Ref Watch

[halfcenturyup]

Fuck me PB - when reading that I felt like I was reliving every incident!!! - but I kept thinking what about that twat Walton!!!!

Thankfully he got a mention towards the end - I remember his 'performance' when we were away to Everton (they had a new striker making his debut- cannot remember who) - absolutely shockingly obvious in his bias!!

Actually - re the SWP penalty incident - I believe that you are being entirely too generous/objective - there was absolutely no way that could have been given as a penalty unless there was an agenda.

Respect to you for your calm balance and quality of record keeping

They might 'hide behind the tech' - and I get suspicious when I see replays when it seems that the line is drawn a frame ahead or behind when the actual pass was made - this for me is their margin of cheating. But - at least it does limit the blatant calls of the past when people were well offside/onside and it was called the wrong way

How often did those blatant offsides happen? I think that's the question. And is it worth all the to-do with VAR to correct that number of mistakes.

When VAR was introduced, I remember the official line being that it would correct clear mistakes like the Spurs goal over the line not given, the Spurs 2 metre offside and Henry's handball goal. That may well be true, but it has opened up many more borderline decisions: mm offsides, handballs, all while introducing many extra layers of subjectivity which make the laws almost unenforceable, at least completely unfathomable, and ruins the biggest part of the match-day experience - celebrating a goal.

I am not sure it's really worth it.

 

[Bluearmy]

Ominous...

B’tard on VAR TOO :0

 

[Bluearmy]

How often did those blatant offsides happen? I think that's the question. And is it worth all the to-do with VAR to correct that number of mistakes.

When VAR was introduced, I remember the official line being that it would correct clear mistakes like the Spurs goal over the line not given, the Spurs 2 metre offside and Henry's handball goal. That may well be true, but it has opened up many more borderline decisions: mm offsides, handballs, all while introducing many extra layers of subjectivity which make the laws almost unenforceable, at least completely unfathomable, and ruins the biggest part of the match-day experience - celebrating a goal.

I am not sure it's really worth it.

We know how certain sides are referee’d and you seriously want to go back to this level of unchecked corruption…??

 

[halfcenturyup]

We know how certain sides are referee’d and you seriously want to go back to this level of unchecked corruption…??

It will never go back, of course, but the "corruption" hasn't gone away, it has just adapted. And I am sure I could show many examples of clear mistakes that haven't been corrected by VAR, or goals that have been ruled out, or not, for ridiculous 1mm decisions depending on who is playing, if I had the energy.

But, on balance, do I think the benefits of VAR outweigh the negatives? Not really. It should be better, but I am not hopeful.

 

[Oldham Exile]

We know how certain sides are referee’d and you seriously want to go back to this level of unchecked corruption…??

For me - the issue with VAR is the way the referees are seeking to implement it whilst both keeping control and not having themselves open to criticism

There are obvious lessons in the way such technology and processes are used well in other sports - why the fuck are the same (possibly corrupt) people given control over the system that enables them to 'hide' and continue to make poor/biased decisions

No - nobody should want to go back to the days when the GPC could pick and choose which referees were selected for their matches.

I am sure that a lot of us remember that 4th official laughing and joking with the GPC when Owen scored that (very) late winner to make it 4-3 (about 2009?)

No - the game, IMO, needs the support of such technology - but done properly so that it enhances the game rather than the current approach of keeping power in the hands of PIGMOL

 

[SebastianBlue]

Yes.. 'a congested area', that's a new one, isn't it?

I reckon if we get penalties awarded against us during the rest of the run-in, our lads should take a swig from a bottle of Benylin, cough like Hell and tell the ref they've got 'a bit of congestion'.. if it's good for the Red Shirts, why not?!

Looking forward to the novel way Dermot ‘It was about right’ Gallagher explains the mid season handball rule change.

 

[waspish]

It will never go back, of course, but the "corruption" hasn't gone away, it has just adapted. And I am sure I could show many examples of clear mistakes that haven't been corrected by VAR, or goals that have been ruled out, or not, for ridiculous 1mm decisions depending on who is playing, if I had the energy.

But, on balance, do I think the benefits of VAR outweigh the negatives? Not really. It should be better, but I am not hopeful.

Without var we wouldn’t of got that pen on Saturday! He had no choice but to give once he went to the screen. Also ofsides var is good for..

 

[halfcenturyup]

Without var we wouldn’t of got that pen on Saturday! He had no choice but to give once he went to the screen. Also ofsides var is good for..

