By Walter Broeckx
In the past when the website of the PGMOL was still alive and whistling we found a few things over there that told us the criteria that are used to appoint referees. Lucky we did some copy and pasting in those days.
I quote from the previous information we could find on their website:
When making the appointments, a number of factors are taken into account including:
- – The current form of the official
- – The referee’s position in the merit table
- – Overall experience
- – How often they have refereed the Clubs involved
- – Proximity to the ground or city in which they were born or live
- – The team the referee supports
- – International appointments (For example if referees have UEFA matches on Thursdays they will only be available for matches on Sundays or Mondays)
The last two are important ones. Because when you look at the numbers Wigan has when Dean is around it is not only very strange but also very much pointing in the direction that there might be a little soft spot in his heart for this team.
But then we go on the the last criteria. And that is a criteria that is used to make sure that the ref has enough rest in between games. Because (and each ref will confirm this) the more fatigued you get the worse your decisions can become.
It is no coincidence that later on in the game more mistakes are made in general. Of course professional refs who are well trained should be less troubled by this but still it can happen.
Now there is this ruling that when a ref does an international match on Thursday he can only do a game on Sunday or Monday in the next weekend. So this is to give a ref a minimum of 2 complete days rest between his games. Doing a game on Thursday means he will have the whole Friday and Saturday to recover from the game. So only on the third day he gets another game.
The same goes for when a ref has to do an international game on Tuesday in the CL. Then he will only do a game on Saturday in the weekend before. Again this gives the ref two complete days rest between his Saturday game and that Tuesday game. The resting days are Sunday and Monday. And then on the third day he gets his match.
So in fact it is clear that the guidelines are: a ref should have two complete recovery days between each game.
- Now let us look at Dean and his games this week.
- On Wednesday Chelsea – Tottenham: matchday
- Thursday : recovery
- Friday: recovery
- Saturday: recovery
- Sunday: Sunderland – Southampton : matchday
- Monday: recovery
- Tuesday: Arsenal – Wigan : matchday
So it is clear to see that what counts the whole season suddenly goes out the door for this game. And suddenly he must do two games in almost 48 hours. This is very very strange to say the least.
There are 9 refs who do a game in the weekend. That means there are 7 refs with no match. One of those refs is Foy and he is not allowed to do Wigan games. So that means there are 6 refs who are perfectly able to do this game. And yet the PGMOL sends one of those 9 refs for a second game within 48 hours! What is wrong with those other 6 refs that they cannot do this game?
Mind you the other game played that day gets a ref who is free in the weekend or at least doesn’t do a match on Sunday. As Atkinson is appointed for the Reading – Manchester City game and he has no game in the weekend.
This is all very suspicious, certainly given the record Mike Dean has both with Arsenal and Wigan.
In fact of course those of us involved in Untold think it is business as usual from the PGMOL. We predicted it would be Dean for this game weeks ago. Because when you start to investigate the PGMOL you sometimes see some strange patterns. And this is a pattern that fits the Mike Riley bill.
I even wouldn’t be surprised that Dean asked Riley to be given this game. I know it sometimes happen and that Riley sometimes grants such things. But you cannot grant such a thing when the ref has such a twisted record with both clubs.
The crazy thing is now that if Deans makes “strange” decisions they could blame it on fatigue. They could use it as a way to avoid criticism. Ah he didn’t see that foul on an Arsenal player in the penalty area because he was too tired. Ah, he gave that penalty for a dive because he was too fatigued to be close and was fooled.
The thing is (and I wonder why nobody from the media notices this is) that the PGMOL and Mike Riley specifically is breaking all the rules with this appointment. Breaking the rules set out by themselves for international games. But I think each game in the PL can be compared to be on the same level as a game in Europe. So why do they send the bogey-ref for one team to that team within 48 hours of his last match? What with those 6 other refs who could do this game? Why Dean for this game?
There is no logical explanation for sending a ref for another game within 48 hours to a game when there are other refs available for this game. Even 6 other refs available.
So again we can point at something very suspicious in the appointments of the referees. How much longer before the serious media will look in to this and in to the behaviour of Riley and Dean?
Remember my calciopoli articles a few weeks ago? Well this appointment is somehow the ultimate proof of there being a kind of calciopoli in the PL. I just couldn’t imagine that Riley would be that quick to confirm the reasoning behind my article series.
