The Referees or The Twelfth Man

Ffs you are talking about the PGMOL, stop talking sense, you are making a fool of yourself :face_blowing_a_kiss:

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Whenever I hear the audio, this is the first thing I notice as well. How pumped and hyper they are around the decision. It is really weird.

If I didn’t know better, I’d suggest they were on coke - but we know that would never be the case with PGMOL.

I think the officials do come to Anfield in ‘battle mode’. It’s got a reputation as a difficult crowd and the cone determined not to be swayed by the atmosphere - but that leads them to give us absolutely fuck all.

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Everyone was saying before the match that that team of officials would look for any way to fuck us over, and sure enough they did.

There’s no point comparing that to last Saturday’s game. I thought Madley did OK. The first goal may have had the keepers line of site disrupted but it was marginal. We couldn’t see whether there was definitely a handball for the chalked off goal, but it looked that way in real time. I don’t think these were unreasonable calls by the ref and VAR couldn’t see a reason to override him.

We know that there are officials that will go to extreme lengths to get the decision that they want. There always have been refs like this. Do you remember Clive Thomas? Paisley used to tweak his tactics if he thought he was in a “funny mood” and of course there was the 1978 World Cup incident.

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Always makes me laugh people discussing the refs/VAR as if it’s all incompetence and inconsistency.
There are a number of refs who are corrupt. They are managed by a fucking cheat. They arrive at the decision they want to reach. It’s as simple as that.

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:joy:

It is really weird. The Assistant Referee (AR2) was so excited, to repeat Robertsons name 3 times, before identifying what he was so excited about “Robertson, is inline of vision” in my opinion just sounded unprofessional, almost as if he was a contestant in a quiz show, trying to point something out before anyone else.

What has annoyed me - is that there were 3 similar incidents this weekend which all went in favour of the scoring team.
You then have Gallagher on Ref watch justifying the decisions on the basis of the Refs learning from the VVD’s disallowed goal. WTF

What should of happened is the PGMOL
Making a statement, which doesn’t necessarily need to accept they were wrong for disallowing VVD’s goal but clarifying what their parameters are.
If, as Gallagher suggests they have learnt from the process used to determine the VVD VAR then tell us.

“After a review by independent panels, feedback from Football experts and Fans. It has been decided that going forward these decisions will be determined by the following.”

But no, we get fuck all and to compound Football fans Frustrations allow 3 goals which would have been disallowed by the Match officials/VAR team two weeks earlier.

I personally do not believe there is an agenda against us and feel that we have also benefitted from some soft VAR decisions.
However, I completely agree with you questioning Michael Oliver (MO). Having officials, who are required to adjudicate games impartially, without bias, being paid for freelance work in other countries by intermediaries linked to other Premier League teams is a conflict of interest.

I am not accusing MO of anything - the additional work may not affect his judgement in any way - however, it does not look good and will always lead to questions being asked.
If the PGMOL wants to be respected and trusted, then they need to eliminate this.
I may be inaccurate with some of the facts regarding this point, but It also needs to be independently regulated. In addition to Former Referees, it should include ex-players, maybe representatives from the two clubs involved and maybe even a fan committee.

Agreed. All the main social media channels / pundits pretending to call them out but still just boiling it down to incompetence is a fucking joke. They’re very competent at making sure the match arrives to its desired outcome.

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What about us against Inter under Shankly. This was well before my time so my opinion is formed on hearsay.
It is clear Corruption has played a big part in the past where information and regulation was hard to prove. The Mafia/other professional criminal organisations were heavily involved in the Gambling industry and able to buy people to Rig events in their favour.
It obvious that it still happens but there are usually “Footprints” which makes it harder.

As I have previously mentioned, I do not believe there is an agenda against us. I prefer (maybe convince myself) to see bad decision making as a result of incompetence, ego and potentially bullying - none of which is an excuse.

However, if you look at it practically, Football is the most popular Sport across a number of Continents. Asia, Europe, South America, Africa and also very high in the others.
The Premier League is the most watched, most commercial and probably the most competitive league in the World, so it would be naive to think that there are no outside factors trying influence the outcome of games.

