Ref Watch

[dadnlad]

I think that is down to the team not var to be fair.

and the manager saying we know what were up against

 

[its grim up north]

Cheers. Due to the huge amount of money involved it's very possible that cheating and scandal is occurring even in the P/L.

That said - I believe in the average man. If ongoing corruption were in fact occurring, some honest man is bound to be approached. And he'd report it. And if no action occurred he'd take it further and further up the line - until action were taken.

If I were an official and were approached to fix a game I'd certainly report it. And wouldn't you too do so? - I rather think, even not knowing you, that you would.

I have faith in your fellow Englishmen - as honest, upright individuals, for the most part. Corruption might occur - but I think that this would be a short-term aberration.

As I've said above, you're free to take a very dim view and believe otherwise. But if so, I'd advise you to stop watching football - because it's only going to upset you when the inevitable mistake goes against us.

Mark Halsey reported corruption. Where did his accusations go?

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Mark Halsey reported corruption. Where did his accusations go?

Tied up in NDA's. He went VERY quiet about that.

 

[Paladin]

There are different degrees of ineptitude, ranging from mere incompetence through to full scale financial corruption. We've seen it all before in society and in football. Here is my take, starting with the lower levels.

1. Honest mistakes. As a former referee, I know performances are assessed, and not many give 10/10 performances. They are humans after all, and they make mistakes. These mistakes will balance out, sometimes within a game (the referee would need to make at least two errors for this to happen), but certainly over the season. I would put Taylor in this category, though I know many will disagree. There aren't many up this end.

2. Inexperienced referees - prone to make mistakes because they are new to the higher levels of refereeing. Again, mistakes will balance out, and they should become fewer with experience. There isn't enough evidence to rank them lower than this at the moment. Jarrod Gillett could be one of these.

3. Influenced officials. These tend not to have control of the game. They can be easily manipulated by strong personalities on the pitch (e.g. Fernandes) or managers (Ferguson, Mourinho, Klopp). They could be influenced by supporters - often vociferous home crowds - "homers". Their incorrect decisions won't be even-handed. Bigger clubs will benefit more from their performances (even City), because of their stronger influence. Attwell might fall into this category, but that might be being generous to him. Cann caved in to Fernandes' dissent, and didn't have sufficient courage in his convictions to argue the case for Rashford being offside. Halsey admitted being told to change a report so that a City player would receive a harsher sanction.

4. Subconsciously biased. In the back of their minds, these referees know what is good and bad for their careers, and their decisions will reflect this. Tierney, by not sending off Milner, on the basis that it is better to upset City than to upset Liverpool. Wolves fans claiming recently on here that they are often on the wrong end of decisions would support the theory that referees tend to favour the bigger clubs.

5. Biased. They favour certain teams, but will strenuously deny it. Well, at least they would if ever they were challenged on it. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support referees being biased towards certain teams: Madley telling his linesman to raise his flag to disallow the Wolves goal, and allowing the Salah goal in the same game. Rashford offside - virtually the whole of football agrees this should have been disallowed. Ferguson laughing and joking with Clattenburg before the final. United then get all the favourable decisions to win. Clattenburg holidaying with the Liverpool team, then absolutely shafting Everton in that season's derby. Graham Poll virtually admitting giving United the favourable decisions at OT, and hoping they would win, because it helped his career. Thicker lines appearing for the first and only time to give United a goal. Ferguson presenting Webb with a United shirt when Webb retired. Coote, naively in one of his social media profiles showing him smiling, all suited and booted, proudly inside Old Trafford, as though he's a fan. Rumours of Taylor, Mason being United fans. Well, remove all appearance or evil and don't give them United games. Don't let anyone officiate teams that are close to where they live, or close to the team they support.

6. Corruption. Italian style criminal activity, where actions are performed in return for financial recompense or suppression of sensitive incriminating information. I personally don't think this goes on here. FIFA was rife with it until they recently cleaned up their act.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

There are different degrees of ineptitude, ranging from mere incompetence through to full scale financial corruption. We've seen it all before in society and in football. Here is my take, starting with the lower levels.

1. Honest mistakes. As a former referee, I know performances are assessed, and not many give 10/10 performances. They are humans after all, and they make mistakes. These mistakes will balance out, sometimes within a game (the referee would need to make at least two errors for this to happen), but certainly over the season. I would put Taylor in this category, though I know many will disagree. There aren't many up this end.

2. Inexperienced referees - prone to make mistakes because they are new to the higher levels of refereeing. Again, mistakes will balance out, and they should become fewer with experience. There isn't enough evidence to rank them lower than this at the moment. Jarrod Gillett could be one of these.

