By Tony Attwood
- How football is following the lead of Mohamed Al-Fayed
- How one manipulative malevolent interview has re-energised the media hatred of Arsenal
On 10 October last year the Mirror ran the bold headling “Howard Webb urged to issue ban on referees after Arsenal vs Man City incident”. On October 11 another headline read “PGMOL chief Howard Webb warned to stop referees officiating games in Saudi Arabia & UAE.”
And this shocked football because the media has a general agreement with the Premier League and PGMO not to focus on referees. But for a moment the media broke that deal, and the story bout referees freelancing outside England, became big news.
“Webb has got himself in a tangle” over the topic The New York Times told us late the same month. And of course we covered this with our piece The clearest exposition yet that there is something very wrong with refereeing
So what happened? In December 2023 Goal ran the story “Premier League referees to continue working abroad despite huge Darren England blunder over Luis Diaz goal in Tottenham-Liverpool clash”.
At first there was an attempt to play down the impact of referees working in Saudi with claims that “PGMOL found no link in the VAR error and travel to Saudi,” and “Each request will be weighed based on the merit.”
That was quite a change – the refs had to make a “request” to work in Saudi. Then the Telegraph reeported that “Howard Webb under pressure to stop letting referees work in Saudi Arabia.” And then dead silence. The refs, it seemed had almost totally stopped working in Saudi.
Until we heard the news that “Premier League faces calls to increase funding for cash-strapped PGMOL” with further reports that “Referees’ body’s reserves have fallen to almost zero” and “Training programme under threat without more cash.”
So several giant quetions arose – the biggest of which
First, did Saudi Arabia stop using Premier League referees? The answer seems to be yes. Did PL refs then demand more money from PGMO to compensate for this loss of earnings? The answers seems to be yes. Did PGMO have the money to pay the referees extra? The answer seems to be no. Finally, did the media, which was so utterly engaged in the story about Premier League referees being in Saudi, follow up on the story? The answer clearly is no.
So we’ll have to do it for them.
Having been ordered to stop working in Saudi the referees then turned to PGMO for compensation. It appears that PGMO then immediately raised the salary of its top officials to compensate for the loss of Saudi earnings.
Here it all gets a bit murky but it seems that PGMO then expected he PL clubs to start paying PGMO a lot more, so PGMO could compensate its referees for their loss of Saudi earnings.
But the clubs said no, they had a legal contract with PGMO to pay them at a set rate and they were not suddenly going to break that agreement just because PGMO had got themselves in a pickle. So PGMO announced it was on the edge of going into liquidation.
And there the matter has rested. PGMO is in crisis mode. The referees are under contract to work for PGMO and fear they would not get a good press is they suddenly went on strike, because there was no sympathy with them charging off to Saudi to handle a match, and then flying back to England to take on another game a couple of days later – especially when they made real cock-ups.
But PGMO had one weapon it could use: its deal with the English media via the Premier League and other leagues through which the mainstream media, and all the blogs that just follow the lead of the mainstream not to talk about referees. But meanwhile, the shortage of referees has grown.
What also set the cat among the pigeons was a piece with the headline “Objective Data: Liverpool Are Refereed VERY VERY Differently To Rival Clubs” Whether that article is objective or not is not the point, the pont is that the article contained an analysis. And that, the Premier League has not been used to seeing. An analysis of comparative refereeing is absolutely the very last thing PGMO wants on show, although the data of course is all there (we take it from Whoscored – see here for current data).
So we are now in the ludicrous situationion. PGMO the monopoly supplier is tied into a contract with the Premier League through which the referees were paid very modestly but could supplement their income in Saudi or elsewhere. Except that contract has now been changed so the refs want more money.
And the media won’t touch the story because it has a gentleman’s agreement with PGMO not to talk much about referees.
One might say, “what a mess!” Or maybe something stronger, for we are truly in the territory which with any other topic would at the very least be called a total disaster..
