- The disturbing facts behind the sending off by referee Michael Oliver
- Arsenal suffer the worst referee error of the season so far, but still win!
By Tony Attwood
PGMO have had it their own way for decades – the secrecy, the statement that they are always right, the refusal to engage with the public or the media. Or to put it in one phrase, “They don’t even have a website.”
They have of course realised that this could be a dangerous path to follow especially if the media started to pick up on the way some referees hardly ever oversee home wins, while some hardly ever oversee away wins – and indeed how the number of yellow cards issued by referees varies so greatly from one to another.
But the media has colluded with PGMO in not raising these issues. And yes we might rail against PGMO, but the media are just as much part of the problem.
Meanwhile what has happened is that as teams have become more and more aware of what PGMO does, they change their style of play to suit the referee – but this is not how it should be. Clubs should play to their strengths while noting the strength of the opposition – not be influenced by the propensity of the designated referee to favour the home or away team.
Here’s a few of the bonkers figures, all taken just from this season, and all from referees who have overseen at least 15 games this season
The Percentage of away wins ranges from 48% for one referee seeing multiple games down to 14% for another.
Only four of Antony Taylor’s 21 games have been home wins,
Nine of John Brooks’ 11 games have been home wins.
In short, once you know who the referee is, you stand a very good chance of being able to predict and indeed bet upon the result, if you are a gambler.
Look at the referees with extreme figures (Taylor and Brooks are examples but there are others) and then bet on those games according to their past results. And the only reason the gambling companies are still taking these sorts of bets is because the media silently collude with PGMO in not highlighting this fact.
The referees’ body, Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), has said it is appalled by the “abhorrent abuse”, including death threats, Michael Oliver and his family have received after the Myles Lewis-Skelly in Arsenal’s 1-0 victory at Wolverhampton. PGMO have now taken this to the police.
And the real problem is that while PGMO could indeed be considering how their referee got it so wrong, and why some referees see far more home wins than one might expect, while others see so many more away wins than you might expect, they went down an utterly different route with their statement that “We are appalled by the threats and abuse directed at Michael Oliver following the Wolverhampton Wanderers v Arsenal fixture. No official should be subject to any form of abuse, let alone the abhorrent attacks aimed at Michael and his family over the past 24 hours.
“The police are aware, and a number of investigations have commenced. We are supporting Michael, and all those affected, and are determined to tackle this unacceptable behaviour. Sadly, this is not the first time a match official has been forced to deal with threats in recent times.”
And yes of course they need to protect referees – but they also need to investigate the key problem – which is the way that some referees keep on seeing home wins, and others keep on seeing away wins.
And if you would like a bit more try this. The PGMO was paying its referees low wages – but to compensate for this is allowed (some might say encouraged, but I have no evidence on that score) its referees to undertake refereeing in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But some clubs (no names but you know) are owned by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, or its top ultra-rich people.
You might see a conflict of interest here, and many of us did but it took years for PGMO to respond and referees were not banned from taking these refereeing jobs on the side until as late as September 2024. And there is some suggestion that is this group of referees, now resentful of not being allowed to work for all the extra money, who one might suspect are involved in refereeing matches involving clubs owned by nation-states.
Of course, we don’t make specific allegations and we are clear we don’t have the evidence. All we do is look at what is happening and ask, “is that really the best way to do things?” And it remains down to us to ask, because the mainstream English media won’t touch the subject.
As others have said re the previous post, it is surprising that Gallagher has said that he thought that MLS foul only merited a yellow card.
Before we get too pleased at this unexpected opinion, it’s worth noting that he said that Oliver’s decision was made in the belief that the tackle had involved studs down the achilles tendon. Clearly, this is not what happened, so the next obvious question is why did he not look at the screen to confirm the situation.
The only answer, as Tony suggests in this thread, is that Oliver alone is not the problem and that VAR (England on this occasion) is complicit in a collective and delberate campaign against Arsenal.
As a footnote, the old claims by Oliver that he does not referee N ewcastle or Sunderland, or teams which might be in competition with Newcastle are clearly false.
Who are Arsenal due to play on 5th February? What a shame if any of our playeres is out through suspension? PGMOL, Webb and the media are not even trying to disguise their bias!
John L
FFS, they are turning themselves inside out and upside down to make excuses for these incompetent fools. Listen to this:
Gallagher said: “Oliver’s decision was made in the belief that the tackle had involved studs down the Achilles tendon”.
If that’s the case then, why didn’t VAR intervene, because Olivers interpretation of what happened was clearly wrong.
Well, apparently it’s because according to the Mirror today, and in complete contradiction to what Gallagher claims:
“….the Northumberland-born referee followed the correct protocol and provided an accurate (I repeat ACCURATE) description of the incident to the VAR team. Darren England, who was the lead video assistant referee for the game at Molineux, listened and felt that there was insufficient evidence to overturn the decision. The images which England and assistant VAR Adrian Holmes closely examined showed Lewis-Skelly making contact with Doherty’s leg with his studs.”
1) Oliver did NOT provide an accurate description of the incident.
2) The images that Darren England and assistant VAR Adrian Holmes closely examined clearly showed that.
Gallagher, and just about everybody else on planet Earth can see that Oliver’s interpretation/description of the incident was clearly INACCURATE, so why couldn’t Darren England?
He saw exactly what the rest of the World saw.
Honestly, the lengths these people are prepared to go to defend the indefensible beggars belief.
A laughable sham.
I suggest next time we have Oliver we just start the match with 10 players on the field and leave one player outside. And then ask permission to enter the field after a minute. If journalists then after the match ask what happened Arteta can just say: we did as we are used to do when Oliver is the ref but then realised he hadn’t just send someone off….
As an aside to the current discussion re Oliver and the latest red card, it was noted that MLS was the first 18 yr-old player in the Premier League to be sent off since 2010.
Can anyone recall who was the previous 18 yr-old to be sent off?
It was Jack Wilshere! What an amazing coincidence!