The Dim in Beirut

AGREE OR DISAGREE

3 Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd fans from Lebanon and England see whether they can agree on 5 major talking points from the Weekend’s Premier League action.

1) Mark Clattenburg’s performance was yet more evidence of pro United refereeing bias

Nadim:   AGREE

I’ve written a lot on this subject so my views are clear on this.

There were bad decisions all weekend. The 3 games I watched (Arsenal vs QPR, the Merseyside derby and Chelsea vs United) were all decided by refereeing mistakes. The difference between all 3 games though is that I actually predicted what would happen in the United game- and indeed it actually fits into a pattern of behavior from referees that had gone a long time without reffing them.

Joe: DISAGREE

He certainly has a few bigger questions to answer for than those of United refereeing bias if he is guilty of what Chelsea have alleged…

The question of refereeing bias towards United is one that always intrigues me, for example the headlines will read United get lucky when on the same weekend Arsenal and Everton have questionable decisions go their way too.

Oh, and Villa should have definitely had Herd sent off for a dreadful challenge when already on a booking. Still it is United yet again that people will focus on and rightfully so as United got decisions going their way during a period of the game when they needed it most. Ivanovic had to go; Torres was very unlucky with his second yellow. Hernandez fell lucky of not so much refereeing bias but assistant referee ineptness.

Samer: AGREE

Clattenburg’s performance in the first half was acceptable. The Torres kung-fu kick wasn’t intentional. The second half is where the problems were and have been well discussed.

Not here to offer more to a conspiracy theory, however, the amount of decisions that Clattenburg gave United while they were under pressure are just too many in a short period of time. When united were cruising, he was top notch, guess he felt the same pressure they did when dropping a 2 goal lead.

Whether or not this conspiracy is true, the amount of refereeing decisions that United were awarded in that 2^nd half does give food for thought for any football fan of any kind, well except united supporters who enjoy a win over a team with 9 men and an offside goal.

2) There's no light at the end of the tunnel for Aston Villa, they're going down

Nadim: AGREE

I’ll be shocked if they don’t go down.

Their next few games are very tough (United, City and Arsenal in 3 of the next 4) and they look completely devoid of creativity or goal threat. From what I know of Villa, there’s very little money in the bank for January.

Villa have been regressing under 3 managers now. They’ve spent 3 years selling their best players to the extent that there’s very few players left that are any good. In all honesty, I can’t see one redeeming factor in their play and nothing to suggest there’s 3 teams worse than them. Going down.

Joe: AGREE

If Villa were to stay up then a victory against Norwich was crucial, but they found themselves down to 10 men (should have been 9!) and hanging on. Paul Lambert has a lot of cred amongst the footballing fraternity so people are not twisting the knife too much but deep down he must know that he is doomed this season.

Samer: AGREE

They’re running out of solutions. Paul Lambert has worked miracles with Norwich and Colchester in previous seasons. This time it might just be out of his reach. 

Lambert’s team at the moment isn’t anywhere near clicking. His top scorer starts on the bench and keeps sending out disgruntled messages; his backline could be playing for a U 21 team.  He’s got problems. They haven’t faced anyone tough in the league yet, bar Spurs.

Lambert is a good tactician and with one or two good signings in the winter window, he could pull off a good run of results to keep them up. Things at the moment look pretty tough and chances are pretty slim for them to stay up this year.

3) This could be the most exciting title race for ages

Nadim: DISAGREE

Genuinely think we’ll have a 3 horse race for the first time since 1999 (2002 race ended 1 month before conclusion).

Chelsea have improved a great deal while both City and United have looked shaky at times. United are the weakest of the 3 but have the best manager and that will to win of theirs (as well as other factors in their favor). It’s hard to separate the 3 teams, and I think it could well come down to head to head games between them. It’ll go to the wire.

But not to the 93^rd minute of the last game of the season. As such, disagree.

Joe:AGREE

With the organized chaos that both Manchester clubs appear to indulge in when chasing the league added to Chelsea’s in house drama, this season is all set to be another exciting one right to then end.

No team will run away with the league. Question marks over how much Spurs or Arsenal can chip in as Spurs have previous for caving in but if we have 4 teams still in it come December and then 3 by March the neutrals are in for a treat.

