By Walter Broeckx
If you have been reading Untold for quite a while you might remember I have in the past been a regular writer on the Untold website. Then my life changed, very much for the better I should add, and I just couldn’t find the time to write anymore. I went from being an Untold writer to an Untold reader.
So as a reminder for old-timers, and as an introduction for more recent joiners, I’d just like to introduce me as a (now) retired referee who for getting on for ten years wrote a number of articles on Untold for a good 10 years, on all matters concerning referees.
In those years I looked at and analysed some amazing things. Analyzing referee performances in Arsenal matches on my own. Analyzing referee performances in Arsenal matches with a few other Arsenal supporting referees. And then analyzing the majority of matches in one season with the help from referees who didn’t support Arsenal.
And finally we analysed half of the matches in one season using a VAR system years before the PGMO and Mike Riley would have it. That set of reviews, known as the 160 games is still on this website, and constitutes a major part the evidence that has been gathered which shows that all is not well with PGMO.
One of the results we found was that according to our research (complete with video evidence) the referees only got something between 60 – 70 % of the important decisions correct.
At that time Mike Riley told anyone willing to listen that the referees under his guidance got around 98% of all decisions correct. And the media just printed it as The Truth. Nobody in the media questioned it. Except those of us writing with Untold; we expressed our doubt based on our findings.
Our numbers was based on detailed analyses of matches. The numbers from Riley were based on what he said without any evidence given. So no one could check what he said.
So you can imagine how surprised I was when I read this on the BBC website:
Premier League officials believe the introduction of VAR meant there was 95% accuracy in “key match incidents” last season compared to 82% the year before.
So suddenly in the big media they now suddenly said that the referees only got an accuracy of 82% in the season 2018-2019. As that was the year before VAR was introduced. Remember that was the times when Riley said it was achieving a rate of 98% correct decision making.
Now we would like to know which number is the truth? Was it the 98% announced by Riley in the past? Or the 82% announced by…. well yes, announced by whom?
Because as usual the numbers from the PGMO are just given without any evidence to back them up.
Untold has always based its numbers on reviews that could be argued and disputed. Out in the open one could say. But PGMO and “doing things in the open” are just impossible bedfellows it seems.
But we also must highlight the fact that the media are still just acting as a mouthpiece of the PGMO and are not doing anything themselves to check the PGMO and the referees in a serious way.
They have the money and the staff to dig in to this if they only wished to do this. But they are like the three monkeys: “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” when it comes to referees and the PGMO.
I have always said that the first rule on the way to improve anything is to admit that it isn’t perfect and can be improved. But this seems to be something that never applied to the PGMO and the referees.
It is also very strange that nobody in the media is remembering the very obviously fake numbers from Mike Riley.
Refereeing is based on honesty and truth. So how can we not be concerned if we don’t raise the issue that the head of the referees has been forgetful in this matter. Or has been, as they say, “economical with the truth”?
How come the media don’t ask the question and confront Mike Riley concerning these figures? Because that is what they should do. Or do we just have to accept that in one season the accuracy of the Premier League referees went from 98% accuracy (announced previously) down to only 82% in the next season? And that without anyone noticing it? Are the media really that bad when it comes to watching football? Well based on the articles on the media on Untold… that might be also the case.
Anyway I am sure that the numbers from Riley have been “misleading”. But still the PGMO and Riley get away with it and nobody in the media is saying a word about it.
Except Untold.
- Fulham v Arsenal: how the journalists got it wrong. Part 2
- Why football journalism is both misleading and making no sense at all.
- How Fulham 0 Arsenal 3 was a total disaster… for journalists
Welcome “back” Walter.
The media, the Premier League and the clubs should be screaming for Riley’s resignation. Not only would these figures suggested he lied pretty outrageously but also that he was in charge of a bunch of incompetent referees prior to the introduction of VAR and made no apologies but in fact covered up their errors wit his lies.
Hi Walter hopes all well with you and yours
I personally think Riley has been very clever in what he said.
For instance his claim was the officials got around 98% of all decisions correct. Included in that number is every throw in, ever corner, every goal kick in that number the vast majority really aren’t even up for debate
The claim of only getting 82% of decisions correct in 2018/19 and that number being increased to 95% is talking about the Key Decisions. In other words those that VAR can review.
Surely there were plenty of mistakes even with var so how does the percentage go up to 95%.
