Mike Dean’s admission, and especially this passage, essentially proves what I and many others have asserted for quite awhile now: the referees know there is no real accountability for their corrupt decisions.
"That was a major error. If they don't score from the corner it is not as big an issue," Dean said.
"I knew full well I would be stood down the week after."
And this was an example of corruption because once these types of incidents become commonplace, with authorities making no real attempts to prevent them, it becomes corruption. You cannot claim simple errors or incompetence when governing bodies are aware they are happening, have the tools to prevent them (and/or are aware the current mitigation methods are not working), but choose not to make changes to stop them.
Jobs for the boys is also a form of corruption, even if it is less egregious than more bombastic types like bribery, extortion, or illicit manipulation (which is likely also taking place in the PL).
I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but here we go again:
1 baffling decision is a mistake.
5 baffling decisions is incompetence.
10+ baffling decisions is corruption.
For those that missed it:
Former referee Mike Dean said he did not alert a fellow official to a missed call via the VAR because he wanted to spare him "more grief".
www.espn.com
This also yet another feather in the cap for calls for an independent entity to handle VAR.
This admission would literally be criminal in any other regulatory scenario.
Can you imagine what would happen if a FCA inspector said they didn’t bring a colleague up on missing obvious and egregious regulatory violations because they were not just his coworker but also his friend and he wanted to protect them from consequences?
We all knows that happens in the financial industry, given regulatory capture — at least I know for a fact it does — but it is rarely brought in to the public.
And this is an example of regulatory capture in the PL.
