Colonel Mustard
Well-known member
- Jun 18, 2023
- 2,240
I and some others (who are in the industry) thought that the PL VAR system will be used to try to conceal and exacerbate existing corruption..
There are no:
The entire system is built to facilitate matchfixing. PL officials make the rules as they go along. Notice how uncontroversial referees are in other sports with transparent systems where everyone is kept in the loop, so there's no real inconsistency.
- Open mikes like in Tennis, Cricket, the NFL where spectators are kept in the loop in realtime. (What's stopping them from doctoring later audio)?
- Managerial reviews of VAR decisions
- Pitchside monitors
- Final decisions with on-field referees
VAR has actually exposed how incompetent/corrupt the referees are. There are decisions they make on VAR then Sunday League referees legitimately wouldn't make.
VAR is not the problem. I'm an Arsenal fan here (though no club bias when it comes to refs). I like going onto other club forums to investigate perceptions on referees. PL refs are obviously the most corrupt refs that I've ever seen in any sport. If you go back to outcomes later found to be rigged (e.g. Calciopoli) you'll realise how ridiculously blatant it is.
Anthony Taylor sending off Dunk was a punishment by the PGMOL for RDZs comments. Referees (wrongly) get abused every single week. Sometimes, you can hear players (even on yellows) abuse referees on camera to this day and 99% it's no action. You'll notice that Taylor likely won't send another off for this reason again the rest of the season (maybe even never again).
There is a reason that you hear a lot from our club about refs (especially being assaulted by other teams under Wenger years). Every time our coach spoke out against referees, the decisions would strangely get worse/more inconsistent/biased.
Take a look at these:
The below is similar to Dunk. I would actually prefer these to be red cards if the referees were always consistent. This is ridiculous because I've seen the same match official let these go as just single yellows in multiple games after this. Common rulebook? Different rules for different teams.
Also this...
Sadio Mane vs Tierney incident Foul 2020 | Mane elbows/ arm in the face of Tierney, but only yellow card | Soccer Blog|Football News, Reviews, Quizzes
This Sadio Mane vs Tierney incident was a controversial one early in the game as Arsenal fans felt the Senegalese winger should’ve been sent off for this foul on Tierney. Mane’s arm catches Tierney in the face- he was only given a yellow card, and ended up scoring the equaliser for the Reds as...www.soccer-blogger.com
10-15 years ago, I never wanted to see it and used to assume that Wenger moaned too much about referees. I later saw that opposition players were allowed to commit professional fouls (last man) and be punished with just a yellow and that they were always allowed to assault our players. Almost every single subjective decision would go against us and referees would strangely make decisions which would in effect dock us points.
I thought that maybe the referees would change when he left, but it got worse (especially in Arteta's second season).
Ze Zerbi (who I love as a coach) like Wenger is an honest and integral man. I personally think that he sees the corruption in the referees. It's very blatant (if you've ever seen games out of matchfixing scandals). The PGMOL do not like VAR because many of these decisions are unjustifiable. Whether you are willing to believe corruption or not (this is 0.5% of what I know about PL referees), you have to seriously wonder why they can't make the system transparent like other sports.
This is above club bias. Other fans and some of my own team love it when other sides get screwed over. Even if it happens to Chelsea (watch Antony Taylor in Chelsea matches... he despises them), Brighton or Newcastle (before Saudi money), I get enraged.
Keith Hackett says that after the Newcastle game, the PGMOL phoned up some pundits telling them to cover for the referees. Don't forget that the broadcasters and pundits have live comms with VAR during games.
Back in the day, Halsey said that he was told to say that he didn't see things in match reports.
Anyways, I have a system of catching out corrupt/biased referees. I come back to forums once in a while to see what people notice based on the following criteria:
1) Every single throw in and corner decision seems to go against you. The referee even punishes your team for foul throws (which happen in every game every week).
2) The referee blows your team for the tiniest of foul but not the opposition
3) The referee allows the opposition team to get away with multiple yellow card challenges (they sometimes do this to wind up your home crowd) then book your own player for their first soft/equivalent offence. It's only after this that they book opposition players to look consistent.
4) The referee deliberately blows for a foul/overzealous to stop a game when your team has the advantage and would rather continue.
5) VAR ignores blatant grabbing pulling from the opposition from set pieces (not talking soft stuff either). I have seen games where a defender has pulled an oppo player by the front of their shirt and their club badge has ended up at the back of the shirt!
6) Blatant violent conduct unexplicably ignored and greenlit by VAR. I'm talking stamping/striking of opposition players off the ball.
7) Referees contradicting the handball law.
i) Giving penalties against you when hands are in natural positions less than a few yards away and blasted at the hand (even if the ball is going off target at times)
ii) Allowing opposition teams to block balls going on target by swiping their hands/throwing them in the air.
8) Allowing certain teams to wipe your forward out with their keeper. Remember Onana on the United game against Wolves? The PGMOL apologised after the game and stated by their own directive/interpretations of the law, that this is always a penalty. This wasn't a pen up to a few years ago but the PGMOL has now decided that it always should be a pen.
9) VAR being inconsistent on which angles are acceptable. VAR is supposed to corroborate a decision on multiple angles when a decision is inconclusive. Often I see the PGMOL defend their referees with this line, however after the game, other broadcasters (especially foreign) who have access to the same cameras that they do, show other angles in highlights that the VAR officials have access to that show an incident in a different light! Sometimes, they decide to use the worst angle on Skysports (setting a narrative) and then you see better ones after the game.
10) The referees would give a big decision against your team and then 'equalise' it later on. It seems fair, however some of these decisions are inexplicable on VAR. Some referees consistently do this (Anthony Taylor). They also seem to be biased in micro decisions such as corners and bookings against the team that has their first injustice before they 'make up for this later'. I notice that it's always the same teams with the first dodgy decision against them.
11) Go online and search your team's record with the match official before the game. Below is Anthony Taylor for Brighton. Depending on whether the ref is for/against your team, you'll notice that you always get certain decisions with certain referees. 2 seasons ago, I noticed that I could mostly predict my team's games on what referees we were assigned. If you have a particularly corrupt/biased few referees, the PGMOL will always repeatedly assign you those refs.
Anthony Taylor - Record by matches of Brighton & Hove Albion
Anthony Taylor » Record by matches of Brighton & Hove Albionwww.worldfootball.net
12) 3PM kick offs - This is one of the simpler and more common sense ways to spot how corrupt referees are. A big reason that the 'smaller' teams generate less outrage from biased refereeing is that fewer games are televised. The most corrupt, inexplicable and egregious refereeing is at 3PM. The decisions 'coincidentally' get far worse when matches aren't televised.
13) Last advice I would say is to never ever listen to TV pundits on refereeing decisions. The best interpretation of the game is with the volume off. We know according to ex-PL referees that the PGMOL use their contact with them to quieten down criticism on their decisions.
Obsessive. And paranoid. What’s next - chemtrails?
