PGMOL
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.
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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.
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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!