Having a bias is a form of corruption for a referee.

I'm being totally serious when I say this: if I was a professional ref and was asked to referee a Man Utd game, I would refuse. There's not a chance I could referee that game fairly.

Tierney, England, Kavanaugh and Oliver are objectively anti-Arsenal. Their performances have shown they cannot be neutral in an Arsenal match. Even if its existence is not made public, a competent body should analyse refereeing performances for irregularities such as bias.

This isn't only for the benefit of Arsenal. There'll be refs that are biased against Liverpool or Newcastle or Villa. Man City are unscathed because they may be paying off refs and they're a small club so no-one outside of north London and Liverpool feels strongly about them.

biases aren't corruption. we all have biases. i have to recruit people at my job. every interview i walk into, i look into the screen or across the table and despite all my bias training i have already formed a rich opinion of the candidate in front of me - and it has an impact on how i will assess them. it helps that i have a structured interview format and scoring rubric, but those biases still linger. this stuff isn't corruption. it's just a hazard of the job that you need to actively manage against.

That analogy doesn't work in this context. A referee's only job is to officiate a match between two teams as a neutral.

Having a bias against one of the teams displays a lack of integrity and honesty, which is the definition of corruption.

Claudius consciously biased!

If a referee is unconsciously biased, then he's an idiot. It's like excusing a judge for having unconscious bias and putting black kids away while letting white guys go free for the same offenses. Bullshit. Their job is to be conscious of their biases and to manage them. If they can't, bin 'em.

FWIW, there's no way I can ever be convinced they they have any unconscious biases. They know exactly how they feel.

One individual could be unconsciously biased but an entire organisation...? It's not like Michael Oliver is the only one with issues.

Mirth in a career that is almost literally about managing biases, to be unaware of your own seems slightly ludicrous.

Claudius you can’t have a child traumatized like this.

The man is 18 years old. Have some respect.

They appointed a Liverpool fan to ref our game v City

Tierney on VAR as well - what could go wrong?

If anything, I think they will all be too anxious to do anything overly dramatic.
Only issue is that it might allow animals like Kovacic license to do some gangster shit

RocktheCasbah I think they know they are being watched and under scrutiny so you'd think/hope they'd wait a while before they can screw us over. But you never know with this lot.

JazzG I just hope payback doesn’t start this Sunday v City ffs

RocktheCasbah should give us some calls before he heads to Celtic the following day

This guy wished he never wrote this article. Doesn’t know what backlash he will get from Arsenal Twitter who are a force to be reckoned with:

They can't hide from their past.

Sicario2 - Tier 1 He's deleted his tweet, Arsenal Twitter remains undefeated.