All of the above but corruption is definitely a part of it. Some of them are on Man City’s payroll, no doubt indirectly, others are perhaps hoping to be. The reality is that we have received 3 red cards this season for infringements that have been repeated by others dozens of times, in this very same season, and not been punished in the same way. On the other hand, blatant penalties and red cards in our favour are not given. VAR doesn’t even check them. Whenever there is a possibility to rule out an Arsenal goal, it’s taken. I refuse to believe that they can be that incompetent. The evidence for corruption is overwhelming.

The club should actively work towards destroying PGMOL completely. Fuck them all off and bring in foreign referees. We have nothing to lose at this point. It’s worse than the Fergie era. There’s no point to this entire competition since it happens every single week, every single game.

    Having the same incompetent referees in the VAR booth doubles the problem rather than fixing it. If you had truly independent people there, not other refs who feel sympathy for their mates, you could get somewhere. Is it me or every time I watch an Italian or Spanish match, which is admittedly not as often but I do, you don't see as many blatant mistakes and VAR seems to sort of work better and faster. Right? Or is it just in my head?

      Gurgen I really hope the club is just taking its time to compile the biggest dossier ever compiled and that will be the beginning of the end of this PGMOL shit show.

      We can't simply do nothing about it out of fear.

          Agree. Call me a whiny little bitch or whatever, but it is impossible to win the league in these circumstances. It's just impossible. We are only 9 games in and they have already stolen 7-9 points from us. We have to do something, whatever it takes.

          FEBravo __ It's not in your head - VAR has vastly reduced referee errors everywhere but in England.

            Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert The problem is that we can put forward all the evidence we want but the rest of the world will just laugh at us and call us crazy conspiracy theorists and what not so nothing will happen except we will only get an even larger target on our backs. Just read The Guardian's two articles about the game and one of them focuses on our 'dark arts' for having injured players on the grass and Ronay's piece has a paragraph that makes fun of Arsenal fans' feeling of injustice. He totally dismisses that Martinelli should have had a pen and none of them brings up the ghost freekick that ruled out our winning goal.

            I cannot recall having heard a single British pundit backing us even a little bit in any of the instances where we were robbed so the narrative is completely against us.

              If its not corruption it's sheer incompetence, both on field officials and those on VAR, and for some reason it seems to happen more when we're playing.

              The contrast between the CL refs and the domestic ones is night and day.

              I saw our dissallowed goal this morning on the big screen, wtf is wrong with the ref?! If it's a foul blow straight away, what exactly are you waiting for, to see if Liverpool are gonna get an advantage from that phase of play and play on?! And also it's perfectly fine to kick the ball away on a FK when it's against us.

              Webb and PGMOl have zero accountability

              Taylor needs the budapest airport treatment, public needs to harass these cunts because the referees are a boys club, one defending the other

              Burnwinter I think even corruption in some informal sense like referees chatting in WhatsApp about Arsenal specifically seems unlikely to me in that they are like we need to make an example. Fair enough if the point isn't really about arsenal but lot of the discourse elsewhere seems to be the idea it's just us which I just don't agree with.

              As mdgoonah41 outlined there are so many people involved in football and none of them might think it was wrong or not be an Arsenal fan of some sort I don't think that's credible personally.

              James on arsecast made a point a few weeks back on this type of topic which was basically I don't think referees are very much different today then from 30 years ago. They are essentially performing as they always have but there is so much more scrutiny and instant clips even fans can now post a clip compared to some incident we experienced and say cheating etc which also shapes people's views on this stuff even if it's inconsistency which is the frustration. I certainly felt that was fair I don't remember 90s being a golden age for referees.

              I agree that as an organisation I don't think they are set up to be genuinely open and trying to improve things as everything always seems to be justifying what happend (for all clubs) and that's not a healthy place for any organisation to be in.

              With VAR I wish they would just free them from this on the side role, let them be able to take decisions like in other sports they could talk to the ref as the game is going on you've missed this challenge it's a whatever offence you need to book player x when you get a chance. This stupid limited intervention approach and not wanting to impact the on field ref is a stupid way of doing it for me.

                    awooga83 James on arsecast made a point a few weeks back on this type of topic which was basically I don't think referees are very much different today then from 30 years ago. They are essentially performing as they always have but there is so much more scrutiny

                    I made a post covering this ground a couple of weeks ago. Back in the 90s the main qualities a ref needed were fitness, personal authority, emotional resilience and a good knowledge of the laws, a decision once taken was hard to critique, you wouldn't have alternate footage or the internet etc, so refs were decent at their jobs and beyond that just had very thick hides.

                    Thing is, that's actually got to change now we've got the same sort of referees making decisions that are provably incorrect on a fairly regular basis. The next thing is, the way PGMOL's operating seems to be set up to protect an anxious cohort of referees who aren't quite up to scratch.

                    We've had some seriously embarrassing situations, such as the VAR who didn't draw the offside lines—quite a few of these guys seem to be behind the pace but instead of fixing that, they've made up a complex system of penalties for complaints, mostly unsuccessful appeals and systematic PGMOL excuse-making. And they're still making a bloody hash of it.

                        But how can one "forget" to draw lines? How can one look at someone smashing his forearm into a player's head and say "he didn't use it as a weapon"? How can one say "he has his hands on his back but there is no push". It defies belief and I don't buy it.

                          I agree, it's not solely incompetence. The yellow cards given to Rice and Trossard earlier in the season in decisions that haven't been repeated weren't incompetent, they were pointed and deliberate.

                          The smoking gun that would destroy PGMOL would be if it ever came out they'd ever experimented with controversial decisions to "drive engagement" ... I consider it a bit less likely than basic bitch vendettas and meddling, but not impossible.

                          Gurgen because they are out to get Arsenal. When it comes to us, there is no incompetence. They know exactly what they are doing.

                            Yeah, I have to say I remain dubious about the concept of institutional bias against the Arsenal from the the PGMOL, but I've just finished watching the BBC's Linford documentary and it was a pretty stark reminder that such biases do exist and are propagated in the media.

                              Mirth That's one way to look at it, but since VAR has also affected the way match refs adjudicate, the problem goes all the way down.

                              Still think the "video assist" for decisions requiring discretion and interpretation should just be the match ref enabled with video on the side of the pitch or with a tablet. The league can implement machine systems for offside and goal line decisions—just robot linesmen, then, so no issue and it fits with tradition.

                              Get a bit of accountability back into things as the "clear and obvious error" nonsense creates way too many wicked incentives for the shambles at PGMOL to handle, they're way too busy covering each other's arses to do the right thing, by and large.

                                RocktheCasbah Arguing any bias is specifically "anti-Arsenal" isn't really necessary from my point of view, it's setting the bar for criticism of PGMOL too high. This is an organisation that should be able to prove for its own sake that it delivers high standards of probity and impartiality.

                                  Coombs this is what annoys me at the moment. Its gone like political chat when you try to discuss corruption and bias in refereeing. Everyone wants to equate it to some grand conspiracy where the refs are all getting paper bags full of cash in some dark car park after the game. The reality is these refs are being paid by the same people who own City but its all above board and sanctioned by PGMOL. The reality is the refs overwhelmingly come from the same geographical region and look the same. This is an old boys club where they pick people like themselves and allow visible financial incentivising because its good for themselves rather than the league or the game as a whole.