Why are referees such twats?

You’d almost think there was a conspiracy to make sure Leicester won the title and we didn’t…

:lou_wink:

:lou_is_a_flirt:

Yes, I do believe that there was a secret edict that went out to referees last season, telling them to make sure they gave every potential penalty to Leicester, because the Premier League (or maybe the FA) were desperate to see some team other than one of the usual suspects winning the title. Acutally, now I come to think of it, it’s far more likely that the Premier League and the FA were workng together on this, using their apparent mutual antipathy and inability to work together as a convenient smokescreen. Bllimey.

Now then, where’s the rolly-eyes-total-fucking-loony emoji gone? I need it right now.

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That aside…some refs do love to get involved and help the script along a bit.

I always think sport has enough drama without MotD editors or officials trying to create a plot line.

There is little worse than Motson advising us that the bloke coming up for a corner hasn’t scored all season, and wouldn’t it be amazing if he got the winner…

Closest rival was Watford. 7 pens awarded.

What price fairy story? Six more pens, apparently :lou_sunglasses:

I suggest nothing except it’s a wonderful story which scotches the myth that the highest wage bill wins the Prem. A lovely, marketable story :lou_lol:

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Its an interesting one because whilst I was delighted to see them win it, there’s an element of frustration there now because it goes some way to scotching the *actual* reality of how much of a brick wall to the top 4 a club like ours faces.

What with us improving and improving season after season, yet not being able to keep hold of any of our star performers and finally coming back down to lower mid-table with a bit of a bump (as, to be honest, we probably will this season), a fair few fans of other clubs and neutrals had begun to sympathise with our plight in that whilst we might not win a trophy, we were at least proving to the world of football just how utterly impossible it is for a smaller club to slowly and steadily build up and challenge the might and the money of the big six.

Now that Leicester’s season is ‘in the bank’, you get the feeling that the big guns can effortlessly let their wallets dominate the league for years to come with the ‘well what about Leicester?! hur hur hur’ excuse always available when people inevitably complain about the Premier League becoming completely stratified and hierarchical.

Having said all that, I don’t believe that refs were actively instructed to favour them.

Hey, I don’t think refs are actively instructed to favour the big clubs, they just face enormous pressure from footballing world to do so.

Like I say, I’m pretty confident that deep down, many fans of the big clubs do actually know this full well (they’re just ungrateful for it because they compare their fortunes to those of other big clubs). But as I say, if they weren’t getting the aggregate benefit of it then we’d have seen video replays introduced a long time ago. Every argument against video officiating essentially amounts to an argument in favour of a random selection of incorrect decisions thrown into a match. If you’re better than someone at anything, you want to reduce variance and reduce the luck factor in order to leave your superior skill as the only variable. As such, if refs were totally fair and unbiased, the big clubs and the powers that be in football would be the main beneficiaries of video technology eliminating the luck factor of random incorrect decisions and be pushing for its introduction. In fact it would probably be here already.

But scoping out Red Cafe last season at United’s lowest ebb I distinctly remember two or three threads expressing frustration that their players (and Old Trafford crowd) weren’t putting as much pressure on refs as they used to - and how much they missed that aspect of Ferguson’s do-anything-to-win mentality.

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Ok, Pap, accepting that maybe you’re being tongue-in-cheek with all this, but knowing that you’re not adverse to the odd conspiracy theory, I’ll bite and make a couple of points:

  1. It was actually Man City (8) – not Watford (7) – that finished second in the penalty count, 5 behind Leicester (13).

  2. If you take into account penalties awarded AGAINST both teams – Leicester (4), Man City (1) – then the difference in net terms, so to speak, is just 2 in Leicester’s favour.

Imo, the above contains very little evidence to suggest that referees were part of some Big Conspiracy behind Leicester winning the Prem League for marketing purposes.

Instead, I suggest the main reason Leicester won a lot of penalties was their fast-breaking style of play and the fact that the speedy James Vardy was very good at getting his ankles clipped and quite good at diving – something for which he was sent off towards the end of the season. Perhaps the dumb referee forgot to read his conspiracy script that day? :lou_wink_2:

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Maybe it was looking like too much of a procession, Halo.