Samer: AGREE

The big three are favorites, but it’s hard to ignore how much of a role Arsenal and Tottenham may have in the title race. I do believe Arsenal does have an outside chance, but it’s a small chance, it’s nice to believe though.

 City have been stuttering, but still getting the results. United have started strong and Chelsea before yesterday were absolutely flying, although their fixture list has been kind to them. The league starts to shape up around December, Come May, one of that list will be crowned champion, one thing’s for sure, and it won’t be as easy many think.

It’s going to be a long, controversial and enjoyable title race.

4) Luis Suarez is the most entertaining player in the league

Nadim: AGREE

Love him or hate him (and I don’t know of a single Red who doesn’t love him and a single non Red who doesn’t hate him), the boy is great value.

You can’t take your eye off him. He’s the sort of player who gets you off your seat the minute he gets on the ball if he’s on your team. Concurrently, he must scare the living daylights out of you if he’s playing against you.

And you’ve got all that other stuff coming with him, the dive yesterday was pure comedy gold. His reactions to decisions at times are hilarious. If he was in the WWE, you’d pay good money to watch him get beaten up. The perfect villain but so entertaining.

Joe: AGREE

Entertaining but not necessarily the best because on current form, that title would go to Juan Mata who is the best player for the best team as the current table stands.

Suarez is giving fans the pantomime villain that they have craved since Cristiano Ronaldo left in 2009. Fans will go to games ready to goad him, defenders too. One thing for sure though is that he is a marvel to watch, no quiet moment when he is on the pitch.

Samer: AGREE

I have to admit; he’s got a great touch, lovely movement, tremendous skill and can probably  be called the Premier League’s nutmeg king.

 He does have a negative side to him, many would call him being singled out or victimized, but if you see the series of incidents he involves himself in, he doesn’t do himself any favors.

He is dirty with undoubted ability and skill. If anyone were to ask me if he was the best footballer in the Premier League, I’d say no but he’d be in the top 5.

On the entertainment side in general, he’s undisputed number 1 – with only PL referee’s being his out and out rival.

5) Stoke and Sunderland are the worst teams to watch in the Premier League

Nadim:AGREE

They’re just atrocious to watch.

I’ve watched 4 Sunderland games and seen them create 2 chances. Sessegnon is the only player with any creativity in that side and he’s had an awful start to the season. They rely heavily on their wingers who are giving them nothing at the moment.

Stoke are a bit more fun, simply because their style of play is such a relic to days gone by and there’s usually a good atmosphere at the Britannia. But God knows what they do in training. Kick, long ball, header, throw in, tackle, foul. Do they work on anything else? Do they even have coaches? Surely they don’t need them.

Joe:AGREE

Sunderland will move into November with only 1 player registering a goal as Stephen Fletcher…

A shocking stat.

Even the generous refereeing which resulted in them facing 10 men for the majority of the Tyne-Wear derby could not allow them to buck this trend and they needed an own goal to help them out. I would hate to support them.

But not as much as I would hate to support Stoke. Pulis claims to be attempting to adapt their style… really? With the players he has at his disposal don’t expect any tika taka anytime soon.

Samer: AGREE

Stoke usually are at the bottom of my watching list, unless they’re playing against us. Regardless my personal opinion about Stoke, they always have come across as big bullying footballers who have zero tolerance for mistakes. Even when they added players with pace and flair, their game focuses on being the bigger bully.

It’s been a rough and boring start to the season for both teams, Even MOTD chose to play their game last and it’s going to be a long season for both clubs’ supporters.

Until there’s some sort of improvement, it’ll be a long time before any “neutral” supporter will want to be watching one of their games.

 So there you have it, 3 conclusions from the weekend out of 5 that a Liverpool, Arsenal and United fan agree on. Please leave us your comments should you have any.

The Whole World's Watching

Please follow me on twitter www.twitter.com/DimmyBad and read 3 previous posts which will give you background on today's article here: http://diminbeirut.typepad.com/my-blog/corruption-and-influence-peddling-in-english-football/

It’s amazing how us “paranoids” keep managing to predict the future isn’t it?

Today, Manchester United beat Chelsea 3-2 at Stamford Bridge.

Not a single football fan across the world is talking about anything other than Mark Clattenburg’s refereeing performance in that game.

Readers of this blog will not have been surprised by the referee’s performance. They will have known exactly what to expect during that game today and even the most skeptical will surely be scratching their heads.