Man city game has proved for the 735th time that the refs in PL are utterly useless. They are corrupt, they are told which team has to win or which team should not win. They hate specific teams, they are stressed out because if they don’t do as they are told they probably get financial punishment. So it is a total cluster fuck, did anyone focus for a split second on the look on Oliver’s face whenever he was going to give a call against Arsenal? It’s like he couldn’t wait to do it fast enough, it’s like there was an urge, a need and a demand/strict orders to be followed by him. And then whenever it came to giving decisions against city it was obvious he had that painful expression on his face where it screams, ‘I know I’m on live tv but I was told to fix this match so that Arsenal don’t get 3 points’ , well in the end he just about managed to do so, he looked so relieved at the final whistle.
The fact that he has extended both 1st and 2nd half time added on by further 2 minutes just goes to show that he really wanted city to win. Coincidentally Trossard was shown a 2nd yellow 73 seconds AFTER the 6 minutes added on and city equalised in 98th minute, so not inside the 7 added minutes either. Doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out what’s going on in the league. It’s been bought by city long time ago and this circus we call competition. There is no competition, there is an Arab princes’s toy named Premier League and then there are ‘also fans’ that’s it.
Will Howard Webb now come out with a statement?
Remember last season Arsenal – Man $ity115 Kovacic already on a yellow made an even worse foul and should have been sent off with a second yellow card. Oliver (who else) didn’t give the second card. Howard Webb came out defending Oliver by saying that: “Oliver didn’t want to ruin the game” and so Kovacic could remain on the field. Good refereeing the whole world said….
A year later…. Oliver dishes out a second yellow card when the first half should have been over for more than a minute for kicking the ball away. Now it was not a matter of ruining the game…. no, it was the letter of the law.
To be honest: as I was in need to go to the toilet at half time I was making myself ready and standing up to make it in time when the Trossard incident happened. I first thought that the ref had blown for half time…. but no, Oliver couldn’t wait to ruin the game…..
I’ve watched the replay of the City game a few times. I don’t think Trossard was kicking the ball away. It looks like he was trying to set up an Arsenal break by passing the ball to Martinelli.
Interestingly, Dermot Gallagher on RefWatch says “he’s not going to pass to Martinelli like that”, as if he is stating a fact, instead of his opinion. My opinion is strongly leaning towards it being an attempted pass.
seismic
I’ve noticed, and pointed out previously how when it suits they seem to be able to read a players mind.
“Rice new what he was doing’
“Trossard wouldn’t of attempted a pass like that”
But when that Wolves player put his hand around Havertz neck we got.
“Only the player knows if he meant to do that” Therefor they gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Selective mindreading. A very useful tool when you want to justify something.
Tonight in our game and bits and pieces of the united game, I saw at least 4 events of an identical nature to ones we have had second yellows for, not carded.
In our match the most obvious was a shot taken by the Bolton player a couple of seconds after the whistle. Clearly that is kicking the ball away preventing a quick free kick.
There was also an arm pull preventing a break for us that didn’t receive a card despite Calafiori receiving one in the first half for a slight shirt pull.
In the United game a very similar tap away to that of Rice’s by a Twente player to stop a quick free kick for United, right under the referees nose..
In all cases no histrionics from players or referee because we all know yellows for those would of been pretty soft, despite all being worthy of cards by the letter of the law.
We would have another 3 or 4 yellows/reds in every match if referees applied the Laws in such a fashion, and none of us want that, except when it’s Arsenal of course.
And guess what. Not a word from the commentators.
No moaning about consistency.
No accusations of the dark arts.
And don’t tell me it didn’t run through their minds because they were so obvious. But nothing.
In conclusion what I’ll say is, that the sad thing is we all knew we would see these glaring inconsistences tonight. We all knew not a word would be said by a single commentator. It probably happened in every single game across Europe tonight. Similar offences allowed to pass without a murmur.
And it will all happen again this weekend, and next and the next.
It is sick
How does Michael Oliver manage to sleep at night?
How does Patrick Davidson manage to sleep at night?
How does Roy Keane manage to sleep at night?
How Does Jamie Carragher manage to sleep at night?
How does Gary Neville manage to sleep at night?
How does Jill Scott manage to sleep at night?
How does Ian Wright manage to sleep at night?
How does Steve Madeley manage to sleep at night?
How does Jason Cundy manage to sleep at night?
How does Graham Souness manage to sleep at night?
How does Howard Webb manage to sleep at night?
How does Michael Owen manage to sleep at night?
How does Dermot Gallagher manage to sleep at night?
How does Graham Kavanagh manage to sleep at night?