Anthony Taylor only blew the whistle today when it was clear that Havertz might make something of the knock on by Kiwior. It was blatant. Delayed his whistle longer than it took Trossard to kick the ball away against City. Fucking cunts.

RocktheCasbah Get rid of VAR I think, the dual layer of subjectivity is making everyone's brains melt. tbh, I was amazed our second goal was given - given how long that decision took.

I feel differently. VAR's proven that referees in this country need to be booted out (whatever the reason) and a new institution must replace PGMOL. It's been a failure of execution - not the technology which should have been implemented 2 decades ago anyway. Even assuming good faith, it pains me that that these guys invested millions into new tech to reduce uncertainty only to add a new set of subjective concepts around 'clear and obvious' decisions - there's a Dilbert comic in there somwhere.

Also the blatant muzzling of the media is inexcusable - it's just a rotten system.

      awooga83 I don't think there is corruption really

      You can say that, but there's very strong evidence that there is self-interest in play.

      For instance, the explanations given by the "key match incidents" process are laughably lacking in any capacity for PGMOL to adequately critique its own performances.

      I don't think Arsenal is necessarily being singled out but I do think Arsenal becomes a natural target for the following reasons:

      • We've been the main challenger to the incumbent champions for a few seasons
      • We are a very big, historic club with a huge fanbase and when Arteta makes an intervention like his "disgrace" tirade of last season, it is a big deal
      • PGMOL has had a moderate northern bias for its lifetime due to the ranks of the referees

      In short, we've got the capacity to influence PGMOL's trajectory—and even if it continues to operate along the same lines, which in my opinion it probably shouldn't—so it should be no surprise if they have some sort of reaction.

      mdgoonah41 regarding corruption, you always have to ask yourself "could this really be orchestrated and kept a secret?"

      Not at all. It is absolutely certain that PGMOL has internal dialogues that we never hear about. It is absolutely certain that both specific incidents and the statements of specific clubs are mentioned in these dialogues. And it is certain that there are other private dialogues behind those internal dialogues we don't hear about, the informal ones that don't get minuted behind the ones that do.

      It all depends on what you're willing to judge a conspiracy, but I see it as far more likely than not that there are conversations occurring concerning Arsenal and other clubs that would leave us aghast. Knowing how the league's clubs and institutions have always operated, what's truly implausible to me is the premise all of PGMOL's internal discussions would get anywhere near our expectations of probity and propriety.

            Mirth I can understand that and think you make good points.

            I think my issue with VAR is that we expect referees to use it to make the right calls, but the technology only helps them to make better informed yet still totally subjective calls. So even if you nailed down a 100% idiot proof process, you will still get errors -because everyone sees the game differently and, despite what we've been told recently, the laws of the game are open to interpretation.

              Mirth Agree with you here. The implementation of the VAR system has had the effect of making referees less accountable and more influential, which is not at all how it should be working. The idea you patch the bad implementation by also making PGMOL fellow travellers media stars is embarrassing and disreputable.

                Claudius The easiest explanations are incompetence and bias.

                It's not like the possibilities of incompetence, bias and corruption in poor decision-making exclude each other. In fact, these things go together.

                The issue for the relatively long-lived cabal of PGMOL old boys is existential.

                Webb is PGMOL's technical director and one of its media faces. He's been involved in Premier League refereeing for over two decades now. In the background you have other self-interested operators like Gallagher or Clattenburg looking for various angles to make a living. Both men who were active match referees in periods overlapping with Webb—note I'm not saying they're in a conspiracy with Webb, I'm just pointing out there is an echelon of men who have become "medium rich" from Premier League refereeing and want to continue earning.

                This "golden generation" of referees is more or less a legacy of the Premier League's own inception date and the gradual way it worked out its institutions as they now stand. It's because this generation of referees has been part of the football furniture for ages that punters tolerate their media work.

                There is no particular reason PGMOL's current structure and way of working is the best we could have. The system and its processes have been cobbled together. The league's VAR system is fractured and contributes controversy nearly every match week. No one other than the PGMOL old boys' club would be too bothered if this was all swept away in a campaign of reform and improvement.

                This is why questions of competence have stirred up slightly absurd media stonewalling from PGMOL in many, many cases now. There have been many obviously dubious or inconsistent decisions that PGMOL has backed up with dodgy public rhetoric. For example rather than rationalising decisions, the KMI public reviews have often tended to make them seem even sillier and dodgier.

                The reason is that PGMOL's incompetence threatens PGMOL's existence so they overcompensate. PGMOL is vulnerable, and in my assessment, it is likely to be—at least informally—corrupt.

                  Feels like some of y'all think corruption has to be people in hoods in a secret chamber cackling evil laughs. It's blatantly corrupt. It may be casual, it may be banal, it may be informal, but it's corrupt.

                    Coombs Feels like some of y'all think corruption has to be people in hoods in a secret chamber cackling evil laughs. It's blatantly corrupt. It may be casual, it may be banal, it may be informal, but it's corrupt.

                    Yes, this is it. Corruption looks a lot like the boys private WhatsApp chat organising fortnightly beers and happening to clarify its collective workplace agenda at the same time.

                    PGMOL smells like a typical example of an insufficiently professionalised and remunerated bureaucracy that has been fractured by conflicts of interest. Almost all public bureaucracies were like this in the UK prior to the great round of reforms in the 19C.

                    The Premier League has institutions so weak that it is on the point of being crippled by business and legal attacks launched by several of its own member clubs. Every time there's a super league challenge PGMOL refs have to wonder if they'll still have their jobs in the new world, so it's no surprise PGMOL has its grifters taking Saudi paydays or trying to create lateral career paths for themselves.

                      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.