off side as described in illustration 17.

    So it doesn’t matter how they try to worm out of it, Kane was off side.

  9. Rich
    I’m pretty certain, tho it was a weekend day….., that the immediate reference to the overheard convo was that Anfield have microphone pickups in their corner flags. Wtf next? But anyway I suspect that’s what caught pigmob on the hop.
    My interpretation of that event was that Moss realised he’d gaffer about asking for tv details…… whether he realised he’d been overheard or not , is another level , then seemed to properly flap, totally overlooked the complexities of the law interpretation, and firmly gave the penalty. ( to the diving cheating Spuds , that’s your lot yes Jacky).
    Totally outplaying an opponent without winning. How is your acne Jacky. You’ll be a man soon.

  10. Rich

    “It seems a reasonable assumption therefore that the cameramen are probably instructed not to get so close, or maybe the studio guys are not meant to go with that camera.

    The reason for not doing it is pretty damn obvious : they don’t want us hearing, in case they say anything which doesn’t sound right, or, as in this case, really doesn’t sound right.”

    Again this is something I touched on yesterday in the

    ‘Premier League is now only second to Germany in lack of competitiveness’

    thread, as again I have reproduced bellow:

    “This is why they (Pigmob) are fundamentally against VAR.

    And more, why they are so against being heard on open Mic’s having to explain the thought process behind there decisions.

    Can you imagine Dean trying to explain why he gave that penalty at WBA ?

    Can you imagine listening to Moss trying to explain how Kane wasn’t interfering with play despite being the player who received the ball inside the box?

    It would be hilarious.”

    Indeed it would, but rather more worryingly for them it would be damming.

    Our referees are a disgrace. The way they hide is a disgrace. The way the media protect them is a disgrace.

    So lets hope out of all this people aren’t blinded by the smoke and mirrors being employed by certain quarters, but rather see through it all and realise that we are in fact being taken for a ride by Pigmob and there media allies.

  11. On the general subject of type 3 match fixing did you notice Mike Deans referring against Chelsea in the Watford match. It was like watching him referee against Arsenal. I wonder why and who stands to benefit most?

  12. why is this offside decision causing so much controversy now? because it was against Liverpool!
    same thing happened during Laca goal against Stoke, but no one said a word http://arsenalist.com/f/2017-18/stoke-vs-arsenal/lacazette-goal-called-offside-highly-questionable.html
    except Graham Poll who have spent much effort to explain the concept of parallel lines https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/sport/football/match-reports/graham-poll-clarifies-offside-rule-352474
    and now he is one of a few refs who claims Kane was not offside http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/02/05/referee-jon-moss-misguided-ask-tv-help-awarding-penalty/

  13. PGMOL have been misinterpreting the rules for years. Mike Riley was given the job despite being responsible for the most biased officiating in the Premier League, the 50th game of teh unbeaten run at Old Trafford.

    Now we have Mauricio Pochettino is speaking out against VAR, claiming the English fixation with diving is ‘ruining the game’ Speaking after Dele Alli was booked for simulation in the 2-2 draw against Liverpool, his thrid booking for diving, Pochettino said t the general mood of moral panic within the game, over what he described as “minimal details”, risks stifling football’s natural expression.

    Pochettino reserved harsh judgement for the use of VAR, saying that human refereeing errors were an “intrinsic part of the game”. He argued that simulation on the pitch, while an offence rightly punishable under the laws of the game, was simply a sporting tactic rather than anything more sinister, insisting:

    “Football is about trying to trick your opponent – yes or no? Tactics – what does ‘tactic’ mean? When you do tactics, it is to try to trick the opponent. You play on the right, but you finish on the left. Twenty years ago, thirty years ago, we all congratulated a player when he tricks the referee like this. That is the football that I was in love with when I was a child. Yes, in Argentina, but in England too. You believe that in England you were honest and always perfect?

    The Tottenham manager has admitted in the past that during his playing days at Newell’s Old Boys and Estudiantes, diving to win a penalty from the referee was regarded as a skill, one even practised in training.

