By Tony Attwood, with thanks to Untold-Referee.com
OK, let’s start with the fact. No Premier League referee has actually overseen the same team eight times this season. But on 1 January, Chris Kavanagh has been assigned to Liverpool for a fourth time in the season, and as Liverpool play their game, and that will be halfway through the season. So eight Liverpool games for the same ref is quite likely, and indeed, we would argue, four in half a season is already far too much.
Now all the details and background data have been revealed on Untold Referee, and I am hoping you’ll take in the full situation there. But I’d like to consider the implications.
We are often told that the Premier League is the most popular league in the world, with its matches shown worldwide. We also know that Premier League clubs overall get the highest income of any clubs in the world, through the course of the year.
This, in turn, implies that there is enough money to employ enough referees so that each referee only sees each team twice in a season (once home and once away).
Now the argument against this appears to be that there is no solid evidence that referees in the Premier League are biased, although many supporters of Premier League clubs would argue either that they are, or that they are incompetent.
But I would argue that is not the point. Because so many fans think there is something wrong with refereeing in the Premier League, it behoves the Premier League to show very clearly that this is not the case. Yet at the moment, the officials who decide which referee goes where are doing the opposite – they are providing those who are suspicious of what goes on within PGMO with ammunition which suggests something really is wrong.
Of course clubs in the Premier League are not evenly spread – we have seven London teams in the league. And I would suggest it is not a bad idea to ensure that no London-based referee oversees a match involving a London-based club.
As it turns out that is not too hard to arrange – but for the wrong reason. Because 65% of Premier League referees originate from the north of the country, and that is where the real trouble lies. There are not that many northern Premier League teams, but the majority of referees are from the north, so the northern referees keep on overseeing matches involving northern teams.
Now, of course, the argument can be put that there is no evidence that northern referees are being biased in favour of northern teams. But I would say that is not the point.
The politics of refereeing at the moment means that day after day we get criticism and comment from fans about the quality of refereeing, and yet on this, PGMOL makes no comment. Add to this that, as we note above, some clubs get the same referees over and over again, and there is a problem.
So, how have the Premier League solved their problem of the unbalanced geographic distribution of referees? Answer: They have simply ignored it. As a result, a vast number of fans (and judging by the comments on blogs and other social media I’d say quite possibly a majority of fans) believe that referees are biased or incompetent or both.
Now this has been the case for some time, but the feeling that all is not well with refereeing in the Premier League is growing.
Yet there is a simple solution, and it is one that we have put forward multiple times. It is that simple: the league should have enough referees so that each referee only sees each club once at home and once away in a season.
The argument against that is that it will be impossible for referees to be balanced out in this way and that some weeks they won’t have a game to oversee. I’d say that’s no problem – give them a Championship game in another part of the country.
Now these proposals are quite simple, and not radical, and yet although in the eyes of many fans they are of significance, neither the newspapers, the broadcast media, the PGMOL who employs the referees, nor the clubs make any comment. And one might ask why that is.
I think the reason is that PGMO has issued instructions to clubs not to say a word about referees, and also instructed the clubs to tell journalists that if they do criticise referees, their press passes will be withdrawn.
As a result, without actual referee-related issues to discuss, the media is reduced to publishing stories of possible transfers, of which, as we have shown, 97% never happen.
Newspaper readership is in terminal decline, which is why the media is falling over itself to sell subscriptions to read newspapers online. Unfortunately for PGMO most fans are saying no to that, because they know that the media won’t cover the issue they are interested in: the referees.