In addition are all the refs errors ones which are covered by var intervention?
Surely not.
So how does the 95% get near to the truth?
The medias judgement on referees is purely arbitrary. Everything the media do and say is geared to maintaining the gravy train on which they ride. It’s all about perception management, by maintaining the illusion that, despite not having a single referee at the last World Cup, we still have the best referees in the Wold.
Taking as read, without any questions at all, what the PGMOL say, is what they do. They do the same thing with the press statements released by FIFA. They do the same with Manchester City. They do it with everything in fact.
The last thing the media want to do is sully the game with lurid stories of referee incompetence and good old fashion cheating, FIFA corruption and the use of slave labour to build it’s stadiums, the very dubious sources of the wealth used to state sponsor certain clubs as well as child trafficking, the misappropriation of money supposedly destined for charitable causes, the failure to follow through on their promises of investment into grass roots football.
Honestly the game is rotten to the core, yet if you simply formed your view of the game from what you read in the red tops or heard on TS, BT and SKY, you’d be forgiven for believing the game, it’s Clubs, it’s officiating and it’s administration were all as pure as driven snow.
As Tony and Untold have demonstrated on many occasions, that is far from the reality of the situation.
Far from ever looking to expose any of the above, the media are in actual fact complicit it every single aspect of it.
In a word they are a disgrace.
Perhaps the thing that intrigued the most about Untold Arsenal’s 160 match foray into the morass that is the PGMO, was that many of the people engaged to evaluate the matches were NOT Arsenal supporters.
i see the three amigos are back this season: jonathan moss, mike dean and martin atkinson. expect match fixing rules to remain the same as last season.
Head of the referee’s said they’re 98% correct? Well I’m 98% genius…… just don’t ask the wife…
No surprise that the PGMO spin things to make them look good. What organisation doesn’t do that.
A reason for the lack of media scrutiny might be that they accept that the PGMO spin info. But that it is done through Self interest. And errors are down to incompetence not conspiracy. Things “even themselves out” as the cliche goes.
I’m not saying it is just incompetence, (plus an element of personal bias in individual referred for favourites). But if the media believe that, understandable they don’t make a big deal of it.
Walter,
As an important aside, how are things health-wise with your dear wife. Has she completely recovered from that awful debilitating illness?
I do hope so. She brought luck whenever she accompanied you to an Arsenal game!
Can I echo that. Well said nicky.
Hi all, I read the articles every day and like them but don’t find the time anymore to write.
For my wife I can say that she has recovered in a miraclous way with an experimental treatment. She has gone from being wheelchair bound to now being completely independant and being able to walk, ride a bike and drive the car again. And by walk I mean we regularly make walks of 5-10 km. In the worst days she couldn’t make it to the next cross road from our house, a walk from 100 meter.
Thanks for asking. On a side note, her recovery is one of the reasons I have little time as we have time to catch up as we lost some 10 years.
Walter,
Great news. Your many friends who read and contact Untold will be delighted. Never under-estimate the power of prayer.
What wonderful news.
As much as I, Nicky, and I’m sure many others enjoyed reading your in depth refereeing analysis, I mean no disrespect when I say, given your reasons for absence, I hope you continue to have better things to do !!
keep well.
Hi Walter , nice to have you back penning articles again on here . Very glad to hear that your missus is doing well . My best wishes to all in the family.
I do remember too on how outraged we all used to be at the ‘antic’ of the PIGMOB. While I don’t hold hope that them clowns will ever repent , yet I tend to take their stupidity as being par for the present course the world over .
I remember too that we were hoping for some knight in shinning armour to ride in and rid the EPL , and indeed football of the filth and corruption . Sadly it never materialised, rather it has sunk even deeper as the recent side shows at FIFA shows.
But I do wish that someone with the required skill would revisit that infamous 50th game at Old Trafford and replay the atrocities inflicted on the Arsenal , megapixel by megapixel . Or make a movie on the day that the beautiful game died.
What great news about your wife, Walter. And also great to hear from you again, even if only occasionally.
Oh Walter thanks be to GOD,he makes a road through the ocean he makes a way where there in none. @Blackfields Gunners that is the day I will never ever forget in my 56years of watching football,it was atrocious if at all there is only one person who will ever mention it but not in this shitty FIFA,Le Prof fingers crossed.
Just ‘seeing’ your good news, Walter. So happy for the both of you.