    So here we have Pochettino admitting he sees nothing wrong in diving, simulation or cheating. In his mind it is all part of the tactics to outwit the opposition or referee. He is saying what we know the pundits and ex players really beleieve. The ‘feel a touch and go down brigade’, who continually defend the activities of Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy and Dele Alli.

    Yet go back a few years and reconcile this with the way Eduardo was treated when he dived. As he was foreign AND played for Arsenal he rfeceived a 3 game ban and the media went nuts. Yet when Rooney did it a couple of weeks later, silence.

    Link for the Pochettino interview:
    http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/tottenham-newport-fa-cup-mauricio-pochettino-dele-alli-diving-killing-the-game-a8197946.html

  14. Peter

    Absolutely.

    I mentioned the similarity at the time, in so much as any 50/50 or even 60/40 decisions were all going Watford’s way.

    My observation at the time was ‘now Chelsea know what it’s like to get a Deaning’ or words to that effect.

    I think taken in isolation you could just about give Dean the benefit of the doubt with most of the decisions.

    You know, in that they were in ‘I’ve seen them given’ territory, especially in real time and without the benefit of a replay.

    And that would be acceptable if the 50/50’s went to each team, but similar to what so often happens to us, just about every 50/50 went against Chelsea, and that to me is always suspicious.

    Yep, Chelsea looked to of definitely been on the end of a good old fashion ‘Deaning’

    As for who benefited?

    Liverpool Maybe? Perhaps making up for them getting a ‘Mossing’ on Sunday?

    If so, there is no doubt we benefited on the back of that.

  15. AFC Nemesis

    During the game I don’t think the commentators once criticised Alli for the dive.

    They certainly never used words such as ‘shame’ ‘cheat’ ‘disgrace’ or anything like that.

    They certainly didn’t mention it was his 3rd booking of the season for diving.

    3 bookings for diving in one season. Can you just imagine the reaction if it was an Arsenal player?

  16. Nitram. Agree. The same is true of Harry Kane who’s dive was worse than Alli’s. If you watch the Kane dive, you can see he actually initiated the contact. His legs went straight and his arms out front, totally unnatural way to fall. The fact that the keeper may have brushed his sock is irrelevant. Yet again, the pundits turn a blind eye because of who it is. If that had been an Arsenal player or a foreign one, I have no doubt more would have been said.

    In saying that, Wayne Rooney on Monday Night football said Kane’s was a dive – and he should know!

    Kane did the same thing to us at WHL, he is a serial offender but because he’s the medias darling he gets away with it. Be interesting to watch Saturday, especially after the diving against Liverpool and Pochettino’s defence of diving, could be interesting.

  17. Nitram, it’s actually 3 in 3 seasons, but you’re correct Arsenal player would be crucified even for one

  18. Oh dear, the Referee Saturday is the Manchester mafia’s Anthony Taylor.

    He gave the blatant Hazard dive which incensed Wenger. As 4th official, he provoked Wenger into pushing hi, getting Wenger a lengthy ban.

    This is not good.

  19. Three dives, (yellows or retrospective)
    DOCK THREE POINTS.
    end of, that will cut it out.

    It’s becoming a farce like 70’s wrestling and that got dropped as a sport.

  20. It is hard to comment on corruption in the game that has not been well commented before, but we cannot stop doing it i know.

    Would an open petition to demand that;

    1 Refs microphones are made a part of the TV feed and stadium loudspeakers in real time.
    2 VAR is also shown on TV feed while the reviewer is reviewing it real time and the communication between ref and reviewer is to on the stadium’s loudspeakers.
    3 Any communication between 4th ref and ref and assistants are openly broadcast on TV feed and on the stadium’s speakers.
    4 All the above points can only be denied if you have things to hide and reject a clear transparency in the football.

    After all, these TV stations and their owners do rely on “public opinion” to be able to monitor and adjust their strategies, even if/especially as their strategies are not in the best interest of the viewers.

    //
    TV companies may well be passe very soon, as big money talks big.

