Well, I don't actually - I just thought it made a good thread title. Does anyone truly believe that any PL officials are #bentasfuck or is it just a case of being pissed off when you see things you don't like? If you are a believer, do you have any evidence for it, or even a cogent argument beyond the fact that they sometimes make blatant errors that go against us? I believe the level of competence could be improved, and there's no doubt that there's a degree of unconscious bias towards or against certain teams and/or individuals - but officials are human too and that can't be totally eradicated. This is a long way away from the brown envelope theory though, and I'm never sure whether some truly believe this goes on or if it's just a bit of mud-slinging. I'm convinced there is corruption within the football authorities hierarchy, but I'd like to believe that incompetence on the pitch is just incompetence.
I believe that some may hold views against certain teams or players, so a players or teams reputation may count against them (ie Spurs and Alli being divers) which may in turn influence how they view a marginal call or how harshly they treat a game. As to #bentasfuck can't see how a ref would be allowed to continue if it was that obvious fans could see it. The problem as I see it is how often mistakes are made (mistakes are going to happen, as you say they're human, but they're alot happening) and the level of inconsistency from game to game and ref to ref. Not bringing in VAR was a mistake by the FA and PL. Instead of just claiming it wasn't ready, they could have been part of the solution and worked to make it better. Also the officials will now be behind in experience of using VAR. The lack of any English Officials at the World Cup demonstrates the decline in quality of Refereeing in the English game, but that's been there for a while, Webb in any major final he did made a massive balls up of it. I think an interesting experiment would be to have Officials from different countries doing domestic games.
I believe the vitriol and even death threats, that fans and players spew at officials can affect them. We see a lot of 'homer' referee decisions because of this
Just think the quality of officiating in this country has fallen well below an acceptable level. When i was going the matchday threads i once gave the officials was Ref - 12 sided dice and at times it feels like it might as well be as for similar incidents the decisions seem to be so variable.
No. obviously they are not. I would beleive that the "small clubs" do think refs are more pally with big name players and they let some players away with far more. great examples are certain players able to get in a ref's face like carragher or rooney etc and then again some people like joey barton will be off if they breathe. There's no real possibility for brown envelopes in front of live cameras with the world watching
lets be clear. martin atkinson is on record himself saying that he doesn't award pens. Other refs are known to just be "home town" refs. Its all how they approach their job and what they bring in as they are subjective individuals. If you pull a ref thats likely to card you after 5 mins then you need to adjust your game. Same as if you pull a ref and you are at home and know you can kick lads all game and not get a card (aka fernandinho) then you do it. Theres a science in rugby about knowing what a ref will do on break downs and scrums etc. If football clubs don't research and try to influence their refs then they are fools.
I believe that Anthony Taylor from Manchester should not be allowed to referee Man Utd/Man City or Liverpool games as he's from Manchester .lives in Altrincham which is a Utd stronghold in terms of support, just because he says he had no affinity to MUFC doesn't make it true. I also believe that by comparison Mike Dean should be allowed to referee Liverpool/Everton matches, he stated he's a Tranmere fan but is deemed by the FA to live to close to Anfield and Goodison to be trusted to officiate those games. Either both should not be allowed to referee local matches or both should not.
I'd agree. He is being very disingenuous as he wants to ref big games for his own profile and by declaring he would eliminate any possibility of reffing the manchester clubs and us. He'd be left reffing london clubs. Mike dean declared himself and it didn't really hurt him Taylor has gone out of his way to declare himself nuetral to stay "in the game" Dean has shrugged his shoulders at it. Refs want to ref in europe and in big fa cup finals etc so.... well Dean didn't need to care
I wasn't suggesting they might hand them over on camera. I just wondered if anyone on here really believes officials are bribed. Unlikely as it may seem, I actually know some real live people as well, and some do seem to believe it.
Not bent as **** but the lack of consistency is really quite laughable, i know i made a joke out of the mane ederson incident but that one really did highlight it. Whether it was a red or not was never my point My point was always that we would see many more of that ilk. We did two the same and next day Astro actually highlighted a lino the other day with the decision against us. Then you have got the weird stuff that many were able to see when pep was at barca and is resurfacing here at cuty which is his sides seem to get away with many pro fouls. Now this is not something up for debate like stating, oh utd get more pens in their successful era and then the inevitable (and imho correct) counter argument that a team that attacks more will get more pens, that sort of stacks up. This is where pep seems to whinge a bit and refs pgmol listen then they protect and allow same side to dish it but not take it. Thats when i think the brown paper envelopes do look possible. City allegedly been allowed to circumnavigate the ffp with infantino doing the assissting. It will all get quoshed but the message is there. Many claim that the idea of refs fixing is unthinkable but yet it has happened everywhere so i would never write the possibility off. I prefer not to comment on us specifically as i struggle not to be bias Rigging even occurs at grass roots level Its ****ing mental down at that level adults fixing under 8s/10/11/12 games Anyone involved will have a story of a lino/ref/manager doing something Whether it be teams playing players clearly over the age to just stupid tactics like putting a player up top and just lumping it due to no offside Crazy man
Many players have confirmed approaches so of course it has to go on we just prey our club is not involved
Clattenberg make a lot of dodgy decisions during those years he was in quite serious debt, and was reported to have been physically threatening former business partners Then he seemed to rise to the top all of a sudden, and now works for some of the most corrupt people on the planet. but no evidence no
So I would wonder what Halsey was told "he did not see" by his ref bosses (the only ones who can tell him that). Which players and clubs were involved. Who benefited and so on, this is actually corruption. I bet you could narrow it down if you had the mind to trawl for it. The Shelvey Carrick tackle comes to mind He seemed to miss Carrick making the exact same tackle as Shelvey Halsey also had a penchant for free tickets
Na... just dudes that may be relatively fit but still miles behind the fitness and speed of what they are supposed to witness.... Add speed of ball over head turn distance... Leads to basically guessing... tv replays then shows them to either be conservative guessers ... my bet for most of them... with a few making proactive decisions they didn't really witness... to pretend they know what they saw...the egos.. Those replays let us fans interpret their inability as deliberate... Of course some could be fitter than they are for the money they are on like....
Officials love coming to Anfield and giving us nothing at all They consider it "standing up to the Kop" For the last season and a half, Spurs have had more penalties at Anfield than we have Does that seem #legit?
I think consistency is the main thing that gets on everyone’s nerves. I think it was last year that one of the pundits (might have been Neville) was talking about this and saying that across a whole season with 15 different referees you’re not going to get all consistency in terms of decision making because some incidents are 50/50 and refs have 1 look make a snap judgement. And you can can kind of understand that so what’s given as a red in one game may not be a red in the next and I think that’s always going to be the case. However, the issue for me is consistency within the game. How many times do we see similar tackles punished didferently? Tight offsides given differently? Either give benefit to attack or defence but do the same each time so you’re at least being consistent with that choice. An example was our game v arsenal. I thought both teams should have had pens when keepers wiped out forwards, but at least the ref was consistent with their decision for 2 identical incidents.