What is really wrong with Premier League refereeing? We decided to find out

 

By Tony Attwood, working with Christophe Jost and Untold Referees

The arguments about something being very seriously wrong with refereeing in the Premier League have been going on virtually since the league started, with fans of many PL clubs putting forward the point that some referees are at best incompetent, or at worst, biased against their club.

Yet the mass media have utterly ignored this debate.  Indeed, if you just rely on the mass media, you wouldn’t know that anyone has been investigating why one referee might see around 70% of the PL games his oversees as home wins across the whole season, and another might see under 20% of his games end as home wins.  

Now I must stress “investigating” here, because I am not saying all complaints about referees are correct, but rather there are so many complaints, and such an obvious lack of consistency in the way refereeing of PL games is handled, that a responsible media would undoubtedly consider this issue as one worthy of debate every week of the season. 

Instead, the media is united in ignoring both the constant background of complaints by some supporters and the extraordinary variance between referee performances, either because they have been instructed so to do, or through a fear that criticism will lead to the removal of press passes.   Thus the image is maintained: nothing is wrong with refereeing, and complaints come from fans trying to excuse their club’s failings on the pitch.  Which in turn means that any debate as to the quality of referees is stopped before it starts.

Indeed, we have become so used to the fact that the media will debate the quality of the performance of players but not the quality of the performance of the referee, that doing so seems quite natural and normal.  No one questions it at all.

Yet the media of us do consider the quality of the work done by house builders, politicians, TV performers, cooks in restaurants, footballers etc.  Why not referees?  Did someone tell them not to?

Of course, one could argue that fans are generally only concerned about their own club.   An Arsenal fan is unlikely to study a video of a Newcastle v Man U game and start counting the number of referee errors therein.  So we rely on the media for that analysis.   However, in football, the media rarely debate the work of the referee.  Do they ever say, “this ref made six important errors in this game”?

 Indeed, the media ignore the fact that last season one referee has seen 25% more fouls in each and every game he oversaw than another.   Or that one referee (John Brooks) handed out nearly three times as many yellow cards in each and every game he has overseen as Anthony Taylor.  Or why no one else ever mentioned this.

Yet the data is there showing that there is no consistency at all in the way referees handle PL games, and so a club getting a certain referee half a dozen times in a season may face a particular disadvantage, or (if they get another ref) may actually benefit.

Worse, we know that the media won’t take up this issue, and we know the referees’ association (PGMOL) is so secretive it allows no interviews and doesn’t even have a website. 

Which is why we’ve decided to take action by debating the issues about referring that the media utterly refuses to touch.

And in this regard, we’ve supported the launch of a new website: Untold Referee, where the first articles are now online.  You might particularly want to take a look at the Introducing article as a guide to what we are up to.

Plus, you might like to note that this is just the start.  We are not going away, because the point we make is far too important: there is something wrong with refereeing in the PL, and for some reason the media will not address the issue.

The UK media do not ask why a club like Arsenal playing in the richest league in the world, gets the same referee over and over again, or why, unlike in Germany, referees will not give interviews after games, or why PGMOL has no website or…   well, you get the idea.

Fans of individual clubs tend not to look at the whole situation because, quite naturally and reasonably, they are primarily interested in their own club and its interaction with referees.   

But because the only database examining referee activity is not widely publicised, and never gets mentioned by the media, fans focus only on their own club when talking about referees, and that can always be dismissed as special pleading.  

So it is down to us.  Untold Referees is new and I should add it is not written or edited by the team at Untold Arsenal – but we are supporting it completely, because we think the most curious nature of the way refereeing in the PL is organised is something that needs to be considered.

Don’t expect the mass media or indeed other football websites that never mention PGMO to pick up on Untold Referees, because they take the view that nothing is wrong.  But if you have ever thought something isn’t right in relation to refereeing, this might be a good place to start.