Or maybe he would have had to make a decision without relying on VAR to do it for him. Who knows? It was so obvious, like Maguire's (!). And we can disagree on offsides. Correcting metre offsides, sure, unless it's at Old Trafford obviously, but cancelling goals for 1 mm offside? No thanks.

 

[Kippax77]

Looking forward to the novel way Dermot ‘It was about right’ Gallagher explains the mid season handball rule change.

He needs to retire while he still as some partial sight left.
The world's a beautiful place Dermot, go and enjoy it before it all goes very dark

 

[BlueHammer85]

We know how certain sides are referee’d and you seriously want to go back to this level of unchecked corruption…??

Whilst i don't go down the corruption road , It's mad to think some would happily accept going back to offsides allowed to stand even when the player can be 1-3 metres onside, it will happen alot and always

same for clear dives being given

red cards being missed etc

Sure, there's some marginal errors at times given wrong. but blatant crystal clear decisions given wrongly are miniscule compared to what we have before.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Looking forward to the novel way Dermot ‘It was about right’ Gallagher explains the mid season handball rule change.

That is the one thing that really winds me up about the way the PL is run as a competition - rule changes mid-competition. It simply SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Whilst i don't go down the corruption road , It's mad to think some would happily accept going back to offsides allowed to stand even when the player can be 1-3 metres onside, it will happen alot and always

same for clear dives being given

red cards being missed etc

Sure, there's some marginal errors at times given wrong. but blatant crystal clear decisions given wrongly are miniscule compared to what we have before.

Do you have evidence to back up the claim that blatantly wrong decisions are now miniscule compared to pre-VAR. I don't mean PGMOL produced or sponsored numbers, I mean independently verified numbers?

 

[zandvoort blue]

.............................. It named 4 refs specifically, one of whom by then (already infamous to City fans) had left PGMOL to go abroad. Another was taken off our games for a while, the third did one of our games after that but booked a City player for a dive when it should have been a clear penalty. The last is still involved at the highest level.................

There was a lot of fuss about the Spurs Brighton game last week and the number of poor decisions that Brighton were on the end of. This was nothing compared to a City game at Goodison Park officiated by Peter Walton in January 2012 just prior to him jumping ship to oversea referring abroad. He was truly awful and refused to give any one of 4 nailed on penalties as City dominated Everton but went on to lose 1- 0.

Walton had a suspicious history of referring games involving City, and especially against Everton. From his Premier League debut in 2003/2004 his record with us in 13 games was W3 D4 L6. No wins with him in his last 4 seasons, which coincides with the ADUG ownership of MCFC.

Season 2003/2004 officiated a total of 5 PL games........1 game involving City
Charlton (H) 1-1 draw

Season 2004/2005 officiated a total of 14 PL games........1 game involving City
Arsenal (H) lost 1-2 LEAGUE CUP

Season 2005/2006 officiated a total of 13 PL games........2 games involving City
Sunderland (A) 1-2 win
Fulham (H) lost 1-2

Season 2006/2007 officiated a total of 16 PL games........NO games involving City

Season 2007/2008 officiated a total of 23 PL games........2 games involving City
West Ham (A) win 0-2
Bolton (H) win 4-2

Season 2008/2009 officiated a total of 26 PL games........1 game involving City
Liverpool (H) lost 2-3

Season 2009/2010 officiated a total of 27 PL games........2 games involving City
Liverpool (H) drew 0-0
Everton (H) lost 0-2

Season 2010/2011 officiated a total of 26 PL games........3 games involving City
Stoke (A) drew 1-1
Everton (H) lost 1-2
Fulham (H) drew 1-1

Season 2011/2012 - officiated a total of 15 PL games........1 game involving City
Everton (A) lost 1-0

If this pattern isn`t suspicious I don`t know what is. The worst referee to cross our paths in my time.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Do you have evidence to back up the claim that blatantly wrong decisions are now miniscule compared to pre-VAR. I don't mean PGMOL produced or sponsored numbers, I mean independently verified numbers?

I don't, will try and dig out something

 

[eyalluvitt]

Just seen Arsenal's penalty vs West Ham, Antonio was about a yard away and turning away with his hands near his chest and yet that handball was given as a penalty. Yet Maguire handball from a corner isn't considered a penalty with his arm out. Where is the consistency??

Same old story for the same old teams,

 

[SebastianBlue]

Do you have evidence to back up the claim that blatantly wrong decisions are now miniscule compared to pre-VAR. I don't mean PGMOL produced or sponsored numbers, I mean independently verified numbers?

