Referees/Officials

[Terra Passenger]

You said you can't see from the replay if he was stepped on when everyone else can and he didn't leave his leg in either,not to mention denying there is no corruption in football,how long have you watched football properly?

Yup. You've got me. I totally said there's no corruption in football.

And on replay, I'm a total idiot - for believing that Sterling was clearly fouled one way or the other but not knowing whether or not he was stepped on.

You've got me!

For the record...

I thought that Sterling was tripped - 100%. I thought that he may have additionally been stepped on - but wasn't sure. I thought that Sterling accentuated the contact in an attempt to make it absolutely clear to the ref that he'd been fouled.

I thought that the ref totally blew the call. I thought that a penalty should have been given. At worst, I thought that a no call (a total error) was next most reasonable - I thought that carding Sterling for a dive was a complete, absolute, misread of the play.
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Regarding corruption.

It's happened very recently at the top level in Italian football.

It's happened very recently within FIFA management - with regard to awarding the world cup and other matters.

And it happens occasionally within other leagues recently.

But to think that tonight's ref was corrupt - was on the take - was paid to make Barca win - and who nevertheless fucked up letting City win 3-1... well, if you think so, don a tin hat and sit next to Mr. Collin Bell.

For me, tonight's ref had a bad game. And may have been subconsciously biased in favor of Barca. But was absolutely not a cheat absent a lot of proof otherwise And since we won 3-1, if the ref was a cheat, the ref was a pretty poor cheat to boot.

 

[Rolee]

Is the correct answer and I have yet to read an article from any journo who actually agrees with the refs decision.Martin Samuels made me laugh when he said in his report that it was a penalty in real time,a penalty in slow time, a penalty in replay time and for those watching the Arsenal game even they could see it.

You've got to love Martin Samuel, the big cuddly walrus.

 

[oakiecokie]

You've got to love Martin Samuel, the big cuddly walrus.

He makes most other journos look like Beano & Dandy writers.No made up shit from him and tells it exactly how real fans see it.One of the very few media people who fully understands what our club is all about and how forward thinking both our Owner and Board are.
Play it again Sam.

 

[aguero93:20]

I see what you mean

Pmsl

 

[Ding Dong]

You now know why buying Messi would cost so much....... It`s all the ref`s you have to pay for as well.

 

[aguero93:20]

It's how you define 'intentionally' cheating.

He favoured Barca in most things during most of the game. Just because he didn't give them every single decision, doesn't mean he wasn't biased.

He gave them a huge lift at the start of the game, by not booking their players & booking Sterling for being fouled in he penalty area. If that & keeping busquets on the pitch, & giving them almost every 50/50 decision, isn't enough to give them a victory, I'm not sure they can rightly expect him to also disallow goals & give them pens on top of it.

Tbf he improved a bit in the second half, maybe someone had a word and told him he was making it too blatant?

 

[OB1]

Thought he was bad watching in the ground and the TV coverage has not dispelled that thought.

 

[Rolee]

Tbf he improved a bit in the second half, maybe someone had a word and told him he was making it too blatant?

He was still buying Neymar's nonsense though. That decision to award a foul against Otamendi on Suarez too, what the racist cannibal did there was extremely dangerous, akin to a spear tackle in rugby.

 

[OB1]

You missed the worst one of the lot. The deliberate trip to stop Sterling getting away barely 5 minutes in to the game. The most obvious yellow card of all time, so cynical was the offence

The first of three yellow card offences by Digne, imo, and he should have had one on the totting up rule so I make that four yellows missed for one player.

 

[nmc]

Yup. You've got me. I totally said there's no corruption in football.

And on replay, I'm a total idiot - for believing that Sterling was clearly fouled one way or the other but not knowing whether or not he was stepped on.

You've got me!

For the record...

I thought that Sterling was tripped - 100%. I thought that he may have additionally been stepped on - but wasn't sure. I thought that Sterling accentuated the contact in an attempt to make it absolutely clear to the ref that he'd been fouled.

I thought that the ref totally blew the call. I thought that a penalty should have been given. At worst, I thought that a no call (a total error) was next most reasonable - I thought that carding Sterling for a dive was a complete, absolute, misread of the play.
========
Regarding corruption.

It's happened very recently at the top level in Italian football.

It's happened very recently within FIFA management - with regard to awarding the world cup and other matters.

And it happens occasionally within other leagues recently.

But to think that tonight's ref was corrupt - was on the take - was paid to make Barca win - and who nevertheless fucked up letting City win 3-1... well, if you think so, don a tin hat and sit next to Mr. Collin Bell.

For me, tonight's ref had a bad game. And may have been subconsciously biased in favor of Barca. But was absolutely not a cheat absent a lot of proof otherwise And since we won 3-1, the ref was a pretty poor cheat to boot.

I'm not sure the corruption we are dealing with in the UCL - in terms of refereeing is that blatant. I'm in no doubt that UEFA have a cash machine that they want to maximise - hence the totally unfair seeding system. You see widespread bias towards teams from the 'bigger countries' in the earlier rounds - it is clear UEFA want England, Spain, Germany and Italy represented in the latter stages to drive advertising revenues etc. There is clear bias as we have witnessed towards the bigger teams - probably because again UEFA profit from the likes of Real Madrid and Barca being in the high profile latter stages. The UCL is not purely a knockout football tournament it's a football equivalent of the Eurovision Song Contest - designed to rake cash in from all across Europe and the world - and an elite list of teams fulfill UEFAs requirements for marketing a final - FC Bayern versus Real Madrid works, Bucharest versus PSV does not. The list of finalists is notably more 'elite' in the Champions League era when compared to the European Cup era - for obvious reasons. I don't think there's too much evidence of referees being told to ensure specific results but they certainly do support a wider agenda of favouring specific teams or teams from particular countries. Last nights ref clearly favoured Barcelona but he couldn't; without it being too obvious - do sufficient- to influence the result - he did however, deny City a clear penalty, allowed Busquets to remain on the pitch when he could (and should) have earned 4 yellow cards - in a tighter game that could have influenced the result thankfully we had enough (last night) to win despite the ref.