3. Influenced officials. These tend not to have control of the game. They can be easily manipulated by strong personalities on the pitch (e.g. Fernandes) or managers (Ferguson, Mourinho, Klopp). They could be influenced by supporters - often vociferous home crowds - "homers". Their incorrect decisions won't be even-handed. Bigger clubs will benefit more from their performances (even City), because of their stronger influence. Attwell might fall into this category, but that might be being generous to him. Cann caved in to Fernandes' dissent, and didn't have sufficient courage in his convictions to argue the case for Rashford being offside. Halsey admitted being told to change a report so that a City player would receive a harsher sanction.

4. Subconsciously biased. In the back of their minds, these referees know what is good and bad for their careers, and their decisions will reflect this. Tierney, by not sending off Milner, on the basis that it is better to upset City than to upset Liverpool. Wolves fans claiming recently on here that they are often on the wrong end of decisions would support the theory that referees tend to favour the bigger clubs.

5. Biased. They favour certain teams, but will strenuously deny it. Well, at least they would if ever they were challenged on it. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support referees being biased towards certain teams: Madley telling his linesman to raise his flag to disallow the Wolves goal, and allowing the Salah goal in the same game. Rashford offside - virtually the whole of football agrees this should have been disallowed. Ferguson laughing and joking with Clattenburg before the final. United then get all the favourable decisions to win. Clattenburg holidaying with the Liverpool team, then absolutely shafting Everton in that season's derby. Graham Poll virtually admitting giving United the favourable decisions at OT, and hoping they would win, because it helped his career. Thicker lines appearing for the first and only time to give United a goal. Ferguson presenting Webb with a United shirt when Webb retired. Coote, naively in one of his social media profiles showing him smiling, all suited and booted, proudly inside Old Trafford, as though he's a fan. Rumours of Taylor, Mason being United fans. Well, remove all appearance or evil and don't give them United games. Don't let anyone officiate teams that are close to where they live, or close to the team they support.

6. Corruption. Italian style criminal activity, where actions are performed in return for financial recompense or suppression of sensitive incriminating information. I personally don't think this goes on here. FIFA was rife with it until they recently cleaned up their act.

Good post, but I think you may be slightly adrift on the last point. Any form of results manipulation constitutes corruption. It doesn't have to be 'Italian style criminal activity'. I genuinely believe the PiGMOL/PL have manipulated certain results in order to 'spice up the product' and create a more marketable product.

 

[HypnoticBlue]

There are different degrees of ineptitude, ranging from mere incompetence through to full scale financial corruption. We've seen it all before in society and in football. Here is my take, starting with the lower levels.

1. Honest mistakes. As a former referee, I know performances are assessed, and not many give 10/10 performances. They are humans after all, and they make mistakes. These mistakes will balance out, sometimes within a game (the referee would need to make at least two errors for this to happen), but certainly over the season. I would put Taylor in this category, though I know many will disagree. There aren't many up this end.

2. Inexperienced referees - prone to make mistakes because they are new to the higher levels of refereeing. Again, mistakes will balance out, and they should become fewer with experience. There isn't enough evidence to rank them lower than this at the moment. Jarrod Gillett could be one of these.

3. Influenced officials. These tend not to have control of the game. They can be easily manipulated by strong personalities on the pitch (e.g. Fernandes) or managers (Ferguson, Mourinho, Klopp). They could be influenced by supporters - often vociferous home crowds - "homers". Their incorrect decisions won't be even-handed. Bigger clubs will benefit more from their performances (even City), because of their stronger influence. Attwell might fall into this category, but that might be being generous to him. Cann caved in to Fernandes' dissent, and didn't have sufficient courage in his convictions to argue the case for Rashford being offside. Halsey admitted being told to change a report so that a City player would receive a harsher sanction.

4. Subconsciously biased. In the back of their minds, these referees know what is good and bad for their careers, and their decisions will reflect this. Tierney, by not sending off Milner, on the basis that it is better to upset City than to upset Liverpool. Wolves fans claiming recently on here that they are often on the wrong end of decisions would support the theory that referees tend to favour the bigger clubs.

5. Biased. They favour certain teams, but will strenuously deny it. Well, at least they would if ever they were challenged on it. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support referees being biased towards certain teams: Madley telling his linesman to raise his flag to disallow the Wolves goal, and allowing the Salah goal in the same game. Rashford offside - virtually the whole of football agrees this should have been disallowed. Ferguson laughing and joking with Clattenburg before the final. United then get all the favourable decisions to win. Clattenburg holidaying with the Liverpool team, then absolutely shafting Everton in that season's derby. Graham Poll virtually admitting giving United the favourable decisions at OT, and hoping they would win, because it helped his career. Thicker lines appearing for the first and only time to give United a goal. Ferguson presenting Webb with a United shirt when Webb retired. Coote, naively in one of his social media profiles showing him smiling, all suited and booted, proudly inside Old Trafford, as though he's a fan. Rumours of Taylor, Mason being United fans. Well, remove all appearance or evil and don't give them United games. Don't let anyone officiate teams that are close to where they live, or close to the team they support.

