EPL REFEREE REVIEW 2012: WHAT CAN WE SHOW YOU?

By Walter Broeckx

The previous article in this series can be read here.

We will try to give you information on various things but all connected with the ref and how they did their games.

How many wrong decisions we have found. And also what those decisions were about. Was it the little foul in the middle of the field. Was the a not given yellow or red card? A wrong given penalty or a not given penalty? A wrongly given or disallowed goal. We should be able to give you all those numbers from the games we did.

Not just the general totals but also the totals of each team. So expect a referee review report on each team.

After all the general reports we will be looking for bias. According to Mike Riley of the PGMOL there is no bias from the referees. Sticking you head in the sand is a way of (not) dealing with some issues. We try to pull the heads out of the sand and look for the bias that can exist. And bias can take on many forms.

The regular like a club bias or hate a club bias. The ordinary like a manager bias or hate a manager bias. The home and away bias. The possible regional bias or the north-south bias.  The big team – small team bias. If there is a bias hidden in the numbers we will try to come up with it.

 

And then we will also focus on the referees in detail. We will see what their average score is on the different things we have been looking. A general score of all the refs combined and then we will also try to make up a league of the referees. Make a report on each ref. What are his strong points. In what is he rather weak. Or somewhere in the middle. And show some bias or strange numbers between their general games related to some teams.

All this based on all the reviews we have done.

 

Then we will draw our conclusions.

We will see if all is well in the world of PL referees. We will try to  conclude if the standard is high enough or not. We will conclude if we have found enough evidence to declare that the bias is unacceptable or not. In my opinion any visible bias is unacceptable but we will see if the numbers back me up on this.

And we will give our thoughts on how to improve whatever is wrong with the referees in the PL. We will suggest measures that should be taken to make the game fairer.

And by making the game fairer I mean making it fair for every team. Fair for every player. Fair for every supporter.

As I live outside England I have to travel a few hours to get to London to get my regular dose of PL football. And believe me nothing is more frustrating than sitting in the stadium looking at how a ref makes the wrong decisions and within seconds getting a message on my phone confirming the ref was wrong.

And when your favourite team drops points because of that you have a long way to go before you are home. A frustrating long way home.

 

My dream is that every time a game is played in the PL that both set of players, managers AND supporters will be able to go home in the knowledge that the final score was correct. I know a team can win a game and doesn’t deserve to win it but got lucky with all the shots hitting the posts or the keeper having a great game and then suddenly score on a counter. That is part of the normal laws of football. If you don’t score, you can’t win.

 

But I want us all to be sure that whatever the result the referee didn’t influence the final outcome in a wrong way. THAT is why we have been doing it for. I would hate to see my team win from a bad decision from the ref. I hate it when my team loses because of a bad decision from the ref. I don’t want other supporters to undergo the same cruel fate so I can be happy and win a game. I really don’t feel happy when we win from a mistake from the ref but haven’t seen it happen for a long time to be honest.

But I just don’t want it to happen. Let us all, and by all I really mean ALL SUPPORTERS OF ALL TEAMS, join forces and ask for a higher referee standard. Let us all join forces and ask to take on every opportunity to assist and help the refs. Let us all join forces to make sure that if we do this review next season all the refs would get a score of 90% and a score of 100% on the important decisions.

Your team might win a few points, your team might lose a few points when the ref gets assistance from outside. But one thing can be sure: FOOTBALL WILL BE THE WINNER.

And if you not just love your own team but also feel a bit of love for the game itself, you should subscribe to my and our ultimate goal at this blog called  Untold Arsenal:

TO MAKE FOOTBALL FAIR, FOR ALL!

 

And now I can tell you that it really is time to move on to the numbers on the refs in the PL.