Whilst writing the last Paragraph, it did lead me to question the neutrality of the VAR process a bit more. Upon reflection, the narrative is that it needs to be a clear and obvious error, so basically a Match Official could make a biased decision on the pitch, with the knowledge/security of VAR justifying their decision because their is little evidence to determine it a clear and obvious error. By being “apparently subjective”, you remove power to question the impartiality.

Anyhow, irrelevant of the questionable decision, the one thing that isn’t subjective is how poor we were before the Disallowed goal and how bad we were afterwards. :+1:t2:

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Was it Barca V Chelsea a few years ago that was bafflingly however those who are evidently corrupt and Oliver to me is that can hide it better. The PGMOL has become a major issue in the game that can no longer be waved away.

Ultimately fans can bleat about VAR but you remove it and you still have this authority with an attitude that sees itself above everyone. They should if we are honest be like the FA or the PL occasionally in the media but Webb seems to love it. He needs to go and a full review by someone perhaps the FA into refs who undertake agency work elsewhere ever since his jaunts were cut Oliver seemingly has been a worse ref. On the payroll still?

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I’m pretty sure it still goes on, but in terms of gambling, it tends to be lower tier leagues as the bribery involved is much cheaper.

The German papers are usually on the ball in terms of investigations. Der Spiegel were looking at irregularities during the last Euros, and they did a feature on Coote looking into alleged betting irregularities, but the article that they put out when he was sacked was rather odd, because they couldn’t get an official reason of what he was dismissed for.

I suspect that the FA knows that irregularities go on, but they won’t act because they think it will tarnish their brand.

@RedWhippet I completely agree, bribery is easier if someone is vulnerable. Financially or Reputation wise. I think reputational bribery was Cootes downfall. From his own words he struggled with his sexuality and making it public. all it takes is someone to use that against you.

@mattyhurst are you referring to Tom Henning Øvrebø ?
I agree, that by removing VAR you are still going to encounter similar poor decisions, which will be questioned. I guess from my point of view, bad decisions are easier to digest if they are made by one individual. As opposed to a bad decision, scrutinised by a professional panel and deemed to be correct only for them to adjust the parameters over an international break :+1:t2:

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Another in the series. When physical challenges were allowed. #realfootball

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This is from Chelsea’s goal. It’s tricky to pick out but Enzo is an offside position here, right after the near post flick on. Its tricky because it’s easy to be led astray by the goalie, but remember you actually need 2 defenders between the goal line and the attacker to be onside - we tend to only focus on the last defender because the goalie is typically the second “defender”. So in this case, he is clearly in an offside position from the flick on.

So I guess he didnt interfere with play then for it to be allowed, right? Well, here is is with hands in the back of one of the defenders who failed to clear it

He he is, clearly having followed the flight of the ball towards the goal and engaging with the other CB, someone who was so invested in preventing Enzo getting the goal scoring touch that he also completely missed the ball going over his head

Thank god for Chelsea he didnt run away to get out of the defender’s way otherwise the refs would surely had then said he was interfering with Hincapie and Mosquera

This rule has become a farce

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It could be easily simplified.

Any player in an offside position in the six yard box is automatically deemed to be interfering in play

That sorts it. Easy to understand, easy to enforce and in 99% of cases probably true.

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Cue interminable VAR reviews to check if there’s a single frame of footage where the player brushed the 6 yard box.

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The VAR decision to gift Newcastle a penalty last night was shocking.

Bentancur certainly does block Burn, but then Burn just pushes into him, headlocks him, and falls on to him. WTF

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The old ones are always the best :0)

Howard Webb retired to spend more time with his family

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Why did that remind me of this?

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In yesterdays game Pawson did ok but then he screwed up when his decision not to show red to Gomes for that rake on Wirtz which nearly hurt him badly, was unbelievable Even Keith Hacket and the pundits all agreed him and VAR got it wrong.

i didnt think it was that malicious.

it could have been a red, but its not one of those onmes where i look at it and question my knowledge of the rules like the VVD penalty vs Brentford ( was it?) or the offside debacle a few weeks ago…or even the questioning of the Wirtz penalty the other night, which i couldnt believe had any form of controversy attached to it.

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That just shocked them that Liverpool could get a penalty.

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