The interesting thing is that prior to VAR adoption, the refereeing decision error rate was reported as quite low (officials were getting most decisions right!).

Then after VAR adoption, the refereeing error rate prior to VAR adoption was miraculously reported to be much higher (it had been discovered officials were getting more decisions wrong than previously reported!), with the refereeing decision error rate now roughly equaling the low pre-VAR rate (VAR is leading to most decisions now being correct, as opposed to the poor standard prior to VAR, a shambolic state recently be discovered!).

Funny that, isn’t it. Almost as if the reported error rate is whatever it needs to be to justify the current state of affairs.

But I would never suggest such a thing.

No, the Premier League is the only football league in the world (and history) completely free of corruption.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I don't, will try and dig out something

Fair enough.

Look, I am not trying to be combative here. I take the point that there has been improvement in some areas with VAR, and yes we aren't going back, but my gripe with refereeing isn't just VAR related.

There is no transparency, there is no consistency and there is no accountability. The laws are impractical and the interpretations ludicrous.

The whole thing needs a big shake-up, and VAR is just a part of that.

 

[The blue phantom]

I’ve never been one to go with the whole “The refs are all bent against us” I always thought they are just incompetent/shit for everyone. But this season and today especially, its getting more and more obvious that we are referee'd differently. The Bernardo booking was blatant bias against us. They had far, far worse fouls deemed not worthy of a yellow. And the handball pen was ridiculous. He must have looked 10 times at the var screen. It’s was one of the most obvious pens of the season. What finally did it for me was the delay to the kick off after the third goal. They were looking for anything to disallow a perfectly obvious good goal. Oh well, it’ll make it more sweeter when we win the league

The Arsenal and Scouse boards have agenda threads that we have every ref in our pocket. I'm not kidding either, Absolutely convinced that game after game decisions are going our way and the brown envelopes we dish out must be in the hundreds.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Fair enough.

Look, I am not trying to be combative here. I take the point that there has been improvement in some areas with VAR, and yes we aren't going back, but my gripe with refereeing isn't just VAR related.

There is no transparency, there is no consistency and there is no accountability. The laws are impractical and the interpretations ludicrous.

The whole thing needs a big shake-up, and VAR is just a part of that.

That’s the stance of most critics of VAR.

It’s not going away, it hasn’t been as positively impactful as many VAR proponents claim, and it needs significant reform.

And I would argue that the ludicrous implementation of VAR and the modification/interpretation of the rules in the PL especially to support it has actually created more suspicion of corruption than existed previously, because VAR was meant to reduce the frequency of the most contentious decisions, but has instead highlighted them via ridiculous levels of inconsistency between outcomes involving similar incidents.

Before the inconsistency resulting in suspect decisions could be rationally explained by different officials having to make split second decisions with very limited information.

But know they do the same practically every game (in the case of matches like Spurs v Brighton and our derby this season, multiple times in a game), despite having substantially more time and information to make the decisions.

And there is no accountability for the repeated “mistakes”, barring many public apologies from PGMOL that do absolutely nothing to make the victimised parties whole. Literally millions of dollars ride on these decisions—meaning many clubs are materially impacted by these “mistakes”—but that financial impact will never be addressed. I think specifically of clubs like Wolves and Brighton who have been on the end of numerous “mistakes” this season, and will likely suffer several more “mistakes” by the time the season finishes.

This is a substantial flaw and lends itself to reasonable suspicion of corruption. That is because repeated incompetence—with no real effort to correct it—becomes corruption.

 

[halfcenturyup]

The interesting thing is that prior to VAR adoption, the refereeing decision error rate was reported as quite low (officials were getting most decisions right!).

Then after VAR adoption, the refereeing error rate prior to VAR adoption was miraculously reported to be much higher (it had been discovered officials were getting more decisions wrong than previously reported!), with the refereeing decision error rate now roughly equaling the low pre-VAR rate (VAR is leading to most decisions now being correct, as opposed to the poor standard prior to VAR, a shambolic state recently be discovered!).

Funny that, isn’t it. Almost as if the reported error rate is whatever it needs to be to justify the current state of affairs.

But I would never suggest such a thing.

No, the Premier League is the only football league in the world (and history) completely free of corruption.

Yep. I have worked in a financial PR environment and you can prove pretty much anything you want with numbers. Bamboozling otherwise intelligent financial analysts with information they have no way of validating was always my favourite trick. Analyst presentations were great fun.

Which is why I am not buying PL or PGMOL numbers for one second.