Corruption?

[Lurtz]

2 hours ago, Chip Butty said:

 

Not feeling this conspiracy vibe, think its much more simpler than that - they're just shit.

 

Take one dose of shitness, add a dash of incompetence - voila! A shitness cocktail.  

 

So you're absolutely fine with man city's owner wining, dining and paying referees right before they officiate a game involving their closest rivals then. Cool, OK then. 

[Red Shift]

On 02/10/2023 at 02:53, Redder Lurtz said:

Sorry if this has been covered but I think this deserves its own thread. 

 

Let's get this crystal clear then:

 

Darren England and Dan Cook, the guys who ran VAR yesterday and cost us the game, were flown to Saudi Arabia to officiate a game between Al Ain and Sharjah, on Thursday. First class flights a given, and paid thousands of pounds. Al Ain won the game 3-2. Now, the bloke who owns Al Ain is Mohamed Bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi. The same Mohamed Bin Zayed who owns Manchester City. The same Manchester City who'd just dropped 3 points and whom we'd have gone ahead of in the league had we won.

 

All OK with that are we? Coz I'm fucking not. 

 

Fair fucks to the Daily Heil for investigating that but they only refer to it as possibly affecting officials' performance due to fatigue. They don't actually mention that the guy who looked after them in Saudi owns man city. 

 

So PGMOL release a "whoops" statement and say they're going to investigate. Who's going to investigate them? They are. And that's where it'll end because they're not answerable to anyone. They've dropped (rested) England and Cook for a couple of games. Like they give a shit.

 

This absolutely fucking stinks of corruption and it's way, way beyond the realms of "every club gets the occasional bad decision".

 

They won't, but the club should be bringing this up with The Premier League and The FA. But that's pointless because guess who owns PGMOL? The Premier League, The FA and The Football League. 

 

This doesn't get sorted until PGMOL is disbanded, referees stop taking middle east dollars for extra curricular trips and a properly vetted system replaces it. It stinks and it's bent. 

The corruption here is real, but I think we can ‘peel away another layer of the onion’ as the figure of speech goes.

 

Referees can see the writing on the wall. They are out of the door. They can get their coats and shut the door on the way out. They are almost but not quite obsolete. They fucking know it and they are hanging on to every vestige of power they have, to remain relevant.

 

A.I. runs the world. A.I. makes massive important global decisions every day of every week. For the sake of football we must get as quickly as possible to the binning of referees. Consign them to history. ASAP. 

[TheHowieLama]

We should get some robot fellas running around too. That'd be good.

[Red74]

I posted the other day how the media will all fall into line and act as one to protect the officials. First time I really took notice of it was the silence the night Andy robbo got elbowed and when I woke up the next morning, every single journo / media station had the deflection put onto us in full effect. 
 

Watch this..

 

https://x.com/deanregan88/status/1708963463983202594?s=46

[Red Shift]

10 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

We should get some robot fellas running around too. That'd be good.

As long as it’s not RoboWebb.

[Razoray]

10 hours ago, Moo said:

 

He didn't feel that strongly about it at the time though, people were just kidded by his forked tongue.  In commentary he barely murmured an objection, it was only after the match that he paid any attention to it because he saw an opportunity to further his own (and Man Utd's) agenda regarding "other recent offsides" re camera angles etc.  He was never at any point bothered on behalf of LFC or the wider game of football.

 

Neville on Saturday

"Every decision has to be questioned now"

 

Neville on Monday

"Liverpool calling into question the sporting integrity is dangerous,  aggressive and a mistake"

 

Oh do fuck off Neville you absolute fuckwit

[DJLJ]

12 minutes ago, Razoray said:

Neville on Saturday

"Every decision has to be questioned now"

 

Neville on Monday

"Liverpool calling into question the sporting integrity is dangerous,  aggressive and a mistake"

 

Oh do fuck off Neville you absolute fuckwit

Someone got paid off between Saturday and Monday. 

