103 Comments

Great Post. You need to send this to the premier league and every news outlet in the country. Hopefully somebody will run with it and we can start to see some change.

I stopped watching the arsenal Chelsea game at half time because of the shit reffing. That's the first time I've missed a minute of an arsenal game in 10 years. It is ruining the game I loved.

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Still think Dumfries would have been a superb signing 3 years ago.

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👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

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Robin van Persie: “I don’t expect to work at Arsenal. I think that is closed, because of my switch to Manchester United. You never know in football, but that is my assessment. It is still sensitive for them, not for me — it is especially sensitive for the Arsenal fans.”

“I have learned that planning so far ahead makes no sense at all. I mainly live in the here & now. I am very proud to be the coach of Heerenveen & I really enjoy it here. I feel very welcome within club & among the fans, I also think that is important.”

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What annoys me so much about this is that he switched to Manure because he became disillusioned about winning a trophy under Wenger.

A real shame as I really liked him as a player. A striker with a real killer instinct.

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This post should get sent to Richard Masters.

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Been a good day for Arsenal ...

- "A rejuvenated Arsenal enjoyed a fifth win from six games without defeat under the stewardship of their interim head coach Renée Slegers as they coasted to a surprisingly easy victory away at neighbours Tottenham ..."

- "Arsenal youngster Ethan Nwaneri was on the scoresheet again for England U19s today in their 2-1 win against Bulgaria in a European Championship qualifier. Myles Lewis-Skelly, who captained the team, set up Nwaneri’s goal, while goalkeeper Tommy Setford was also in action"

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The threads worst take:

Refs are getting paid too much, it should be a weekend hobby.

And VAR needs doing away with.

👌

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Nwaneri is smashing the England U19's already. I just saw the goal he scored. A fantastic bottom corner finish. His shooting ability is ridiculous. The kid is too good for that level too.

I don't want to see Trossard in an attacking midfield role before him from now on. We should have played him at Bournemouth, and may be at Newcastle too. He is good enough so he needs the games.

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Tension is building here with the women NLD about to kick off and my niece is nervous wreck about this match - she wants our female temp manager to win match today to get herself hired as full time coach. She believes a quality female manager for our ladies team would improve our performances much more than hiring another man.

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Nov 16Edited

Jeorge Bird on twitter -

- Ethan Nwaneri scores for England U19s against Bulgaria. Lewis-Skelly provided the assist.

- Lewis-Skelly gets another assist for England U19s as Lewis Orford scores.

- Nwaneri has scored six goals in eight games for England U19s so far.

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In a way, making it public knowledge that a certain ref was paid to ref some games abroad was insuring that said ref couldn’t be comprised and at the same time saying to the premier league, yeah, we paid a ref to referee to ref a match abroad for us and we paid him handsomely. So what are you going to do about it? Nothing? Thought so. Carry on as usual then.

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This is overall, a great post. But to say the referees have 45 years max isn't correct. I think the minimum is 45 in epl. This days we are beginning to see 52/53 year old in the epl. On the contrary players average retirement age is 35/36. You don't get referees getting a career ending injuries or broken legs or injuries that greatly affect their performance like ankle and knee injuries. Their job is almost without any risk. The more reason I laugh at the suggestion that they deserve a raise. Absolute joke!

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It's more about athleticism. Refs are running up and down the pitch for 90 mins. After reaching 45, most people who have not regularly exercised will lose their pace.

When you look at the current refs they do not look athletic at all.

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Pedro

I wholeheartedly agree and think this plan is dynamic and exciting. We are all sick of the disgusting excuses for appalling standards of officiating. All except the premier league themselves

Bad decisions creates excitement. It gets people talking. It creates bitter rivalries among teams that aren’t rivals and cements and exacerbates existing rivalries.

And if we are to get a little conspiratorial, it allows the league to have an element of control of the narrative.

They’d have addressed this already if they really wanted fairness because let’s face it, the standard gets worse and more ethically questionable every single year

It wasn’t this bad in the 90s

It wasn’t even close to this bad

The odd game or decision but generally refs were far better and seemed far cleaner in an era when being right was far harder.

Sadly it’s just another self regulating body breeding corruption

Modern world for you

It’s so disheartening

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This article is great. And it should highlight the fact that PGMOL as an institution is a poor excuse for a professional organization. They aren't fit for the best league in world football.

What is irking me now though is the fact that all these papers are coming out with videos of David Coote as a villan. Daily mail, who a are a shit media, came out with a video that said "it is getting worse for David coote". They are trying to make it seem like it is one bad egg by trying to destroy a man's life after he already lost his career. There is no need to continue punching on a man who is down and out.

But they do it because they want cut off an infected arm in their eyes and go on about their life. It is ridiculous. Things have been shit from refereeing perspective for 20 years. Howard Webb, Mike Dean and the like being prominent refs should tell you all you need to know. Wenger was always talking about it but no one heard him. These fools need accountability that involves real consequences. Mike Dean who is one of the worst refs ever in football retired at the top of the game when he shouldn't have refereed a Sunday league game. That is all I need to know.

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It wasn’t this bad 20

Years ago

Not even close

But yes agree with this post

Nobody stood up for wenger when we were on the receiving end of poor officiating from 2005 onwards

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we are down conspiracy road. we have to stay realistic here

though it is not impossible that other refs are compromised too it isn‘t likely that others are as stupid as coote letting someone film stuff like this. and even if they are I doubt that they would actively act in a certain way due to an extortion scheme.

the most likely reason for terrible officiating isn‘t down to a hugh chance of coote-like situations but simply down to structures that are basically preventing the organisation from performing seriously. as pedro rightly points out it is a mixture of different problems like PGMOL factually being a union while deciding processes etc.

we can pray that this may end up in some kind of sustainable consequeneces but I want to keep your hopes low as it is very unlikely unfortunately

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Great post. I’m glad it’s on the public Internets.

The questions I have are:

- what might David Coote have done (or not done) for the people holding this information to release it now?

*puts on tin foil hat*

- thinking that perhaps he’s not the only compromised PL ref (and not particularly high-ranking). What if he’s just been thrown under the bus by his handlers to show someone else in PGMOL what could happen to them if they don’t toe the line?

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Great point

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