What is the difference between PGMO and the government of Kazakhstan?

By Tony Attwood

The national authorities have just cut internet and phone access within Kazakhstan, also making it impossible for local people to contact others.  This is what made me think of PGMO.   PGMO have no website for its Premier League activities, no connection that the outside world can use, no postal address that is revealed, no phone numbers we can call, no email address  no nothing.  They too have cut contact with the world beyond.  Just like the government of Kazakhstan.

And now at this moment, staff at Kazakhstan’s main airport have had to depart as anti-government demonstrations escalate.   Just as players in the Premier League walk in fear of the unilateral decisions of uncriticisable  Premier League referees – at least until a revolution comes along.

Which makes me think surely this is what we need to do in order to topple the dictatorship of PGMO. For just as far braver people than the football fans of England are seeking to topple the dictatorship of Kazakhastan so we ought to be able to topple the dictatorship of PGMO.   And dictatorship is the right word because PGMO model their own vision of football on dictatorship.   No one can question them, they are judge, jury and prosecutors.  And above all they have total control over the way the media report their wild and whacky activities.  

Indeed the national media are now so utterly petrified of PGMO that they don’t dare to criticise any act by PGMO; whether it is the repeated use of the same referee overseeing the same club’s games, their own unique interpretation of the rules, or their utter and total secrecy.

Meanwhile, football supporters in England sit by and let their precious national game be utterly corrupted by the anonymous and anti-democratic, secretive organisation, while nothing is done.

At least in Kazakhstan, a group of protesters have entered the main airport terminal this week.  Protestors even attacked government buildings and these brave people are (like those poor players ruled by PGMO) not living in a neo-fascist dictatorship.

Yet here we are, in England, in a liberal democracy and no one but no one even raises a finger against the fanatical PGMO and its authoritarian, dictatorial regime which aims to reduce certain clubs to nothing but shadowy holograms of their previous selves while raising up others on the towers of the gods.  Why they do this, of course we do not know and cannot say.  Although we can, and do, guess.

But in England, unlike Khazakstan there is no need for PGMO to cut communication access since they have no website, no email address, no postal address, no phone number, no fax number and in short no public face at all.  What is the difference between the PGMO and the government of Kazakhstan?  Since both are invisible, none that I can see!

Yet in Kazakhstan protesters have the gall to stand up and face their dictatorial unelected government, but in England, there is no process, as the media accept not just the right for PGMO to exist and determine what is right and wrong in English football, but also of its right to determine that PGMO will have no media presence and will never face any form of election or democratic process.   As a result PGMO simply ignore those of us who question the validity of their regime, and instead curry favour with broadcasters and newspaper writers who repeatedly kowtow to their demands.

In short: it is the communication media (BBC TV, Radio 5, Sky Sports, BT Sports and Talk Sport) that keeps PGMO in business, by agreeing never, ever, ever, to discuss the dominant, overarching role of PGMO in Premier League football.  And if we tune into any of those outlets we are supporting this tyranny.

But remember, these guys are sophisticated.  They pretend, and they convince the national media also to pretend, that PGMO does not exist, and that everything in the world of Premier League refereeing is (to use a phrase of Mr Bowie), Hunky Dory.

And yet it is palpably obvious that there is are multiple issues worthy of discussion surrounding PGMO and its role in refereeing appointments and subsequent decision making.  But the media are told not to touch it and so they won’t touch it.  They bow to the refereeing gods.

This is a true dictatorship. The absolute dictatorship.  A dictatorship which the majority of the populace and all the media will not acknowledge is a dictatorship.

So it might be time to ask how the Kazakhstani people done what we have failed so utterly and so miserably to do?

First, they have moved at speed.

Second, Kazakhstan held elections.  Yes they were totally fixed, but here the PGMO is so arrogant they don’t even hold elections even though they have a vice like grip on our nation’s favourite sport.

And that’s it. Fake elections and speedy movement.  And yet do we have something on our side which the Kazakh people also have.  In Kazakhstan the government clearly underestimated how angry the population was.

In England, the PGMO clearly have no notion of how angry football followers are with refereeing because PGMO have always had the media on their side.  Thus in Kazakhstan nothing anti-government is reported on national media.  Here nothing anti-PGMO is ever reported.

And our grievances are most certainly much greater than the turning down of a legitimate claim for a penalty, just as the grievance of the people of Kazakhstan are about more than the price of fuel.

And just because the media are in cahoots with the PGMO, quite possibly having signed “no criticism” contracts over any action of the referees, that does not mean we give up now.

Football is, after all our game.  Not PGMO’s game.  Not the media’s game.  It is the people’s game.

We are being conned, and it is not something we are going to forget.  Indeed we might well win this fight, and if we don’t we’ll rise again and again, until we do bring down our eternal enermy.