The evil game fixers at the PL perhaps knew of the impending Spurs collapse. Needed to make it look good :lou_sunglasses:

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The premier league refs want to be celebrities just as much as the players. So often make themselves the centre of attention. This I believe is not really up for debate.

Equally, I take this view… Referees are people who get caught up in the emotion and media hype just like everyone else. So yes, I agree that there was very much a subconscious ‘willing’ on the part of referees to see Leicester win the league. It was such a fairytale. A story of David and Goliath. One that caught the attention and imagination of millions around the world. I imagine it also made a lot of money for the league and the news media reporting on it and providing coverage.

Also, I imagine that referees probably get a lot of stick and abuse from fans when they see them in the street. Here’s where it gets contentious… As there are 50 times the number of Arse nal fans than Saints (probably even more), said referee is more likely to encounter these fans than Saints fans. So to avoid getting spat at down Tesco, it’s probably in his better interests to leave them with a favourable outcome than us. The best example of this is Man Utd and Liverpool because their plastic fans are fucking everywhere and not just regionally placed in the north west.

A wild theory you might say but I honestly believe there’s an element of truth in it. Until we have robot refs we will have bias in some way shape or form.

All you need to look at is the corruption in FIFA! I can’t prove it but I don’t believe for a second that the premier league isn’t bent and big clubs influence the allocation of favourable refs, backhanders etc etc.

I think anyone would be naive to think it is pure. It may well be low level stuff at times but I bet it is there. If the world governing body can be riddled with it… In life in general, where there’s money to be made there exists corruption. Companies ‘buy people’ on the golf course to win contracts in my industry so imagine what it’s like when there is billions at stake in football! Oh well.

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Or is it the fact that Vardy is a more devious cunt than Long

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I’d like to see a robot ref. Like metal Mickey.

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Dont you just love the Sunday + Monday papers - full of the big screaming headlines about the controversial moments from the weekend’s games. Quotes - big shouty quotes - from the managers and players feeling like they have been robbed by poor refeering.

Just as long as its United, or Chelsea that have been offended of course. Paper after paper with a lead story about Cahill’s quotes Not a bloody word about us. Or Swansea for that matter. Fuckers

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It’s precisely that Bucks…it’s the institutional bias that really fucks me off! We are forever the afterthought to these cunts.

Phrases you thought you’d never see yourself type…

Fair play to Cahill, I felt sorry for him.

The way he spoke on MotD2 showed how pissed off he was at the ridiculous decision by Marriner.

He was chopped down from behind and the ref couldn’t see it, and refused to accept that he’d made a mistake.

He also let Costa get away with kicking a defender in the head - most odd.

Chris Sutton, who can be a twat himself, got it right - Marriner had a shocker.

So, a robot floating around the pitch, with a panel of referees watching the game on video monitors at all sorts of angles, they see a foul/whatever press a button, robot on the pitch blows his whistle, referees talk through a comm system to players and admonish cards via the robot.

Corners, throw ins, goal kicks can go on the big screen and there can be a build up to it, much like in the in/out run-out decisions in cricket.

No interaction at all between the refs and the players, can’t argue with a robot/automaton either can you??

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So instead of being on the pitch the RoboRef system involves Marriner/Friend sitting upstairs getting things wrong?

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No, no, no. The “referees” watching the game would be made up of pundits and match commentators, they get every decision spot on now so why shoudln’t their expertise by leveraged.

Couldn’t our beautiful game benefit from video replays with teams having a certain number of challenges that if they call it wrong they lose a challenge? I also think ref’s should have microphones just like they do in Rugby so that we refs and players have to watch what they are saying.

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Things like Fouls, handballs and cards are hopelessly subjective. Think that’s the main problem. When you give the Ref Bros definite rules, like i.e. Offsides, I think they do a Remarkably Good Job, all things considered.