[lebron]

I didn't need to see this match or its ridiculous bias/errors to confirm there's corruption in the game, it has merely entrenched me in my beliefs...

 

The more money floating around a business, the bigger the chance of corruption. While there may not be millions of pounds floating towards the refs, there are guaranteed benefits, whether that is in the form of cozy vacations/hospitality packages for sporting events, watches, gifts etc, or a purse of money I guarantee you those are being both offered and accepted. That goes for games outside of England too of course.

 

The middle-Eastern angle is new and of course really, really disturbing, but we've been subjected to bias for so long, it's just another layer for me. There are probably a few small(ish) clubs out there that can lay claim to being treated badly by refs for periods of time (Brighton this year is an example), but I'm positive there are no other big clubs being so consistently screwed by the refs as us. The 90's was just one, constant blur of egregious decisions going against us and for the Mancs, while the last few years has been similarly bad against us and positive for both Manc clubs. Someone (Code?) posted the origins of the referees a year or two back, and while birthplace isn't necessarily indicative of which team you support, I call bullshit on every Greater Manchester ref supposedly supporting Altrincham, Barnsley or whatever small club they can pretend to follow. 

 

The referees working the top flight games have all at some moment in time got into football by playing or watching the game, right? You REALLY think it was some obscure low-tier match that caught their interest? I guarantee you it was one of the glamour teams that got them into reffing. The lure of the big stadiums and the desire to be able to make a living as well as hanging around players and managers and media. You think that came to the likes of Antony Taylor when watching Altrincham vs Dagenham & Redbridge? Grassroot referees (God bless them) MIGHT be another story (although all the referees I know are supporting Utd, LFC or even Spurs!), but every top ref out there is a supporter of one of the big clubs, they just aren't allowed to own up to it (as they wouldn't be able to ref the top games.) Had Clattenburg (an avid Newcastle supporter) been around now, he probably wouldn't be able to ref the other top 6 games (for fear of bias). I truly believe some of the refs hate us (or love one of the Mancs, same shit), and we're getting shafted because of it.

 

I had an argument with a Spurs supporter towards last season, where he wondered whether I was feeling positive that we would be turning things around. I said I was, but that I had heard rumours that Webb would be taking over as head of PGMOL, and that any such progress would be eradicated by the refs screwing us even more that before.. I was of course met by the same shrugs as you do when complaining to supporters of another big(ish) club, his club had seen far worse decisions etc.... He'll never agree to it since yesterday benefitted him/his club, but it's nice to know that inside his head that victory will ring a bit more hollow. A tiny, tiny consolation in the shitshow that this season has been from a refereeing standpoint.

 

I'm completely sleep-deprived due to the game ruining my last two nights of sleep, as well as visit from my parents Saturday evening. Hence my rambling. I'll just end with saying I actually share Dave's sentiments that we would win the title if it wasn't for Webb/the refs, as this City team aren't as good as previous editions (especially with KdB on the wane/injury bug), and we're really fucking good! Fuck Howard Webb and his corrupt/biased cronies, up the Reds!

 

 

[Red74]

On 01/10/2023 at 22:32, Red74 said:

I haven’t got a problem with VAR. I think it’s good for the game but it’s not implemented properly. The questions that need to be asked are why is it only failing in this country.

 

Imo, it needs to be taken away from anyone involved in football and ran independently with automated decisions being used more to take away human bias. (Apparently, the PL decided against this for this season despite it being used successfully elsewhere).

 

It’s not human error or incompetence when you’ve had more than 5 minutes to come to a simple decision and you still get it wrong. That’s a conscious decision to make sure you get the result you’ve been waiting all game for.
 

You only had to hear that blert Andros Townsend’s glee yesterday when the decisions were getting reviewed to know that ex footballers / refs / managers shouldn’t be allowed near the decision making as they’re fucking thick, corrupt and have conscious long term grudges against teams who’ve upset them  in the past. If I had my way, I’d want all decisions to be made within a couple of minutes and we should all be able to hear it in the ground and at home. Rugby & cricket seem to have no problem with this and it’s taken away all suspicion of paid for refs and umpires.
 