Clattenburg had gone 38 games without refereeing Manchester United. His previous United game was the 6-1 thrashing by rivals Man City at Old Trafford. He sent Johnny Evans off in a match that Alex Ferguson described as “the most embarrassing defeat of my career”.

For 38 games, Clattenburg was not handed a single United game to referee. Not a single league game, not a single cup game. That stat alone tells us nothing: he’s also gone a while without officiating Arsenal or Liverpool games. His performance today, however, tells us a great deal.

Clattenburg has now become the latest in an ever lengthening line of referees who have officiated a United loss, gone a long time without reffing them, then on their return give game changing decisions to Alex Ferguson’s side.

Like Chris Foy, who took charge of a United defeat and went a year without reffing United in the league. During that time, Foy reffed 2 United cup games, giving them penalties in both and sending off Vincent Kompany in one.

Like Phil Dowd, who reffed a United loss, then gave them a penalty in the next game he took charge of which earned United a draw and their 19th league title.

Like Mike Jones, who after falsely awarding Demba Ba a penalty at Old Trafford, gave United 2 penalties in 2-0 home win against Stoke during his subsequent visit to Old Trafford. The list is neverending.

I’m not going to keep repeating myself, all that info is in my 3 previous articles. Halsey, Atkinson, Wiley, Oliver, Webb… There’s enough there to at least make you think Man United are the world champions of coincidences.

The point is this:

Clattenburg sends a United player off in an embarrassing loss at home, and gets a 38 game absence from United games. Is there anyone out there who believes that after his performance at Stanford Bridge, he’ll go 38 games without taking charge of United again?

Anyone?

United fans keep commenting on these articles, telling people that all of this is just a coincidence.

They cite examples at other clubs, in other eras. I ask United fans the following:

Was today yet another coincidence? And if so, aren’t you just a tiny bit suspicious about the fact that these coincidences keep piling up?

Some people have asked why, when the facts are so blatant and suspicions so widely held by the entire global premier league fanbase, is nothing ever done?

England is a country where the powerful protect the powerful.

It’s a country where innocent people (the Guilford 4 and Birmingham 6) were put in jail for decades by authorities who knew they were innocent of the crimes they were convicted of.

England is a country where the truth is withheld from the general population, until the people implicated either die or retire.

The truth about Hillsborough was known 1 year after the event. It’s only 23 years later that the media has spread the information to the wider population. During that time, some key people that could have been convicted passed away. They were protected by other people in power. Meanwhile, the reputations of the deceased were tarnished, their deaths used as banter at football grounds by people either wholly let down by their country’s media or just spiteful.

For decades, Jimmy Savile was allowed to molest children and was protected by people in power. From the BBC, to the police, to the media and to God knows who else… They all played a role in making sure Savile was able to prey on his victims in peace. They made sure the truth would only come out after his death.

That’s England. It’s extremely similar to every single other country on earth. The politically powerful protect the politically powerful everywhere in the world. The media help facilitate this arrangement. Police forces, politicians,  big business, the press and other powerful people constantly work together in mutually beneficial arrangements.

Unlike other world citizens though, the English are sometimes shocked to discover this fact. All these instances I mentioned above came as a shock to the general population- whose trust in their institutions is unwavering.

The powerful protect the powerful. It’s a fact of life.

It’s how Lance Armstrong managed to cheat for so long without investigations. His acussers were called paranoid too and bullied too. Remind you of anyone?

Power talks.

There are very few men in the world more powerful than Rupert Murdoch, the man who finances the global juggernaut that is the premier league through Sky Tv. No man stands more to lose from any investigation into corruption in his cash cow. No newspapers in England are as powerful as his disgusting “The Sun”.

No man in football is more politically powerful than Alex Ferguson. This is a man who was awarded a knighthood on the recommendation of Tony Blair- who Ferguson helped during his 1997 campaign for prime minister. Read Allaistar Campbell’s diaries. It’s all there. Ferguson was constantly on the phone to Campbell asking what he could do to help.

As a reward, Ferguson got knighted. By the Queen of England. That was 13 years ago. God knows what other contacts he’s made during that time. And he didn't even have someone in the FA then.

No football club CEO in England is more powerful than Manchester United’s David Gill, who has now been promoted to VICE CHAIRMAN of the FA who also wants him as their member on Uefa’s executive committee.