The PGMOL and Mike Riley and their ref Mike Dean are bringing the PL in to disrepute. It is time that everyone was aware.
By the way these are the numbers Dean is having with the current top 5 teams: Notice the difference.
Walter, it seems to me inconceivable that AFC is unaware of all these issues relating to Dean’s record with the club and the PGMOL selection procedure. Would you think they have ever brought the matter up with Riley? If they haven’t then why the hell not, could you imagine rednose allowing such a situation to go unchallenged, it would be all over the media. If they have queried it or complained it has obviously made no difference. I would really like to know Arsenal’s position on this matter. Do you think an email to the club may yield something.
Have no fears peoples, just as Webb had to tidy up his numbers on Sunday @ OT so will Dean on Tues, we will win comfortably on Tuesday, no doubt with a penalty, a debatable goal, and maybe even a harsh red card to boot, all live on TV to the nation. Riley can then point to this game as evidence that there is no bias, then watch us get screwed at Newcastle, (not on TV !)
remember, the greast trick the devil ever pulled was fooling people into pretending he didn’t exist !!
From the table,arsenal performed worst under Dean and RF best. I would like to know will the gunners have done much under another ref.
What about MU.
Surely they cannot be winning all the time and that’swhy they get booted out in the cl. Is it a coincidence?
Btw,I believe Moyes won’t be able able to win 13 titles in 26 years,providing he can last so long. It’s getting more competitive and rf decided he would have more grey hair or go bald like Mc Guinees were he to continue.
All goods thing must come to an end.
Liverpool were knocked of their perch in 1991 and have not won a title since.The days when MU can win the epl /FA every year or alternate year is going to be athing of the past.
Dean is also a closet spurs lover he danced when they score in the 1st 5-2 beating and consistently helps them in games, we will get zero in this important game as he tries to help the vermin in to 4th place hopefully Stoke will kick them to death preventing it .
Why isnt foy allowed to ref wigan games ?
Oh Iforgot that some setions may not want the gunners to be in the cl. What better way than to get the mo do their dirty job.
Elementary. A gunner will be rc for a tackle which shd be yc.
You never know.
Lordhillwood,
Foy is from Liverpool (Everton supporter) and according to some he trains at the Wigan training centre
Wolfgang, I never did the full season analysis, but stuck to the ‘big games’ as that was the argument explaining Dean’s bad results. 32 matches VS City, United, Chelsea and Spurs since 09.
Dean got 12 of them (38%!) his record is W1-D3-L8, win 8%, 0.5 points a game. He’s done only 15 of our games, so he pretty exclusively gets these ones. Comparing Walter’s numbers to mine, his record with the rest of the league is W0-D2-L1, bringing those games in actually makes his stats worse.
No other ref got enough games to do the stats alone (most was Clattenberg with 5), but together they did 20 games: W7-D3-L10 win 35%, 1.2 points a game.
So basically, any other ref would have been better against the main rivals. (we got 2 wins VS Chelsea, Spurs, City and one VS united from them).
And United: They win 67% with Dean. Overall, they have won 70% of their games since 09, so he’s right on the button with them.
Ours is 55%………..
The loophole is that the rest period is for the international games, not local.
there is no doubt, with Riley and Dean on Arsenal, it is personal. These days, it is not about protecting Utd from a threat we used to be, and will be soon again. Dean has been suspended for links with a betting company – why is he even a ref?
If anything funny happens, Ivan really does have to use his position to investigate this – this could cost £30m – why – because the PGMOL dont like us? Ivan now moves in the corridors of power he needs to use his position, in the way Dein did to at least get us fairness, though some would say Dein went a bit further!
Another thing, why are so many looking back with affection at Fergie time now he has retired? Institutional cheating should not be viewed with affection, some clubs were probably relegated, others lost out on trophies due to this cosy relationship Fergie had with the refs.
A lot of the select group are doing the play-offs as well.
Three of the four officials are from the same area as Wigan.
Cheers Riley.
By the way, nice article as usual Walter. Even though it feels by now that we are just screaming into the darkness.
Sadly, if the PGMOL ever bother to comment on this, they can selectively pick facts to justify the selection.
