Even ex-refs struggling to justify it.
But adding about how toxic it has become, you know what else is toxic? When football clubs who are there fighting for championships against oil rich clubs get robbed of points by fucking refs who want to be the centre of attention. Arteta has to deal with shit from the media and our own fans as a result, I don't see anyone running a sympathy campaigns for him!
Do you think this MLS sending off will be net positive or net negative for us in regards to future ref decisions?
Surely ref’s will think twice after this whole drama with Oliver.
Lol, that's very naive of you to think that Sicario.
They are not held accountable by anyone. It will happen again, no doubt.
The FA has to have someone independent review the ref's performances and shit decisions like these need to be punished by demoting to the lower leagues/match bans for the officials and new (foreign if needed?) refs need to be brought in to referee the games.
They can cry about online hate as much as they want, but if this goes on like it has, someone will eventually go full Luigi on these refs.
You'd hope so but they seem to hold us in contempt and seem to think of themselves as being above the law so I wonder how long that would last. Behind closed doors I hope Arsenal are talking to them about this and reminding them that if they make a big deal about this, it could be potentially very damaging for them.
the referees are behaving like someone who is not used to being criticized or questioned. like police might do when they've beaten up another defenseless black guy. they close ranks and find fault in the protest. BLM is a radical movement. the whole culture around PGMOL needs to change. they need to become much more peripheral in the game, and see themselves as an enabler, not an authority
Was nice to see one coach and Arteta immediately shepherd MLS away from the fourth official to protect him. Hopefully he’s not traumatised
Claudius I think the references to Howard Webb and his connection to the South Yorkshire police force are quite interesting in this regard. They're probably the most infamous force in the land.
Calling in favours from mates in the media, Holt showing as usual what a bellend he is
Just build an AI model on Pierluigi Collina and be done with it. Expand the semi automated technology to include all decisions and make it very binary what is and isn't a rule breach. Remove all subjectivity and interpretation out of the game and apply the letter of the law on all occasions.
You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Interesting timing here post Oliver gate. I’ve never seen a bunch of weak humans as worse as these in my life. Wasn’t Coote pictured with Thai prossies? Hahahaha
In emergency break glass and release the coming out story. In full crisis management mode now, think we can’t see past their shit.
[edit]Seen people say wouldn’t be surprising if they’ve forced him to come out to deflect attention, wouldn’t put anything past them.
Sicario2 - Tier 1 I'm never optimistic when it comes to reffing and Arsenal.
Sicario2 - Tier 1 really piling it on strong for the sympathy angle now for these poor refs
IBL it also appears that those threats preceded our game. They are related to a Liverpool game. Which I am inclined to believe because Liverpool fans are radicalised. They once closed down the most popular American soccer podcast because the hosts dared to suggest the fans bore partial responsibility for Hillsborough. Fans threatened to kill everyone. This was 15 years ago.
PGMOL are just a little mafia. I'm impressed that they got Sky to pull down their images and are controlling narrative. Incredibly political and powerful. Men with black whistles who make 100,000 a year. Insane when you think about it. Fucking PL dog being wagged all over the show.
We've appealed the red card.
Friends in the media are still trying their hardest to control the narrative. A lot of old school media struggling with social media in that respect, they can't control the messaging any more.
Just remember, all they had to do was just say they got it wrong and they would look into this and overturn the red card. Instead they've chosen to go down this path, the rot run deeps.
there's a few things going on here which show how people are not moving forward with technology. referees have always made mistakes. that's okay.
but the bigger thing is we have VAR and we are not using it properly in england. we are using it to rubber stamp decisions instead of giving the referee an extra set of eyes and leverage.
then there is the media issue. 10 years ago it was easier to control narrative with newspapers and tv. but ideas are more democratized with the web.
I said it in the other thread, lets see how this shakes out. It could be either swept under the rug, or it can cause a major overhaul. When every player, coach, pundit and many ex-referees say that it was never a red card in a million years (and wasnt even the worst tackle in that game), doubling down on it was not a good idea. Good for MLS and the club though. Glad to see he will be available for the next 3 games.
USArsenal you can’t have a child traumatized like this. I’m glad he can stand up tall knowing he isn’t at fault.
They usually want to cheat us against Manchester City. Remember Gabriel, Kovacic, Trossard. We could go on. Wonder what they’ll cook up. Next Kai Havertz handball will be deemed deliberate and a red card offense.
We need a whistleblower, on of their own to expose them. Otherwise they'll continue to do shit
I'm not inclined to go down the systematically corrupt road, although these last few days have not been a good look for the PGMOL.
But I do think Michael Oliver has given us enough dodgy red cards that we can now say he is at the very least unconsciously biased against us. The stats are stark and I think the MLS dismissal is a textbook example of this unconscious bias.
He was behind the incident and so did not have a great view of it, so he guessed and gave himself no time to think about the decision (you'd think removing a player would require at least a degree of thought), he reacted emotionally and not logically.
Darren England's application of the VAR process is the thing that concerns me, although I'm sure that when we hear the audio, it will all be very plausible. Especially given the still image @flobaba referred to previously.
I just can't see how he can have justified a decision, with all the images available to him, that almost to a man, the entire football world has been utterly shocked by.
The speed with which the appeal was upheld seems pretty telling, but I don't know if that's standard.
Also, just to say on the point of how long it took the red card to come out and be cleared by VAR, it would be nice if the same level of scrutiny applied to disallowing a goal was applied to removing a player from the pitch.
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.
Biases aren't a choice. We all have them and are blind to them for the most part. I'm sure referees are trained on mitigating them but it's not a form of corruption.
Corruption is a choice and implies some form of illegality or law/rule breaking.
daredevil not all biases are the same. Maybe the biases of the referees made them blind to on-field decisions being wrong, or maybe they disagree with the on-field decision, but let it pass because he's their colleague and they want to support him. The latter is on purpose, and if you don't think that's happening in the league then I guess we'll just have to disagree.
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.