    There is/seems to be great interest developing in football from the new(old) boy on the block, the internet streaming companies, who smell the money in football and are seemingly willing to put their great resources into the next bidding of the broadcast rights of football.

  21. knobby

    In principle, deducting points is a good idea.

    But lets be honest, we all know who will be the team having players booked for diving should such a penalty be introduced.

    Ask yourself this, would Alli of been booked on Sunday if Moss knew it would mean a point deduction for Spurs?

    Not a chance.

  22. knobby

    It’s becoming a farce like 70’s wrestling and that got dropped as a sport.

    I dare to say that it has already become so.

  23. Para,
    I think the English public think so and the game has been taken away from us.
    My interest in football I put down to age and too much of it on the TV now.
    Yesterday at the Munich memorial it was interesting to see Sanchez and the rest of Man U’s money grabbing players sitting all respectfully when really the Busby babes and winning the European cup in 1968 is what made them a mega club and no doubt pays the over inflated wages.

  24. Para

    That sounds good but, and I reference your 4th point:

    4) All the above points can only be denied if you have things to hide and reject a clear transparency in the football.

    The PGMOL have been hiding behind a vail of secrecy for years. They’re as transparent as a brick wall yet they are defended and pandered to throughout the media.

    Untold has been calling for transparency from the PGMOL for years and sad to say nobody seems to be bothered.

    You also say:

    “After all, these TV stations and their owners do rely on “public opinion”

    They may well do, but as I have said many times, when I talk at work they just don’t see the potential for corruption we do.

    Most don’t even know who the PGMOL are.

    They certainly don’t have a clue how secretive they are.

    They certainly do not know how few refs there are.

    They certainly haven’t noticed the Northern bias.

    They certainly haven’t seen how this all lays the fertile ground for the type 3 match fixing we saw in Italy.

    In fact they don’t even know what type 3 match fixing is.

    Yes, they know about some kind of match fixing scandal back in the day, but that was those dodgy ‘foreigners’ wasn’t it?

    Us upstanding Brits wouldn’t do that would we.

    I mean, that diving lark we keep hearing about is all those nasty foreigners doing. We don’t do that, and if we do is only because Pires forced us into it.

    Honestly mate, from my experience they think only there team get screwed by refs.

    The big teams get all the decisions.

    Most ‘public opinion’ stretches no further than who to put in there dream team.

    We on here are passionate, if not always in agreement. But essentially that’s why we are here posting

    But speaking from personal experience most people just don’t give a $h!t

    This little storm we have brewing will be all blown out by this time next week you mark my words.

  25. What does not make any sense to me is that the owner of Arsenal and now the owner of Liverpool, who each own a football club worth more then a billion, are just staying put. The so-called refs and their biased decisions are costing them millions or tens of millions.

    And what do they do ? How do they react ? Zilch. Nada. South. Zero.

    Their players get hurt and for some of them the injuries end up career ending, and they do not react.

    Ok, the players, who are their employees, are earning lots of money, yet, not all of them are. And they do not react.

    I can remember the uproar when something like that happened a few times in the Bundesliga. Or in the ’82 Sevilla semi-final.

    In the PL ? Nothing. The Big Sleep.

    What does the PL have on the owners that makes them just shut-up ?

  26. Cheers Steve

    I felt I had pretty much exhausted myself on all topics Pgmol and co related, having found this site such a welcome place to talk about the things which had annoyed me for years.

    Well, this one gave me some new things to think about for sure!

  27. How about this? Perhaps the Premier League wants refereeing controversy? Their approach to these situations is unlikely to dispel any of our suspicions so perhaps we are looking at it from the wrong angle. Is it possible that some bean counter/economist has seen that people are MORE likely to pay attention to their product if there is another pot boiling on the stove labelled ‘controversial decisions’.