And no man was more power in assigning and demoting referees than Mike Riley, the head of the PGMOB. A man whose allegiances to Man United were so suspect that David Moyes wanted him investigated. A man who was appointed a few months after Ferguson heavily criticized his predecessor.

Power protects power. But nothing will ever be done. This is England.

We all have to wait until Ferguson retires (or passes away) , a seismic change happens in the FA and PGMOB or for, by miracle, certain journalists grow some balls and actually delve right into this.

Until then expect many more Mark Clattenburgs. Expect the game you love, the club you adore and the league you follow to forever be at the mercy of backroom deals, strange referee selections and decisions. Expect many more weekends spent scratching your head, wondering just how more coincidences it will take for people to wake up.

The whole world’s watching…

 

Power and Glory

Please follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/DimmyBad

(Please read the first 2 posts in this series which will give you some background on what we will be discussing: Part 1 http://diminbeirut.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/09/the-truth-is-out-there.html and Part 2 http://diminbeirut.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/10/corruption-and-influence-peddling-in-the-english-game.html). Also check out the follow up, after Clattenburg's return to reffing United: http://diminbeirut.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/10/the-whole-worlds-watching.html

First off, let me offer my congratulations to David Gill.

For those who missed it, it was announced this week that Gill is to replace Sir Dave Richards as the FA’s vice chairman. The confirmation of his promotion from board member to vice chairman will come at the next FA Council meeting. According to reports, this promotion is due to the FA’s desire to get Gill, Manchester United CEO, a place on Uefa’s executive committee, representing the English FA’s interests.

Well done Mr. Gill.

This rounds off another strange week in the wacky world of the FA. A week which saw them give their written reasons for banning John Terry for 4 games (half the punishment given to Luis Suarez), get called “a bunch of twats” by Ashley Cole, launch the modern Saint George Park which they hope will take England coaching into the next century (this is the organization that hired Roy Hodgson and Stuart Pearce as managers of the senior side and under 21 team) and refuse to give bans to Cheik Tiote, Robert Huth and Robin Van Persie for violent incidents.

The last one is particularly strange. The FA has shown in the past they will not hesitate to charge a player for off the ball violent conduct. They proved that last year when they banned the Italian Mario Baloteli for a stamp on England’s Scott Parker (the same game where the Englishman Jolean Lescott got no retrospective punishment for forearm smashing France’s Younes Kaboul…).

But enough about the FA for now, though we’ll come back to them later on.

After my last 2 posts got some amazing coverage (75,000 hits in a few days) and Chris Foy’s demotion to League 2 sent Twitter inTO a frenzy, the chief football correspondent of the Rupert Murdoch owned TheTimes, Tony Evans, wrote a piece rejecting the possibility of any pro Manchester United conspiracy. Evans stressed that referee selections were made 6 weeks in advance and thus Foy’s League 2 assignment had nothing to do with his United performance.

I found this strange: if this is true, why are assignments only announced the Monday before games? And, more to the point, how does the PGMOB actually demote referees? Doesn’t a single demotion affect the careful 6 weeks planning done?

Check this link http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/fans/faqs/when-are-referees-selected.html. The PGMOB themselves say that referees are selected for games based on several factors including their current form and how many times they reffed a club before.

How is possible then that these selections are made 6 weeks early? It just doesn’t make any sense at all. How does someone’s form leading up to mid-January earn him a big match in March? And if they take in consideration how many times a ref has taken charge of a team, why was Howard Webb (a referee who's given United 9 penalties in 32 games but only 10 to Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool in 100 matches)  given the last United game of the season at Sunderland last term, when he’d already refereed them more than anyone else previously?

Something is not right.

In my last post, we focused on current PGMOB head Mike Riley’s record refereeing Manchester United games. Riley became head of the PGMOB in 2009. The man he replaced was Keith Hackett.

Here is a quote about Hackett from the Manchester United manager after their Cup loss to Portsmouth in 2008. ‘I don’t think he’s doing his job properly and he needs to be assessed. He’s got his favourites, as everyone knows. You look at the refs we get away from home – Steve Bennett, Mark Clattenburg, Phil Dowd, all these people – we never get them at home, always away, and I think that tells you everything about him (Hackett). Clattenburg – oh, Jesus, God.”

