- So are Arsenal the dirtiest team in the league this season? The figures suggest not.
- Does any PL club have supporters who DON’T complain?
By Tony Attwood
It wasn’t what the article in the New York Times under the brand name “The Atheltic” was meant to be about, but it was a revelation and a half of the type we have been looking for.
The article was headlined, “Was the foul on Havertz a penalty? Why doesn’t Premier League use referees from abroad?” and it omits issues such as “Why referees are allowed to oversee matches from the same club five or six times in a season?” but instead travels in a totally different direction..
And it is interesting because as must be evident, even to a blind hedgehog walking home in the dark, a very large number of supporters think there is something wrong with Premier League football. Liverpool fans claim that refs are aiding Arsenal, ManU fans say refs are against them in general – but the point is, it is hard to find many supporters who will say that refs are doing a good job in the Premier League matches. And that ought to worry PGMO because it means that in the eyes of the paying public, they are being cheated. Yet it doesn’t. So why not.
Now one way of looking at this came up in an online article today which pointed out that Premier League clubs “have the best players and coaches they can get from all over the world. Why do we limit our league to officials from the UK only?”
And the answer is that the English game is being played under rules created by PGMO which are not used in other countries. Refs from other countries simply wouldn’t understand.
The article says that it should be possible to import referees from other countries, but that “assumes that the imports would deliver what the Premier League expects, which differs greatly from other competitions and is one of the key reasons for the division’s success.”
Of course I don’t know how great those great variations are, since I watch Arsenal, but I am surprised since I thought we all played to the same rules – not least because we have to play clubs from overseas in Euro competitions. Yet seemingly we are all playing to different rules. For “Games in La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 are more technical and less physical than the Premier League…”
Now the article suggests that we, the English, are right, and our interpretation of the rules is best, which is why our matches are watched around the world. That might be true, but if we agree that our games are refereed on a uniquely English basis really that ought to be spelled out, especially when Arsenal come to play Champions League games.
Unfortunately the article does not bring forth any evidence, but rather what we get is opinion and assertion dressed up as fact – which the New York Times really ought to be ashamed of. But they use that explanation as to why “None of the top European leagues use officials from outside their country,” and suggest it is not because our football rules differ “greatly from other competitions and is one of the key reasons for the [Premier League’s] success”.
But the trouble is that increasingly for fans of PL clubs the PL is not a success. One only has to read fans’ commentaries and we can see that fans are not seeing the exciting unique PL style of refereeing, but interpret what they see as utter bias and incompetence. And no wonder if there is no universally agreed set of rules.
The fact is that because (according to the article) England is out on its own in its interpretation of the rules of football, England as a national team, and English clubs in Euro competitions are not doing well. And in fact we find individual clubs adopting their own individual interpretation of the rules. And all the while we all thought we were all playing to the same rule book.
So PGMO referees have taken the rule book for football, and have interpreted it (or even seemingly in places re-written it) to such a degree that not only does it confuse overseas players who come and play for English clubs, it makes it more or less impossible for the England team to win many matches against other countries because the refs are using different sets of rules.
Thus because no one really explains this to the players – so when they play for England against a non-British nation, with obviously a non-British referee – the rules change, leaving our players bemused.
Of course we could change and follow the same rules as other nations, but apparently, according to the article, that would spoil our game. People like the English game because it is played to the English interpretation of the rules (which implies everyone else should change and adopt our model – but I can’t see that happening).
So there we are. Apparently we get more exciting football, but at the expense of not winning internationals or European club games. But at least now we know why. The refs play to different rules.
