- Arsenal’s recent match overload could be a telling factor in the game against Southampton
- The media keeps telling us what’s wrong with football, so why isn’t anything being fixed?
By Tony Attwood
If you think the answer to the question in the headline is that football journalists simply reflect how things are going on the pitch and behind the scenes, then fine, I am not going to try and convince you otherwise. Because, having been involved in writing about football for longer than I wish to admit, I am certain there is a problem. If you disagree, that’s fine. Stop reading.
And I say that because in fact I think there are two big problems. The first is that journalists and those who vet their work, or who perhaps work in the more senior positions in newspaper, broadcast and internet journalism, have a particular way of seeing football that is then reflected in how they write and speak about football. ty. And the second is that because these people have access to writing in newspapes and speaking in the media, this reality is so widely shared that it has come to be the generally agreed-upon view of how things are.
So, as a result, the media tend to give us consistent, similar views of football. Which is not to say that the journalists copy each other, but rather that one way or another, they have agreed on how things are and how football should be seen. And indeed what should be said, and what should be ignored. For example, no questioning why Referee A oversees so few away wins, while Referee B oversees multiple away wins. That sort of thing.
The easiest way to explain this is to consider why journalists so rarely talk about why one ref sees so many more home wins than another. The journalist can praise or criticise each team, individual players and possibly managerial decisions. But by and large, the journalist does not criticise the referee because journalists don’t do that. There can of course, be the occasional, “I think he might have got that one wrong,” but rarely can there be much more than that.
Quite why this is so is an interesting issue, which is open to debate. Maybe refereees and their assistants make so few mistakes that any errors are just an inevitable part of giving instant judgments in a fast-moving game. The notion that the officials might be making multiple errors, or worse, are biased, is really not something to be discussed because… well becacuse no one discusses it.
Now, this of course, is the absolute opposite of the view of many supporters, who believe that some referees are either incompetent or, worse, biased. But such viewpoints are absolutely not reported in newspapers and their websites, so when they do turn up oi a comment, they seem a bit freakish or weird. After all, if NONE of the newspapers and their websites are saying anything is wrong with refereeing, surely nothing is wrong with refereeing. The occasional slip in a fast-moving game, maybe, but nothing worse. Foreign refs can make mistakes of course, but then, they are foreign and don’t understand. But PGMO men? No, they get it right.
But it goes a bit further, because there is a general agreement between the PGMO, the managers and the media over what can be said about referees, which means we don’t even get the background discussion. In short the discussion is over before it begins.
Occasionally, a referee might be noted as having “got that one wrong” but only very occasionally when the error is so obvious it has to be mentioned. Otherwise, the referee is left out of reports – something that then has the effect of making it seem that really the refs got nothing wrong.
Against this background, anyone who calls out a referee for making mistakes is immediately seen to be biased, because, well, no one else is calling out the referees in this way. Pulling this off is seen as a clever trick, because it is a way of controlling discussion, debate and ultimately reality. It says that supporters are biased, but referees and professional commentators are not.
Go to a lower league ground where there is no press box with special replay facilities etc, and you will find the journalists sitting near each other. Sit near them and you may well hear them conversing over issues such as who scored, was that foul outside the box, was that yellow card dubious and so on. On the main points, everyone’s commentary fits because no journalist wants to stand out as having seen a different game from everyone else. Everyone must agree.
Of course, a manager who has a very clear vision and a very dominant personality can do his own thing for weeks, months or years and not waver in his approach. But eventually, he looks weird, because his report is different from everyone else’s.
So the media don’t question referees, but they do copy each other, so Arsenal are seen as a dirty team that has rewritten the rules to suit themselves.
Which leads to this point: if the referees are being influenced, then who or what is influencing them? I will try and answer that tomorrow.