(Poor Mark Clattenburg, remember, is the man who took charge of City’s 6-1 win at Old Trafford and hasn’t been assigned a United game for 36 premier league matches since)

A year later, Hackett was gone. Replaced with a man whose allegiance to Man United the Everton manager (and close friend of Ferguson) David Moyes wanted investigated. Like Alain Wiley (the ref in charge of the 4-1 Liverpool win at United), Hackett retired just months after heavy criticism from Ferguson.

“Coincidence”. Again.

Let’s now look at some stats. We saw in the 2 previous posts how long referees who took charge of Ferguson’s team went before being assigned them again. We saw how certain referees got demoted after making mistakes in United games (Atkinson,Jones) or simply officiating their defeats (Foy).

More to the point, we saw how referees Ferguson criticized were subsequently treated. We looked at United’s title winning 10/11 season, where they only lost 4 games and how 2 of those refs went a year without taking charge of them again (with 2 being demoted) while another went 9 months.

United’s title rivals that season were Arsenal and Chelsea. They lost 17 league games combined that season, under 10 different referees. Only 1 referee went a year without getting assigned one of their games (Mike Jones who took charge of Stoke’s victory against Arsenal late in the season and wouldn’t ref them again in the league till late last in the next term).

A huge majority of the refs would get another Blues or Gunners game just a few weeks after reffing a defeat. Certain refs would ref 2 defeats in a row and still get assigned to them a few weeks later.

What’s more striking, in comparison to United, is when referees made heavy blunders in a Chelsea or Arsenal game, there was no punishment.

For example, Phil Dowd took charge of the 4-4 Newcastle Arsenal game where he gave 2 ridiculous penalties to the Toon and sent off Abou Diaby. His next Arsenal game came just 6 weeks later. Would such controversial decisions against United game get him assigned a match at Old Trafford so soon after? It’s highly unlikely, just ask Martin Atkinson.

Liverpool lost 14 league games that season under the guise of 10 referees. Only one referee went a considerable amount of time without being assigned to them again: Michael Oliver who took charge of Kenny Dalglish’s first premier league game after his return at Blackpool, and would go 11 months without another LFC premier league game.

But, again, a big number of refs who took charge of LFC defeats would get another game assigned to them shortly. Howard Webb, Liverpool’s number 1 refereeing nemesis, took charge of the win against Chelsea just a few weeks after officiating the Goodison Derby loss.

The season before that, Rafa Benitez had criticized 2 referees for their performances in Liverpool games: Phil Dowd who took charge of the opening league defeat at Spurs and Lee Mason who sent 2 reds players off in a 3-1 loss to Fulham. Both reffed LFC games a couple of months after. Mason sent Javier Mascherano off in his next Liverpool game (also a defeat) and still got handed another Reds game to officiate a few weeks later.

Of course, this is all one season. And United only lost 4 games so the sample is small. But we saw in the last post what happened the next season: the demotion Mike Jones suffered after giving Demba Ba an imaginary penalty at Old Trafford as well as how long Clattenburg has gone without reffing United after the 6-1 loss to City. And of course, the brilliant “coincidence” of Chris Foy reffing a League 2 game for the first time in 5 years after taking charge of Spurs 3-2 win at Old Trafford.

And for people who still think the refereeing selection process is on the straight and narrow, please explain to me why poor old Mark Clattenburg was not given an Everton game to referee for an insanely long FIVE years after he took charge of the stormy Merseyside derby in 2007. Even considering Clattenburg’s year long absence from the game, surely under the PGMOB publically released criteria, he should have gotten an Everton game before 2012.

The selection process is flawed, full of contradictions and needs to be a lot more transparent. Other clubs may also have cases of referees going a long time without games: but as we saw in 2010/11, they’re very rare cases and are nowhere near as common as with United.

And more to the point, while it sometimes happens, a few things are unique to United.

Not a single referee has claimed that the FA is reticent to assign refs to matches where the club’s manager has criticized them (as Jeff Winter did about United). No ref has claimed he was banned from another club’s games for 2 years, like Jeff Winter did about United. No premier league club has its CEO promoted to Vice chairman of the FA and pushed for a leading role in UEFA. No club has had its ties with the head of the PGMOB put under question by the Everton manager. And no other club’s manager’s criticism of an official’s fitness (Alain Wiley) and PGMOB head performance (Keith Hackett) lead to the retirement of both individuals soon after.