As I said yesterday, Webb has already done 3 games in a week this season (Stoke/pool 26th Dec, Everton/Chelsea 30th Dec, Spurs/Reading !st Jan). So 3 games in a week has been done before.
There are ways to eliminate most of the other refs as options:
Clattenberg has the Championship playoff game on Monday,
Atkinson has already done 3+ games for all Tuesday teams except Reading,
Foy is not allowed, and so on. Taking it down to Dean or Dowd.
Between Dowd and Dean, both have done 3 games already, but Dowd has already done 3 Wigan games, so another one would not be fair.
Consequently, Dean is the only top end ref able to do the game…..
Its all an illusion of course.
Roger East could have taken this game. Unless he’s an Arsenal fan, wonder what the chances of that would be?
I have no doubt that the referee’s could have been moved around so we did not get Dean for this game, but the powers that be wanted to make a statement and are probably sitting back laughing at us making a song and dance about it.
I hope for a knackered Wigan and a five goal lead before half-time.
We all know we get nailed by the refs. But if we finish half our chances this would not matter. I know as I have experienced similar situations.
Strictly speaking off topic (but strangely bang on topic too)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/scandal-just-how-corrupt-is-britain-8610095.html
Walter,
Even though the PGMO website is not accessible by us all anymore, you can still access the old information by going to this website
http://archive.org/web/web.php
And putting http://refworld.com/ in the search box.
You can view the website as it was on any given day before the password protection was put in place.
Gouresh,
the PL is the toughest league in the world and can be compared to at least Europa league football I think.
And I also would like to point at the fact that I have never found any ref doing two PL games with only 1 day rest in between those games before.
So it really is a novelty in PL history. I hope the stats makers will take notice
Interesting link GodWore Ten. And spot on too, thanks for sharing.
Mandy,
Thanks to your posting, I keep hearing this echo in my head:
“Why is he there? Why is he there? Why is he there? Why is he there?” “Dean has been suspended for links with a betting company – why is he even a ref? Dean has been suspended for links with a betting company – why is he even a ref? Dean has been suspended for links with a betting company – why is he even a ref?” I’m having a migraine. Surely others are having enough?
Bring the RED CARDS folks and express yourself, showing them to card him (with a sea of red cards) if/when he dares to pull his cunning stunt on our pitch. And not just him, but vigilance on the lino’s (the same decisive trio that, as Adam documented, did Chelsea v Spurs)…
@ Mandy Dodd
May 10, 2013 at 11:50 am
100% agree with your comment.
I’ve just done a quick summary of Dean’s matches reviewed by Walter’s team on Referee Decisions and his games against us this season haven’t been his worst. His bias was even in out favour in the game at City, although predictably bad in the reverse fixture at the Emirates and at Manure.
13 games reviewed, one score above 90% (Chelsea-Wigan); two greater than 85% (Spurs-Swansea & United-City); two at 80% or better (City-Arsenal and United-Arsenal); four at 70-80% and four below 60% (Arsenal-City 67%, W Ham-Villa 62%, Sunderland-WBrom 61% and Spurs-WBrom 60%).
His highest bias numbers are against Fulham (84% v WBrom) and Us (85% away at United and 84% at home to City. Chelsea got 75% of wrong calls against Wigan (now there’s a surprise) but still won comfortably 4-1, Newcastle had 72% of the wrong calls at Manure and City had 71% of the bad calls when we visited.
In six of his games he made no wrong ‘key decisions’ (second yellows, red cards, penalties or goals), in the other seven he made thirteen; three in the Sunderland-WBrom game partly accounting for his 61% rating. In his other two really badly rated games there were no wrong ‘key decisions’ so they must have been really bad office days as the bias in both cases was within 60-40.
Do I trust him – not a chance, for the rest I will wait to see what happens. We should have enough quality to win even with a ‘normal’ performance from him but if he is is a really determined mood then I’m not sure.
I have used the ‘weighted’ figures in the above analysis. Do check out the full website – well worth a look.
Agree Bob, our home fans can be huge next week.
I still think we will be ok, this team is more solid, dare I say streetwise than recent versions. Other teams have taken punishment from refs and opponents and retaliated, as we know retaliation is meat and drink to the refs who want to do us. This lot – and maybe the coaches now seem more aware. Lets put in a performance on the pitch and terraces that renders Dean impotent, whatever he may wish to do.
