By Tony Attwood
That there is something seriously wrong with professional football refereeing is a point agreed by many fans, but utterly and totally ignored by the media. And “ignored” is the keyword here. The media don’t investigate the issue and contemplate the facts. They refuse to consider that there even might be an issue.
We’ve looked at this conundrum a few times, and of late I’ve been trying to see if there is a way of pulling all the debate together. So here goes…
Point 1: There is something wrong with the way referees work which seems to include, for example, some referees overseeing many more home wins than others, with other referees regularly oversee away wins. What we would expect would be that most referees’ results would be roughly in line with the league’s average.
Point 2: The fact that there are more home wins than away wins in the league is itself the result of referee bias, as revealed in numerous analyses which compared results during the COVID period when matches were played without crowds, with other times when there are crowds present. Crowds influence refs – that is proven in real-life analyses.
Point 3: The notion that referee errors are not evenly spread between different clubs, but rather that some clubs suffer more than others in this regard, thus leading to the notion of referee bias, is a persistent thought among many fans. Yet the absolute refusal to investigate the matter suggests that PGMO and the media are so entrenched in the view that nothing is wrong that they simply won’t look and listen.
Point 4: The basic concept that referee errors do actually happen in league football, and that these errors do not “all even out in the end”, is ignored by the media even as a possibility, which of course then means that their commentaries on football matches can be somewhat misleading while those with open minds on the subject are laughed at.
Point 5: The fact that not only does the media not even contemplate the evidence of consistent bias of referees one way or another, but also works to denigrate the opinions of anyone who puts forward the notion that there is bias, amounts to a deliberate campaign of promoting the status quo, which means promoting bias. This incorporates an absolute denial that the evidence of bias exists, and the constant denigration of the opinions of people who produce this evidence.
Of course, the essence of this problem is not new. If we look at football 100 years ago – as in fact we are doing on the Arsenal History Society website, via the career of Herbert Chapman (who moved to Arsenal 100 years ago next season), we can see that even then there was a desire to make decisions while avoiding the evidence. In that case it was decided to ban Herbert Chapman from football for life.
Fortunately, Chapman, having abandoned football, was eventually persuaded to appeal and was allowed back into football, moving to Huddersfield Town, and then Arsenal. But the notion that something can be stated in football, and then be taken to be true, even if the evidence points the other way, clearly goes back at least a century.
The issue we have here is what is known by historians as “The handicap of a head start”, and was formulated in 1935 by the Netherlands historian, Jan Romein in his essay The Dialectics of Progress. The law states that if someone sets out a rule or observation or “law” in a certain field this generally means that from there on there is a lack of further research in the field, as the status quo becomes accepted, absolute and not worthy of investigation.
But when the “law” says that referees and the PGMO and the FA are always right and can’t be questioned, we have a problem. So even when it was shown (as it has been by numerous researchers) that if one takes the crowds away, referee decision-making changes, this finding is willfully ignored by football administrators and the media. We have our basic rule (everything is fine with refereeing) and anyone questioning that rule is considered either biased or stupid, when in fact it is the notion that everything is ok, which is both biased and stupid.
As a result, no one goes back and looks at PGMO with an open mind, because the answer is known. Refereeing in England is ok; fans are biased and stupid.
Of course this isn’t the only bit of bonkers thinking that goes on in football. The notion that the FA, Fifa and Uefa are fit organisations to run big events without there being major cockups, is another viewpoint that is maintained without any reference to reality.
Here again, as with refereeing, we have the handicap of the head start. PGMO run refereeing in England, and so the media don’t question why they exist as a secret society with no website, why no one can challenge what their employees do, why no one can challenge why refs don’t give interviews and the need for refs to be driven away from games in designated cars, why the same referee can oversee matches involving the same club over and over again when there could easily be more referees trained to take PL games… and why above all the media have been persuaded virtually never to complain about referees. (Or come to that, ask how such a monopoly supplier could get into such financial difficulties).
The Rule of the Head Start is absolute. Once a body (such as PGMO, or the FA) has the head start, it takes a lot of guts and determination to overthrow them, and one can’t expect the media to lend a hand, because they love the comfortable life, and will rarely step out of line.
As pointed out in previous article, we have Gillett for VAR duty this coming weekends fixture against Newcastle. It will be the 4th time we have had the pleasure of his company in 10 games, an absolute disgrace.
The thing is this has to be deliberate. They simply DO NOT CARE what it looks like. And why should they, nobody else apart from us seems to care?
The Mirror mention it but all they do is turn it into another pop at Arsenal.
They say:
“Mirror Football understands that Arsenal aren’t impressed that Gillett has been assigned to another one of their games after several of his recent decisions went against them”
-So, the Mirror don’t see anything wrong with a Liverpool fan being regularly assigned to Arsenal games.
-It’s, not just ‘recent’ games, there are a multitude of massive decisions that have gone against for a few years now. Yes, some are 50/50 or 60/40 that could go either way, but that’s the point, they don’t go either way. They almost always go against us.
What makes it worse they even list all the decisions that go against us:
“Last term Arteta found himself particularly frustrated by Gillett as Arsenal were beaten at Aston Villa. Gillett ruled out a late Havertz equaliser for handball – a call upheld by VAR – and failed to give a penalty for Douglas Luiz’s challenge on Gabriel Jesus.
Arteta spent that game up in the stands at Villa Park, having been handed a touchline suspension, and tried to bite his tongue after the game. After the defeat in the Midlands the Arsenal boss simply claimed he had “a big opinion” on the decisions and that they were “clear and obvious to me”.
Arsenal’s last visit to Newcastle also had Arteta fuming as he claimed some of the decisions were a “disgrace.” The north Londoners were narrowly beaten 1-0 with Anthony Gordon’s second-half winner surviving three separate VAR checks.”
But again, the Mirror don’t suggest for one second there’s anything amiss that a Liverpool fan keeps being put in charge of Arsenal games. They don’t question PGMOL’s integrity for keep putting him in charge, or indeed Gilletts impartiality given the amount of big calls against Arsenal.
They KNOW it’s not right. Could you imagine if an Arsenal fan was constantly being given Man city matches and performing as Gillett does?
Nothing to see here and as usual it’s just Arsenal whinging as they suggest with “Arteta launched a full blown rant in several post-match press conferences and was later charged by the FA for his choice of language.”
I cant find the appointment even mentioned anywhere else, let alone questioned. If anyone else seems anything I’d be interested to see it because I just don’t think anybody cares.
Every time the subject comes up I mention the PGMOL is owned and funded primarily by the Premier League. The other owners are the Football League and the FA. There is a charter and yet the prevailing opinion is that they are untouchable and infallible. STOP FUNDING them. Form a new org. for officiating. Somebody please explain why the owners of an entity have no say in the running and functioning of it. And now in addition to the bias and inconsistency the f****ers are bankrupt!
If pressure is to be put on the media it needs to be put on the PL or, more specifically, on the Clubs. They have too much invested to continue to allow this. Arsenal, for instance, were the victims of several dodgy calls last season. They came 2nd by 2 points. They were denied a Championship and the increased revenue that brings.
We keep getting Gillett, and Man. City keep getting Oliver.
The same Michael Oliver who was unable to send off Kovacic last season after committing 2 red-card tackles because “he doesn’t want to have a negative impact on the game by overreacting.”