The details that have come out in the case of Lance Armstrong have surely taught us one major lesson: It is extremely unhealthy to have a single individual hold so much power inside a sport.

This could lead to abuses of power, bullying, a culture of fear, influence peddling and pure corruption. After all the numerous “coincidences” we’ve seen in these 3 posts, the fact that Alex Ferguson’s political connections after decades in charge of England biggest team are far reaching, the constant bullying of journalists who dare ask a semi hard question as well as the comments from ex referee Jeff Winter then surely one has to wonder whether the squeaky clean English Premier League is anything but.

And thus, crucially, whether the FA’s desire to give David Gill even MORE power within the domestic and European game is a smart thing to do.

 

Thanks to Samer Faroukh, @SamerF89 for stats analysis, www.soccerbase.com for referee stats and Daniel Rhodes for his wonderful article on Alex Ferguson at www.tomkinstimes.com which alerted me to the Keith Hackett story.

Corruption and Influence Peddling in the English Game

Please follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/DimmyBad

 Also check out the follow up, after Clattenburg's return to reffing United: http://diminbeirut.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/10/the-whole-worlds-watching.html

After I wrote my last piece, http://diminbeirut.typepad.com/my-blog/2012/09/the-truth-is-out-there.html, on Manchester United’s relationship with the FA, I was taken aback by the response I had.The post has gotten around 30,000 hits in the last 48 hours alone. I suggest to people who haven’t read it to jump to that post now as it gives a lot of background on what we will look at in this article.

As stated in my previous post, the fortunes of the  institutions surrounding football in the UK will be negatively hit should any proof of corruption come out. It is naturally in their interest not to investigate the matter. In fact, the managers that have come out and questioned the refereeing
selection process (Rafa Benitez, Andre Villas Boas) have been turned into laughing stocks by the English press corps.

So, investigate some more I did. And some of the stuff I found out surprised even me.

During United’s title winning 2010/11 season, they only lost 4 league games. I looked at who refereed those games and how long they then spent without being assigned Manchester United games as well their subsequent trend of behavior towards United.

Michael Oliver took charge of their first defeat, the February 2011 2-1 loss at Wolves. He was not given another Manchester United game to referee until December 2011. Since then, Oliver has had 2 United games.

United have won both, with Oliver refusing to give a clear Fulham penalty in the 1-0 United win late last season at Old Trafford; a game came right at the end of the title race. A few weeks ago, Oliver gave United a penalty for a shocking dive by Danny Welbeck in the home win against Wigan.

The second game United lost was away to Chelsea. Martin Atkinson was the referee then and some of his decisions incurred the wrath of Alex Ferguson. Atkinson was not given another United game to referee for an ENTIRE YEAR.

Atkinson was further punished with his decisions that went against United that day. He was not given a single premier league game to referee for a full month. Even worse, he was subsequently given 3 lower league games to referee that season- when he’d previously not officiated a single one
that campaign.

It seems that Atkinson was given a clear message that day.

The 3^rd United loss came at Anfield, where a Dirk Kuyt hat trick secured a 3-1 home win. The referee that day was Phil Dowd. He was criticized by Ferguson for not sending Jamie Carragher off. In the very next United game Dowd refereed, he gave them a penalty which secured a 1-1 draw
at Blackburn and their 19^th league title.

Giving United penalties in the very next game you referee them after having been criticized is a trend we’ll soon notice.

The final United loss of the 2010/11 season came at the Emirates, where Chris Foy refereed a 1-0 Arsenal win. It will come to no surprise to people to know that Foy was subsequently not assigned a United league game for, again, AN ENTIRE YEAR.

He did however referee 2 United games in the cups during that time. The first was in the Carling Cup against Crystal Palace. He awarded United a penalty. The second was at City in the FA Cup. United got a penalty and Vincent Kompany was sent off early in the game.

To resume, we’ve just analyzed what happened to the 4 referees that officiated United’s 4 league losses in the 2010/11 season. 2 of them were not given any more United league games for a full year (Atkinson and Foy), a third for 9 months (Oliver). 2 of those referees gave United penalties in the very next game (Foy and Dowd) they took charge of and one refused to give a blatant one to the opponents (Oliver). Martin Atkinson, was not given premier league games to officiate for an entire month and assigned to 3 lower league games.

I also looked at Mike Jones after prompting from the comments board. Jones refereed the 1-1 home draw with Newcastle last season and falsely awarded Demba Ba a penalty.

