- Home / away bias of referees
As we saw last season some referees favour the home club, and some the away club. As we can see from this season’s results Attwell and Jones have over seen four straight home wins, while Pawson has overseen four straight awa6y wins. Four referees have gone through four games without seeing a single away win.
| Referee | games | HomeWin% | AwayWin% | Draw% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.Michael Oliver | 5 | 60.0 | 40.0 | 0.0 |
| 2.Paul Tierney | 5 | 60.0 | 20.0 | 20.0 |
| 3.Anthony Taylor | 5 | 0.0 | 40.0 | 60.0 |
| 4.Stuart Attwell | 4 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| 5.Craig Pawson | 4 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 |
| 6.Simon Hooper | 4 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 50.0 |
| 7.Andy Madley | 4 | 50.0 | 25.0 | 25.0 |
| 8.Peter Bankes | 4 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 50.0 |
| 9.Robert Jones | 4 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
But it is not always like this. Look what happened in 2020/21 when there were no crowds at a lot of games.
| Season | Home percentage of points | Away percentage of points |
| 2018/19 | 57% | 43% |
| 2019/20 | 58% | 42% |
| 2020/21 | 44% | 56% |
| 2021/22 * | 57% | 43% |
*Season up to 12 December 2021.
So in the season when for a lot of the time there was no crowd at a lot of the games the situation changed – and then changed back very quickly the next season.
In short and without going back through all the statistics on this website, the result a club might get depends as much on the referee as it does on how well the teams play, not least because referees are influenced by the crowd.
2. Not enough referees to have everyone see each club twice only
It would not be difficult to train up and recruit enough referees so that every referee only saw each club once in a season, once at home and once away. Then if this wretched home/away bias could not be removed we would at least have a balance between clubs. As things stand Arsenal can get three referees in a row of home games, each of whom has an away team bias.
3. The numbers of tackles fouls and yellows make no sense
Leeds are currently committing 24.2 fouls per game, more than anyone else. But they have to commit 11.20 fouls for a yellow card to be given.
West Ham is committing 13 fouls a game and after 11.11 fouls they get a yellow. So that looks fair, the number of fouls a club has to commit to get a yellow card is roughly similar between Leeds and West Ham. Somewhere around 11 fouls to get a yellow card.
Except that Everton are committing 17.5 fouls before they get a yellow card. How can that be right? While for Brentford it is only 5.79 fouls that lead to a yellow. Why are Brentford being so penalised? Are their fouls each really three times worse than Everton’s fouls? When I watched them I couldn’t see that.
In fact the number of fouls that a club has to commit to get a yellow card ranges from 17.5 for Everton down to 5.6 for Nottingham Forest!!!
| Fouls per yellow position | Team & Fouls PG position | Fouls per game | Yellow Cards per game | Fouls per Yellow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everton 4 | 20.3 | 1.16 | 17.5 |
| 2 | Liverpool 19 | 13 | 0.83 | 15.66 |
| 3 | Manchester City 20 | 10.2 | 0.66 | 15,45 |
| 4 | Southampton 9 | 17.7 | 1.33 | 13.30 |
| 5 | Leicester 15 | 15.2 | 1.17 | 12.99 |
| 6 | Leeds 1 | 24.2 | 2.16 | 11.20 |
| 7 | West Ham 18 | 13 | 1.17 | 11.11 |
| 8 | Chelsea 2 | 21.5 | 2.00 | 10.75 |
| 9 | Brighton 10 | 17.2 | 1.66 | 10.36 |
| 10 | Crystal Palace 7 | 18 | 1.83 | 9.83 |
| 11 | Wolverhampton 5 | 19 | 2.00 | 9.50 |
| 12 | Bournemouth 6 | 18 | 2.00 | 9.00 |
| 13 | Newcastle 12 | 16.7 | 2.00 | 8.35 |
| 14 | Arsenal 16 | 15 | 1.83 | 8.19 |
| 15 | Tottenham 8 | 17.7 | 2.33 | 7.60 |
| 16 | Fulham 3 | 20.7 | 2.83 | 7.31 |
| 17 | Manchester United 14 | 15.7 | 3.33 | 4.71 |
| 18 | Aston Villa 13 | 16.5 | 2.5 | 6.60 |
| 19 | Brentford 17 | 13.5 | 2.33 | 5.79 |
| 20 | Nottingham Forest 11 | 16.8 | 3.00 | 5.6 |
4. The issue of secrecy
No figures are needed with this one because the number of times a referee is interviewed after a match is precisely zero. The referee is driven away after the game in a specified car and can be fined if he gets in the wrong car or drives himself.
Now in a sense we can see why that is good because we have covered the case of the top men in PSG, who also basically run Uefa, storming into the referee’s changing room after a Uefa game and threatening the referee.
This situation of course arises because most of football has been asleep while the people with the oil money have taken control of PSG and through that most of European football. These are the gang who taught the media and the supporters clubs that the Super League was a bad thing when in fact Super League was the one chance the clubs that didn’t bow the knee to beIN Media and PSG, and indeed Uefa, had of stopping the ongoing corruption.
Secrecy is the thing football needs to avoid at all costs, as it is the secrecy that is being used to corrupt the whole European game.
As we noted before, the man who sits on the top board of Uefa, and the chairman of beIN Media and is the President of PSG, (al-Khelaifi). Aside from the accusations of violence and intimidation, accusations of conflict of interest abound
Conclusion
The giveaway tag is secrecy. You see it with PSG, Uefa, and PGMO. It is because of secrecy no one can near enough to PGMO to ask them to explain why they won’t take action over referee home/away bias and the lunatic variations between the number of fouls that lead to a yellow card with one team against another.
And the media is sadly sitting back and letting it all happen.
PGMOL representatives were “in action” at the Bayer Leverkusen/Atletico Madrid match last night. Oliver, Kavanagh and Atwell applied the Arsenal technique,
much to the disgust of the Spanish contingent.
look – no hands
Whoops – wrong link – try again