Football in England is policed by football clubs and a secret cabal. Is that such a bad thing?

 

 

Latest in our series on 100 Years since Herbert Chapman joined Arsenal:  Chapman, the player who moved from club to club to club…

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• Why ignoring a topic in football is infinitely more dangerous than disagreeing with it

By Tony Attwood

So it didn’t take long to be told that at the very least one of Arsenal’s goals should not have stood in the West Ham game because allegedly Jurriën Timber blocked Lucas Paquetá as the corner was taken.    And, indeed there is more than a hint of corruption here for as the Guardian says, “It was tough to see how the video assistant referee had missed a clear offence, even among a seething mass of bodies”

Now that is a serious allegation.  “It was tough to see how” is equivalent to meaning, “Of course it couldn’t happen unless there was corruption”.  In short, the VAR must have seen it, but deliberately done nothing about it, in order to help Arsenal and harm West Ham.  Which would be corrupt.   (Or at the very least the VAR ref could be called “biased” which would be the equivalent).

To be quite clear however I am not calling the VAR, nor anyone else, corrupt.  But what I am saying is that because of the overarching level of mega-secrecy that there is in professional football in England, we run into difficulties.  For VAR, like the rest of refereeing in the Premier League is run by a secret cabal (PGMO) which stifles all discussion.  As I have noted before, unlike in some countries where referees come out after the game and discuss the issues from the game with the media, that doesn’t happen here.

So again we ask, “why?”  We don’t know.  And why does the media not ask?  We don’t know that either, although here we might assume that it is because they are told by PGMO that they will lose their press passes if they ask the wrong questions.

So, let’s just say for the moment we have a potential problem – and surely someone ought to be able to sort it out.   Except we then come across a shocking fact: no one controls professional football clubs in England.   The FA has repeatedly said in statements to people who have turned to them for help that they DO NOT and WILL NOT under any circumstances investigate clubs, no matter what they get up to.  Their entire focus is on individuals.

This is of course quite handy for the FA because a) it cuts down their workload and b) means that when the FA itself totally screws up (as with the Euro 2020 final) there was absolutely no organisation that could investigate the issue apart from Uefa.   And if you think Uefa has a history of fair and reasoned judgements in such matters, well, at that point we have to part company.  Just think your way through a few Champions League finals.

But back to the clubs.   If a club misbehaves in any way, either through playing an unregistered player, having an unsafe stadium which burns down (remember Bradford?), or failing to investigate and act upon the wholesale abuse of children, for example by playing a 15 year old in a youth match when injured, just to make up the numbers, the FA will do nothing, and take no action.  Yet a child played when injured just makes the injury worse – which is abuse, but the child and his parents can claim no compensation, because it is a club matter and the FA will not investigate clubs.

All of which raises the question, who does investigate and take on a club that is acting totally inappropriately?  In one sense we could say, “Obviously the police,” but as anyone who lives in England knows, the police are hopelessly overwhelmed and are reluctant to do investigations without clear evidence first.  And since the police have a deal with the FA and League not to enter the grounds, they’ve washed their hands of the matter.   Seemingly that means the only organisation that could take this on is the FA, but they have made it clear they absolutely won’t, and besides as they have shown in terms of running matches at Wembley, they are incompetent.

So that leaves either the Premier League or the Football League, and as we know the PL is taking action against Manchester City, who are also meanwhile suing the rest of the clubs.  In short, the Premier League, apparently the most eminent football league on the planet, is not ruled by anyone except itself, is answerable to no one, and meanwhile the individual members are suing each other.   It’s a bit like a child marking his own homework while reporting his teacher for child abuse.

Of course some rules are blatantly easy to police.  The paying of transfer fees on the due date generally happens because the club that is owed money makes a fuss if it doesn’t.   Even if the League doesn’t act, no other club will sell a player to the miscreant club.

But what about crowd safety in the stadium?  As we know, the police do not come into the stadium for a Premier League game.  (I haven’t been to a Football League game for a while, but I think it is the same there).  

So there we are.  Football clubs are policed by…. football clubs.   And for some reason, that doesn’t give me confidence.