Subsequently, Jones was not given a single football game, at ANY level, to referee for an entire month. The next United game he was handed came a few months later, the 2-0 home win against Stoke which saw… You guessed it: 2 penalties awarded to Manchester United which, according to reports, were “very soft”.

How about Mark Halsey? Well, when he gave WBA a debatable penalty in the 1-1 draw at Old Trafford in May 2005 it was his 5^th United game that season. He then also went an ENTIRE YEAR without being given any United games to referee. From 5 games in a season to none for a year. His
record since then? He’s refereed 11 Man Utd games which have seen 11 United wins: the latest coming at Anfield, where 3 controversial decisions went the away team’s way.

In terms of trends, considering what we discovered about Alan Wiley and Mark Clattenburg (whose record with no United games to referee now stands at 36 league games since he took charge of the 6-1 home loss to City), there’s enough to make you wonder what exactly is going on in the
referee selection process. It also ties in perfectly with ex referee Jeff Winter's comments about The FA being reticent to assign United games to referees Ferguson has criticized in the past.

The whole world revolves around incentives and punishment. From a young age, kids are brought up that way. Positive and negative reinforcement are at the very core of child psychology. You can’t blame people who are well aware of the punishment awaiting them (through the form of demotions
and suspension from future United games) if they’d rather go for the safe option of keeping Ferguson happy.

I don’t blame the referees.

The people I blame are the ones that are letting this happen. The media who have not uttered a peep or written a single article about this for 2 decades. The FA who run the game in this country and have allowed this situation to fester. The clubs who see no issue with having David Gill, United's CEO, on the board of the FA. And of course, the PGMOB:  the people who regulate officiating in England 

The person at the head of the PGMOB and who is in charge of selecting which referee gets handed which game is Mike Riley, an ex professional referee who is most famous for giving a penalty for a clear dive by Wayne Rooney in the 2004 Man United 2-0 win against Arsenal which ended the
Gunners 49 game unbeaten streak.

Riley was accused of pro United favoritism throughout his career. For younger readers, he’s my generation’s Howard Webb.

According to the Guardian’s research, which goes to back to the beginning of the 1997-98 season until 2004, “Riley refereed 23 United games in all competitions and gave 12 penalties for United in that time, but only three against them. And he has sent off five of United's opponents.

At Old Trafford, Riley's record is weighted even more heavily in favor of United: He gave 10 penalties in the 14 games he officiated to the home side, Manchester United.”

Riley’s bias was so suspected than when was awarded the Everton vs Man Utd FA Cup semi final to officiate in 2009, David Moyes actually called for an investigation on whether Riley was a United supporter.

This is the man who now decides which premier league games to assign to referees.

Add that to everything we’ve found out: the year long waits for referees who take charge of United losses to be given another United game to officiate, the penalties that are given to United in said
referees next United games, the punishment for making mistakes that cost United points (Atkinson’s month long suspension from premier league games, Jones’ 1 month suspension from ALL PROFESSIONAL games), the comments from ex referee Jeff Winter (see my previous post), the fact that 18% of Howard Webb’s career penalties have gone to Manchester United,the retirement of Alain Wiley after being called unfit by Alex Ferguson and, of course, the presence of David Gill inside the FA and surely there’s enough there for some investigative journalist in the UK to actually look more into this.

If only to put the millions of football fans’ across the world’s minds at ease.

Because we could all be wrong and all of this may just be a set of freakish coincidences. Maybe English football is squeaky clean like they make us believe and the referee selection process is completely unbiased.

Maybe we’re just paranoid…

Or maybe not… Chris Foy failed to give Manchester United a penalty in their 3-2 loss to Spurs last Saturday. The PGMOB have not handed Foy a Premier League game to referee next weekend: instead, he will referee in League 2 for the first time in more than 4 years.

Mike Jones meanwhile, who missed a blatant penalty on Luis Suarez at Norwich, will take charge of West Brom vs QPR in the Premier League. Finally, Howard Webb (who sent off Jordi Gomez on Saturday; a red card today rescinded by the FA) will take charge of Newcastle’s home game against…Manchester United.

Why did Foy’s errors on Saturday lead to his demotion to the lowest professional league in England while Webb’s and Jones’ mistakes didn’t cost them?

I guess we all know the answer to that question…