Rules and referees | Untold Arsenal: Supporting the club, the manager and the team

Why do PGMO employ so few (if any) non-white referees in the Premier League?

By Tony Attwood

When I say “so few” in the headline above, I have to admit I am not sure if there are any non-white referees or assistants working in the Premier League. Maybe that speaks to my lack of observational powers, or maybe I have just come to accept the fact that footballers come […]

Leicester heading for all time record number of penalties, and the away win figures

by Tony Attwood

In its report on Leicester’s win at Tottenham, the Guardian mentions Leicester penalty five times. On the BBC Radio 4 report this morning the penalty was mentioned four times. But neither news source mentioned the real oddity of the Leicester penalty. That is that this was Leicester’s ninth penalty of the season.

[…]

Yesterday was great fun, but the scores alone don’t tell us much

by Tony Attwood

In football reporting, every incident becomes a crisis, because every day needs a story. And yesterday we got two, with the defeats of Liverpool and Manchester United.

Such things have happened all the way through football history. There are famous tales told of Arsenal losing 7-0 away to Newcastle in 1925 just […]

Slowly football is changing, but unfortunately not everyone is following the plot

By Tony Attwood

You might not know if from reading the English blogs and newspapers but yes, decisions are being made, and proposals are being put on the table.

OK these things have not worked out well in Scotland, where, as we noted last time around, a certain local difficulty has been encountered. But elsewhere […]

Premier League: No one seems to have planned for anything to go wrong.

By Tony Attwood

In the last set of figures presented via annual accounts, the 20 clubs in the Premier League were shown to have a turnover of £4.827 bn. Which is quite a lot of money.

Their wages bill was just over half that. 58% to be (more or less) exact.

Now obviously the virus […]

Why Arsenal’s season could well be over.

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Quite clearly the Premier League is in a state of flux, and with Arsenal’s manager having the virus, and players out of action now for a couple of weeks, even if the season continues Arsenal are going to be behind in completing the fixtures.

But it turns out, that is […]

Is Premier League refereeing very different from other major European leagues? YES!!!

By Tony Attwood

This article continues from the findings in the previous piece: Why do Liverpool keep getting the same referees?

Here is a simple chart showing refereeing statistics from the five major football leagues in Europe

Country Teams in league Referees used Max game per ref England 20 21 25 Germany 18 25 […]

Why do Liverpool keep getting the same referees?

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Our videos explore some of these issues in depth – do take a look

A second article following on from this is now published – see link at end of this piece.

by Andrew Crawshaw.

You will be aware that Untold has held strong views about the PGMO, how they keep […]

The VAR referees: who are they, and is there a chance of bias?

Untold Videos

Our videos explore some of these issues in depth – do take a look

by Andrew Crawshaw

In my last article I looked at how some match officials have the opportunity to have an adverse effect on a team’s points score in the season to date. Some comments quite rightly […]

Which teams have had the most repeat visits by referees so far this season and other refereeing oddities

by Andrew Crawshaw

The PGMO have 17 referees on its list of Select Group (i.e those fully accredited to take charge of Premier League matches). In addition, so far this season, four referees from the Select Group 2 have each taken charge of a single game. This group comprises those referees accredited up to Championship […]

Do Granit Xhaka’s yellow cards make him an absolute liability?

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Our videos explore some of these issues in depth – do take a look

By Sir Hardly Anyone

We all know that Granit Xhaka gets yellow cards. All the time. Which means that he spends most of his playing time being doubleplus extra careful, hardly daring to do another tackle […]

Few journalists ever criticise the state of football… so why is it starting now?

By Tony Attwood

I am shocked, amazed, stunned, bemused.

For 12 years we have been plodding away, writing up the notion that the reporting of football is warped by the media to suit their own needs and ends, and those of their powerful allies.

Among the many examples found are those suggesting that key stories […]

Burnley’s tackling is three times as dirty as Leicester’s! Really???

by Tony Attwood

Untold Updates videos

We’re back with our videos – do take a look

Over the weekend I used some of the findings we had on the relationship between fouls and yellow cards; you may recall the data that shows some clubs have to commit many, many more fouls than others […]

Is Burnley v Arsenal fixed even before kick off? Here’s the evidence.

by Bulldog Drummond

If you want a game that highlights everything that is wrong with English refereeing in the Premier League, and indeed everything that is wrong with the PL and its referees, here you have it.

Burnley have committed 270 fouls this season, Arsenal 259. Not that much in it. Burnley the slightly dirtier […]

Referee oddities: no proof but an increasing amount of unexpected data

Untold Updates videos

We’re back with our videos: do take a peek at Untold GoonerNews

Football corruption and scandals. Why is it all so under reported? Part 1 Football corruption and scandals. A few stories that did get reported. Part 2 Football corruption and scandals. How we tipped off Fifa and other unlikely […]

Quid pro quo: how the laws of football are arranged to enable game manipulation

Untold Updates videos

We’re back with our videos: do take a peek at Untold GoonerNews

Refs and yellow cards: is each club treated the same? Definitely not.