Let them put whoever they want, Wigan will get beaten
Walter, on the rest thing, it has been done, and this season. If you look at my post above, Webb did the 1pm game on the Sunday and the 3pm on Tuesday (his 2nd and 3rd games that week).
It is rare, but does happen. The situation with Webb was a lot different as they were struggling to find refs over Christmas, where here there are plenty of other options.
Bob, I tend to agree about the fans. PGMOL look to be stitching us up, the media don’t care. The game is on TV so the best thing we can do is embarrass them into giving us a straight game.
OK, fair enough, its been done before for a ref to do 3 games in one week for one reason or another. But did said ref do all the 3 games in a week with the same assistant referees? Therein lies the problem. This stinks, I want to stay positive but we have lost to much lesser teams, who had much lesser things to fight for, when this ref was in charge. Anyway, lets wait and see.
Ok I missed that Webb game but as you pointed out in the Chrismas/Newyear period there are too many games and too few refs.
Rufusstan,
Yes, vigilance that can be seen to be vigilant could help us a lot. Will enough (any) fans actually show this vigilance there at the Ems? I think having a red card or appropriate signage to hold up in unison (more or less) would put The Dean and The Trio (Dean and the Linos) on proper notice. The stakes are too high to allow for further “coincidences” to prevail.
Walter, not sure if everyone on here realize how bad it maybe for Arsenal on Tuesday!!!!
Dean is the ref in the Sunderland v Southhampton game on Sunday, meaning that Mike Riley has pulled out all the stops to help both Tottenham and Wigan.
If Sunderland who are catch able by Wigan lose to Southhampton on Sunday with the help of Dean, this means the Tuesday game is another game which Dean can help Wigan make up points by beating Arsenal.
Also, as Sunderland last game is against Totthenham, the writing is on the wall of Wigan being safe if they beat Arsenal.
Mike Riley/Dean will be helping both Totthenham and Wigan at the same time after already making sure Totthenham did not lose last game on Wednesday v Chelsea which Dean was the ref.
Maybe this is Mike Riley’s final shift at the PGMOL so does not care to try and hide his actions. Red nose -SAF is gone, maybe that is his time up.
The big games for Arsenal will start from the ones which not involved. Sunderland v Southhampton and Totthenham v Stoke.
EM,
I think the ideal Mike/Mike scenario is that Sunderland should win against Southampton leaving them safe and with nothing more to win or lose go to Tottenham and lay down and forget the last season and don’t care about that last game.
In that scenario we should drop points in one of our last games of course. Hence Dean being around…
I think we are going to need Sagna (and others) in their “up ypurs mode” I still have very fond memories of his goal to get us going last year after Spurs went two up and Dean did his jig.
If the whole team has that attitude we must be all right. Hell if we can beat Spurs + Dean 5 – 2then we certainly should be able to beat Wigan.
In any case we should start at a very high tempo so that , with a bit of luck Dean will pull up injured – must be a risk in his third game in a wek.
COYG
That might actually be the only to stop dean, get him to pull up injured lol. The only trouble with that Wigan have to be attacking as well, or there won’t be any space to run into.
I share Walter’s views. I think a perfect scenario in pgmol minds is to see one of norwich or southampton go down. So with that in mind they’ll try help Wigan and Sunderland in the next games, so they’re not desperate for points in their last fixtures(which would then help spuds & villa). Of course for us we have two tricky hurdles to clear; should we survive the Wigan one then we will be stopped at Newcastle. Which is why I preferred a chelsea win midweek; we would not have had to win both matches to be safe. I don’t think stoke will put up much of a fight now they’re safe, so expect spuds to bag 3 points there. It’s now mandatory to win our two games, period.
The one thing that will be clear after all is done & dusted is this season more than any other season the refs had the played a major part deciding who finished where.
