PGMOL INDIFFERENCE

ANOTHER WEEKEND FROM REFFING HELL

The reaction from Arsenal fans after another PGMOL horror show has been painful to read, and it should serve as a warning to the Premier League.

Indifference.

It’s not just Arsenal fans calling out the treatment of the club by referees. I’ve seen Mark Goldbridge have a pop, Spurs fans on TikTok, countless Liverpool fans flagging it, the Wolves manager going for the jugular, and Arne Slot pointing it out as well.

Arsenal have three red cards in eight games. All dubious when compared to similar incidents this season.

Howard Webb is going on The Overlap to gaslight Premier League fans into believing everything is fine.

The Overlap presenters are falling for the bait, defending the indefensible.

When a Sky pundit called out Howard Webb sitting on a mic whilst texting, he course-corrected and deleted the tweet.

Arsenal get a red card from a ref who is barred from officiating Everton or Liverpool games—but only after he’s overruled by a Liverpool-supporting VAR ref with bad history with Arsenal, who always seems to be officiating our games.

Arsenal play Liverpool this weekend without our best defender.

In the Chelsea game, Tosin pulls the same move on Salah, and it’s just a booking.

In the City game, they get a late goal against Wolves with Bernardo interfering with the keeper before a cross. Ben Foster says it’s interference because José Sá cannot ‘set’ himself properly. VAR correctly flags it—but Chris Kavanagh, Mr. By-The-Letter-Of-The-Law, farcically awards the goal anyway.

I was once told in business that perception is reality. I hated hearing that because it feels unfair that something false can be packaged into a fake reality and acted upon. Well, the Premier League now faces a situation where Arsenal fans’ conspiracy perception is bleeding across to other clubs. If everyone believes the officiating is unfair, you’re going to have a long-term brand problem. No one wants to watch another season go up in smoke because of poor officiating, but that’s where it’s heading.

Inexplicable decisions are being handed down to one team, over and over again, for no apparent reason.

Arsenal has 32% more red cards than the second-place team since 2019 despite having no violent players, playing possession football, and playing high-quality football. Liverpool and Man City are at 7 and 9. That is an outrageous anomaly.

PGMOL should behave like a business and avoid any perception of bias. Yet time and time again, we’re stuck with the same referees who officiate poorly against us. The North West bias in hiring is still a glaring issue for anyone looking for fairness. Howard Webb’s main solution hasn’t been to recruit better refs, but to give more access to voices that defend them. It’s an old boys' club prioritizing protectionism over high-performance output. Now it’s extending to an old boys' network in the media with friendly platforms.

Even the surrogates are awful. Why should I listen to Mike Dean telling me my eyes are lying? Why does the TV channels think this sort of rage over a product defect is the way forward? Feels very short-sighted.

That’s all I’ve got this morning. A bit of a rant before we get into the Champions League tomorrow. See you in the comments. x