  28. On the subject of camera coverage, does anybody know if a rule exists permitting, or preventing, a stadiums showing live, or delayed, video of a match in progress? I can remember years ago seeing TV footage of a goal kick during a match (I think it was at Spuds) where the TV angle showed their scoreboard showing what looked like the exact same shot as that being shown on TV (a goal kick, albeit delayed a couple of seconds) and it got me thinking, is this just a live feed or does it show replays too? I never saw another shot of the scoreboard and actual pitch as clear as that but don’t think it have (or rather hoped it wouldn’t) show full TV coverage type replays, but if it even showed 1 replay (and I don’t mean the replays of goals) or even if it didn’t, the fact it was coverage of a different angle not seen by the officials would be a huge concern (for various reasons). Did I imagine this? Do any other grounds do anything similar? Imagine a ref or lino pausing for a few seconds to surreptitiously take a peek and then making a call, it would be outrageous but not all that surprising.

  29. I agree with Nitram.

    The problem we have is not just PGMOL. It is the ex players & journalistic bias.

    I have played at various levels but that does not make me an expert. However, this has helped me to know what actual contact causes a ‘foul’ or impedement; what does not and also where contact has been initiated.

    The real issue here is that so many of the ex players believe it is acceptable to seek to gain an advantage. How many times do we hear them claim even minimal contact gives a player the right to go down. IT DOES NOT.

    Harry Kane dived. Everyone knows he dived because it was obvious. Nobody falls to the ground like Superman. Yet various ex players have said there was contact and that this gave him the right to go down. Yet he was on his way down before any contact and he himself initiated the contact.

    Yet, as I said, when Eduardo did something similar the ex players and media went wild.

    These double standards are the problem.

  30. Cudge.

    Premier League Teams ARE NOT permitted to show controversial incidents during games on the screens.

    League rule 39.4.1 says: “The screen shall not be used to show action replays of negative or controversial incidents”; and rule 39.4.2 prevents “any incident which brings into question the judgement of a match official.”

    In 2015 Swansea were fined for showing several replays of Ayew receiving a dangerous, studs up challenge from Stoke ‘keeper Butland. The crowd went wild when the replays showed referee Madley had made a mistake & Butland should have been sent off. Stoke won 1-0. The Premier League were unhappy about the crowd unrest caused by the replays.

  31. OlegYch

    Thanks for the correction.

    But as you suggest, 3 in a season or 3 in 3 seasons the reaction would of been entirely different had it been an Arsenal player.

    Thanks AFCNemisis

    And a wlcome back Rich from me.

    I’m still hoping to see the return of ProudKev.

    Always liked his posts.

  32. The simple truth is the PGMOL are a corrupt select group aided & abetted by the colluding media in creating a set of results outside the Laws of The Game.

    Moss once asked if he was being called corrupt & was answered in the affirmative. No further conversation accrued as taking this further with someone outside the game will only lead to the Golden Goose being sacrificed.

    The FA can stop anyone from attending football in England for whatever reason they choose.

    The paying public that attend football matches are being robbed of sporting competition & being served a soup of corrupt sham. There is nothing that can be done apart from angering them (PGMOL & FA) into taking one to court. Only then will the whole can of worms be emptied onto the dish that the media will have to serve its public.

    In this day & age of internet communication & easy exposure, the corruption continues blatantly without the slightest shame or fear of being halted.

  33. AFC Nemesis

    League rule 39.4.1 says: “The screen shall not be used to show action replays of negative or controversial incidents”; and rule 39.4.2 prevents “any incident which brings into question the judgement of a match official.”

    These rules show the thinking of those in charge.

    So, VAR will of course never be open to the public.

    The match officials do not get any judgement at all, no wonder they are “always right”.

  34. Anyway here are emojys for untold

    😀 happy
    🙂 smile
    🙁 sad
    😮 surprised
    😯 shocked
    😕 confused
    8) cool
    😆 laugh
    😡 mad
    😛 razz
    😳 embarassed
    😥 cry
    👿 evil
    😈 twisted
    🙄 rolleye
    😉 wink
    ❗ exclaim
    ❓ question
    💡 idea
    ➡ arrow
    😐 neutral
    :mrgreen: mrgreen


  35. Moss’s is a correct alternative genitive, Tony. Don’t get carried away by your hatred for the Telegraph.

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