By Tony Attwood
A poster on X recently wrote…
- Time per Liverpool corner: – 22 seconds – 34 seconds – 18 seconds
- Time for Raya yellow card for time wasting: – 19 seconds
The writer who noted those times then followed up those statistics with the comment “It’s pre-meditated.”
I was grateful to read those statistics, but I can’t agree with the conclusion if it suggests that this was pre-meditated by the ref. For pre-meditated suggests it is planned by the referee – he knows in advance he is going to help Liverpool to get away with it. But it could well be planned by players who know how the ref will respond.
Thus such a state of affairs might come about through incompetence, or it might be that the bias is sub-conscious while the reporting could well be simply copycat, but it is being used by some clubs In this case, Liverpool are seen as a fair-minded team, and indeed are promoted as such by some journalists, although without anything by way of evidence which compares the club to other clubs. And the reverse might be true.
That situation reveals simple copycat journalism set out in order to get an article off to the sports editor as fast as possible, before moving on to the next piece.
The result of such actions can be seen in the correspondence column here. For if you follow some of the comments on this site, you may well have noted one correspondent writing in what has become a typical fashion, abusing us for even raising the issue that something is not right, but without providing any evidence to support the correspondent’s case.
On the other hand, I don’t think we’ve had anyone take up the issue of why David Coote last season saw over half of all the matches he controlled as home wins, while Jarred Gillett saw almost half the games he controlled as away wins. While Anthony Taylor saw over half the games he controlled as draws. And these are all referees overseeing more than 20 Premier League games.
To put it another way, if the away team is told that Darren England is the referee, they know they should play 11 behind the ball and go for a draw, because judging by his figures they ain’t gonna get a win. While a home team seeing they have Robert Jones knows to go full-on to score and then just hold onto that winning position, since Mr Jones very rarely oversees a game in which the away team picks up points.
But this is not to say that there is deliberate bias. As the research undertaken during the pandemic shows, referees are influenced by the crowd. But since then referees have changed – some taking no notice of the research and still being influenced by the home crowd, while others are fighting against that influence so much, they bend over backwards to help the away team along.
However, even in these circumstances, I don’t think the referee actually knows he’s doing it. Which is yet another reason why a) the PGMO needs to be brought under control perhaps by being overseen by an outside independent controller. Or if you prefer Nanny. And b) an attempt needs to be made to educate the journalists who make fun of Arsenal fans who suggest anything is wrong with refereeing and show them that quite a few of us are looking at this seriously.
The simple fact is there is no proper discussion of refereeing in the Premier League, Just consider the basic facts.
First here we have a monopoly supplier of referees that has basically said it has run out of money. How can that be other than through corruption or incompetence?
Second, here is a monopoly supplier of an important commodity which has no public face and allows no media engagement with it – unlike in other countries where the referee can give interviews after the game.
Third, there is a media which unwittingly or wittingly supports the stance of PGMO by utterly refusing to engage in the debate. The key point is not that some Arsenal fans think Referee X is biased, or that some fans of another club think that Referee Y is biased. It is the fact that the media won’t engage in any sort of debate at all. Not even, how come the referee answers questions on TV after the game in Germany, but is even told which car he is to be driven away from the ground in, in England?
Simply laughing at anyone who raises the issue of referee competence is playing into the hands of the ultra-secretive PGMO, and is exactly what they want. Likewise suggesting that there is clearly bias, doesn’t get us anywhere, because those who laugh at this and call it a “conspiracy theory” are already fairly numerous.
The only way forward is to try and fix this by having a much more open PGMO, enough referees so that no club sees the same ref more than twice in a season, and far better training for referees so that we stop having obvious “home club” referees and equally obvious “away club” referees.
The way I see it, the entire refereeing system and rules is set up to permit biases etc. In order for the game to be fair, you must remove as much judgement as possible and let the teams decide how they want to play.
What I mean is, in terms of fairness for example the delaying restart rule is set up to be unfair. It would be simpler to say if the player kicks the ball 1.5 seconds or 1 seconds after the whistle is blown he will be penalized for delaying the restart. This gives teams the right to now, be clever or to be stupid. What would them happen is that the referees judgement call is no longer required and every team can be treated equally.
We could go through all the rules and convert 90% of them to be more objective and less subjective thereby removing elreferees from the centre stage and leaving the players and teams to make use of the rules as they see fit. There is absolutely no need to micromanage the way the game is played.
In my view, the referees are upset at Arteta for exposing their bias or ineptitude, and they are thus seizing every opportunity to punish Arsenal. I think the gunners can forget any domestic silverware this season and focus on Europe.
One thing is absolutely certain.” We are reffed differently “.Why?There are numerous examples of this that cannot be explained by simply saying we’re paranoid.