Data and analyses from Andrew, and from Footballcharts.co.uk Commentary from Tony

We have been discovering huge variations in the number of fouls per card given by referees and how these might be explained by the severity of the fouls, or the leniency or otherwise of the referee. But also there is another possibility here – […]

How can we know that strange “fouls per card” figures don’t come by chance?

This article follows from “If Premier League matches were fixed, how would we know?”

Data and analyses from Andrew, and from Footballcharts.co.uk Commentary from Tony

In the last article we saw that huge variations exist in the number of fouls it takes in games to get a card. But of course such figures as […]

VAR is a mess says Uefa chief, which I suspect most of us would agree with

Watch our latest video at: Untold Gooner News:

By Tony Attwood

“If you have a long nose, you’re offside these days,” said Aleksander Ceferin in a recent interview. It didn’t get much coverage in England (not even the Daily Mirror ran it and it was said in an […]

Which teams are benefitting most from referee decision making this season?

By Bulldog Drummond

As we saw in Gordon’s super-analysis of referee actions earlier this week, Arsenal have inflicted the need for treatment on the opposition 11 times this season while Wolverhampton have inflicted the need for treatment on opposition players 5 times. So we shouldn’t have too much worry about fouls from them resulting in […]

PGMO maintain their secrecy at all times – unless it’s an issue raised by Manchester City

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw. Head of psychology at the University Hospital of the North Circular Road.

As you will know, if you have followed our coverage of PGMO, the high secretive organisation that makes the Masons look at a come-all-ye at the local pub, the refereeing control body does not talk to outsiders.

[…]

President of Spain’s FA arrested. And behind the corruption, there are stories of referee fixing.

by Tony Attwood

A couple of days back, police in Spain say arrested Ángel María Villar Llona, the president of Spain’s football association, Real Federación Española de Fútbol, on suspicion of embezzling funds.

It is an interesting move because Villar Llona is also a senior vice-president at Fifa and Uefa those two gloriously clean […]

The Video Assistant Referees are on their way, well in other countries is, but not all….

By Walter Broeckx

After a long period in which I had been unable to write for several reasons I hope to be back in action for Untold Arsenal.

And no better subject to start with as….the VAR.

During the confederations cup the Video Assistant Referee or VAR has been used in each match. And I […]

In the past it was the clubs lower down the league that fouled most. Now it is the clubs near the top.

By Tony Attwood

The web site Footstats has recently produced some very interesting league tables of its own, and through their kind permission, I am able to bring you one or two of these, starting with the Premier League Table of fouls.

You may remember (if you were paying attention) that in the early days […]

Newspaper claims Arsenal “should have been applauded as CHAMPIONS if officials had done their jobs properly.”

By Tony Attwood

“The Gunners should have been applauded as CHAMPIONS if officials had done their jobs properly.”

To confirm from the off, that is not a quote from Untold, but from a national UK newspaper – the Sun. OK not my favourite paper, but actually one that I would have said a year […]

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Why do PGMO employ so few (if any) non-white referees in the Premier League?

Leicester heading for all time record number of penalties, and the away win figures

Yesterday was great fun, but the scores alone don’t tell us much

Slowly football is changing, but unfortunately not everyone is following the plot

Premier League: No one seems to have planned for anything to go wrong.

Why Arsenal’s season could well be over.

Is Premier League refereeing very different from other major European leagues? YES!!!

Why do Liverpool keep getting the same referees?

The VAR referees: who are they, and is there a chance of bias?

Which teams have had the most repeat visits by referees so far this season and other refereeing oddities

Do Granit Xhaka’s yellow cards make him an absolute liability?

Few journalists ever criticise the state of football… so why is it starting now?

Burnley’s tackling is three times as dirty as Leicester’s! Really???

Is Burnley v Arsenal fixed even before kick off? Here’s the evidence.

Referee oddities: no proof but an increasing amount of unexpected data

Quid pro quo: how the laws of football are arranged to enable game manipulation

Refs and yellow cards: is each club treated the same? Definitely not.

How can we know that strange “fouls per card” figures don’t come by chance?

VAR is a mess says Uefa chief, which I suspect most of us would agree with

Which teams are benefitting most from referee decision making this season?

PGMO maintain their secrecy at all times – unless it’s an issue raised by Manchester City

President of Spain’s FA arrested. And behind the corruption, there are stories of referee fixing.

The Video Assistant Referees are on their way, well in other countries is, but not all….

In the past it was the clubs lower down the league that fouled most. Now it is the clubs near the top.

Newspaper claims Arsenal “should have been applauded as CHAMPIONS if officials had done their jobs properly.”

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