6. Corruption. Italian style criminal activity, where actions are performed in return for financial recompense or suppression of sensitive incriminating information. I personally don't think this goes on here. FIFA was rife with it until they recently cleaned up their act.

Point 6
VAR has enabled them to be more blatant whilst hiding behind a screen, the guys making decisions aren’t even at the ground !
Also gives them carte blanche to make up whatever subjective bullshit they want to fit whatever decision they want to make, and then contradict themselves the week after because it’s a whole different set of officials who see it subjectively different to the d!ckhead the week before.
And then the worst bit for me is that just when you think one of the woppa’s is retiring because they’re 4 stone overweight & blind, they stick em on VAR to keep the secrets and cash cow going.
There’s no way on earth if it was your own business that you would employ these people to run it, unless it was 1) a circus, 2) a zoo, 3) corrupt.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Honestly, var and specific individual decisions are just the backup plan. The main plan is just letting opposition players be physical without carding them and giving us 'advantages' in poor positions with players on the floor. The handling of our games is shaped to give the opposition as much chance of an upset as they can without having to resort to obvious poor decisions.

This doesn't mean that we don't get bad decisions though, or also that we won't get some in our favour. They don't want to be too obvious now.

The trip on Jack and the rough house on Ilkay from Sunday, the thuggery from Spurs the previous Thursday - that's just a couple of games.

It'll be interesting to see what transpires on Friday when the Arse come to The Etihad. At least we'll see Our Tata trying to play football rather than rough-housery. A goal chalked off by VAR, ref getting in the way of our passing lines, VAR pen for the Arse?

Who's the whistling wanker this time? Not the Alty Tit, The Bottle, Blind Andre. I think it doesn't matter who we get - they'll be trying their best to achieve a downgrade on Coonte!

 

[Paladin]

Good post, but I think you may be slightly adrift on the last point. Any form of results manipulation constitutes corruption. It doesn't have to be 'Italian style criminal activity'. I genuinely believe the PiGMOL/PL have manipulated certain results in order to 'spice up the product' and create a more marketable product.

It is my view on the refereeing really. Regarding the other aspects of the overall refereeing system:

PGMOL Chief Refereeing Officer - Howard Webb.

Webb is on record saying VAR needs to be more transparent and is in favour of having referees miked up. PGMOL has previously gone against UEFA, so why can't Webb come good on this objective, lead the way, and get some referees miked up? Maybe it's the PL that opposes the idea.

Also says he wants VAR to intervene less. For a system that has been in place for two and a half years, that is still bedding in, he shouldn't really be making major changes. It's no wonder officials are confused, and making mistakes.

Referees.

They earn between £70k to £200k per year. They generally retire between 45 to 50 years of age, so they need something to do after they hang up their whistles. What better than to sit in a warm TV studio watching football? It's no wonder they all kowtow to Webb during their refereeing careers. Referees aren't going to rock the boat and go against their paymasters and damage their careers.

VAR referees.

These guys have got to where they are by towing the line. They know which teams they mustn't upset, and where discretion or subjective interpretation is required.

At the moment, there is a total lack of transparency.

PL.

They are on record saying things like a successful United is essential, and we have a plan to have a new PL winner every few years. Clearly, they aren't primarily interested in fair refereeing. They are interested in "the product".

VAR decisions.

In the first part of the season (to December) there were 6 incorrect VAR interventions. Arsenal had a goal disallowed against United. Would have been 1-0 to Arsenal. United win 3-1.

Chelsea (2 points), Palace and Brentford (1 each) have benefited at the expense of West Ham (lost 1 point), Newcastle and Forest (each denied a win and lost 2 points).

Other decisions were neutral in terms of points.

When they look at the second half of the season, the non-penalty against Wolves and the Rashford offside probably won't be listed as VAR mistakes because they weren't referred to VAR.

Refsted rating: 3 - Requires improvement.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Definite penalty with the foul on Grealish. Why on earth didn't VAR ask the ref to go and look at the monitor at least? I hope City are recording these incidents and sending them to Web asking for an explanation? These also need to be shown on the big screen at the match. There needs to explanations and transparency.

 

[Kippax77]

Definite penalty with the foul on Grealish. Why on earth didn't VAR ask the ref to go and look at the monitor at least? I hope City are recording these incidents and sending them to Web asking for an explanation? These also need to be shown on the big screen at the match. There needs to explanations and transparency.

MOTD dropped it this week as well.
If it's not discussed then it never happened.
Well it did didn't it Mr Darren England!