With the assumption that the games will try to be controlled (by Dean, Riley, whomever), then Newcastle QPR is an important game as well as Norwich City West Brom; if those games come out in favor of Norwich and or West Brom, then Wigan’s best chance to avoid relegation may be at Newcastle’s expense – which may mean (as horrible as this sounds) having Dean and Riley favoring us beating Newcastle as the last game. Also of course the sunderland southampton game, but with 3 teams all 3 points clear of Wigan (norwich, bus, newcastle) and similar goal differences, Riley may not be able to control so many games and teams precisely enough. I think he perhaps hope that Dean can get Wigan a point against us followed by a win the next week, and couple it with a sunderland or norwich or newcastle 2 game lose out to close the season.
And all of this is speculation, and there are obvious holes in what I have proposed, but it is one scenario and really, as it is football, anything COULD happen.
I think Dowd and Clattenburg are doing championship play off games on Sunday and Monday:
http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/Appointments
@Walter. We know that there is something is amiss with the refs. As mentioned previously it will take a whistleblower or an accidentally phone tapping for the truth to come out. In the meantime we need to make sure we keep our noses clean by taking our chances. Any chance we can have a stat on the number of chances we have missed? I know its too much to ask for. you will see that it would have made a massive difference.
Right, those Championship playoff games were of too little importance for Dean’s measure, to swap him and Clattenburg for instance.
This is so unfair.
Other leagues hold their referees accountable for errors.
This one comes from baseball in the United States.
http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=422887
Walter, obviously I agree completely with you that there is no justifiable reason for giving us Dean for this game, but I suppose I am playing Devil’s advocate because what we are implying is so horrendous, that we have to get everything right.
Al– Oh Crap. I had not thought about the idea that ref assignments were being made with that end of the table in mind. I can see the wish to keep sunderland and Newcastle up with their fanbases and profiles (plus the horse-punchingy dearbies). The only thing against that is Wigan has a smaller fanbase than both Southampton or Norwich, and both have good histories.
Bob– I’ve seen it happen, so yes it can, the crowd just seem to struggle to sustain it. Two examples I think I have mentioned here before is when the North Bank/Clock Enders got so pissed off at time wasting, that they started counting as soon as the keeper picked up the ball. It made the ref keep track. But, we only did it for a couple of games.
The other one that comes to mind was in the Everton game a couple of years back, when Saha’s offside goal was shown on the screens. (That was the one where Cesc got himself in trouble if I remember correctly). The crowd were about as hostile as I’ve seen at the Ems from that point and stayed on Mason’s back until the end.
No problem Rufusstan, it all comes down to : the PGMOL despite Untold pointing at the problem for years not having enough refs to cover all the games and all circumstances.
And then they have to revert to overusing a ref with 2 games in 48 hours.
The fact that of the 16 refs in the PL it just is Dean who is overused and send to Arsenal – Wigan is…well a coincidence? 😉
Off topic but read this great piece
http://www.diminbeirut.typepad.com/my-blog/2013/05/never-again.html
hasLee Mason evened things up for Chelsea? Have not seen the Villa sending off but seem to remember the article which suggested Chelsea do rather well under Mason
@ Mahdain – that article sums up how I feel about Sir Fungus. I haven’t respected anything Man U’s have won since 1999.
@ Walter – I am not sure if it’s already been discussed already, but Halsey’s off. What’s the likelihood that the ref pool gets smaller not bigger?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2322774/Mark-Halsey-quit-decision-angers-referee-bosses–Charles-Sale.html?ico=sport^headlines
Mahdain,
Very interesting link, definitely posting it again under the other article talking about collusion between the English media & certain clubs. Thanks.
Definitely worth** posting again….
Thanks for the link Mahdain.
Good to know other people are saying these things.
I hope their confidence doesn’t effect us, but good for Wigan. They deserve the cup.
Dave C I thought the exact same thing. Good result for them and a good match. They seemed to work very hard which will benefit us.
Sam,
Now we sit back and hope you’re right.
At the end of the day, if we win both our remaining games, we will qualify for next term’s CL.
We must therefore play so well against Wigan and Newcastle United that neither team AND referee can prevail against us.
We know the odds and must see to it that decisions against us must clearly appear so outrageously biased that action by the FA is bound to follow.
We can do nothing about officialdom in the other games affecting our close rivals, so we should not concern ourselves with that.
If we DO finish in the Europa League next season, it’s not the end but merely a new beginning. We re-group and return even stronger.
Mahdain
Thanks for the link. It was a brilliant article.
I knew you would all like it and thats why i shared. Gladly welcome