This current set up stinks and the media are part of it. Kelly dalglish sounded like she was listening to one of her kids begging for mercy down her earpiece after the game yesterday she was that scared to question what had gone on. Sky sent the broadcasts round the world and were the only media provider who couldn’t generate their own lines on the pitch at half time. You wait and see how sky deal with this tomorrow and the right wing nutcases Jim White & Simon Jordan turn this against us. Neville the rats already backtracked today.
 

As a once great footballer turned nutcase would say, it makes you think. 

Sky have brought unprecedented corruption into this game ever since day 1. They knew they needed a new hero in town to sell those dishes and who better than our mortal enemy to get the golden ticket and put those nasty scousers in their place.

 

They owned a 10% stake in utd and they made sure that never dropped in value. Having snivelling little shitbags like Keyes & Grey glossing over any misdemeanours and accusing everyone of paranoia kept people in line and the written media soon realised that if they followed suit, they’d be part of the gravy train.

 

I started getting fed up with going the footy when I got fucked over again in the ballots for final tickets the other season and with us getting screwed last year and this weekends fiasco might just make me jib it all together.

 

Thinking about it and this fuck up might just have just opened Pandora’s box you know

[Red Shift]

***Ref Support UK, a charity that provides training and support for referees, said: "This past weekend has probably been one of the toughest for top-flight match officials in England.
 

"Hopefully this will be a turning point for the game and for VAR. There will always be humans involved in the decision-making process in football, and humans, both players and referees, are fallible and will make mistakes. It's how we learn from these mistakes that will take the game forward.***

 

Yes, there will always be humans involved in the decision-making process in football, but ideally, only as an oversight of A.I. but you can bet your ‘bottom dollar’ that the A.I. ‘Incidents’ would be few and far between.

 

 

 

[Barrington Womble]

7 hours ago, Dave D said:

The issue with the audio/ it’s been 48hrs- they can take out wherever they like 

 

I would be really surprised if Liverpool don't already know what's on the audio. My understanding is the TV companies get the feed with that audio, so I don't see how the clubs also wouldn't get that feed? In fact LFC are so meticulous, you would think listening into those conversations would be a must in understanding each ref as preparation for games. 

 

6 hours ago, Torvald Utne said:

They'll just say they're not releasing it as they've already acknowledged they fucked up and they fear a witch hunt on the poor wee ref team.

 

I'm not sure they would get away with that. Or at least get away with it without first having to hold up their hands. 

 

I was surprised how strongly LFC reacted in their statement. The way it's worded makes you think naturally "what are they going for here?". Now if there's something incriminating on that audio beyond incompetence - and we asked for it pretty quickly after the statement - it would do a lot to explaining just why LFC's statement is worded like it is. 

[Doc Pheezin]

Null and void the season I say 

[Anubis]

6 hours ago, DJLJ said:

Someone got paid off between Saturday and Monday. 

VAR got onto Sky and asked them if they wanted to continue to get VIP access to PGMOL. Sky obliged by reminding Gary who pays his wages and gives him an anti-Glaziers voice.

[Anubis]

3 hours ago, Barrington Womble said:

 

I would be really surprised if Liverpool don't already know what's on the audio. My understanding is the TV companies get the feed with that audio, so I don't see how the clubs also wouldn't get that feed? In fact LFC are so meticulous, you would think listening into those conversations would be a must in understanding each ref as preparation for games. 

 

 

I'm not sure they would get away with that. Or at least get away with it without first having to hold up their hands. 

 

I was surprised how strongly LFC reacted in their statement. The way it's worded makes you think naturally "what are they going for here?". Now if there's something incriminating on that audio beyond incompetence - and we asked for it pretty quickly after the statement - it would do a lot to explaining just why LFC's statement is worded like it is. 

Wouldn’t surprise me if the club think there’s some ‘bantz’ on it laughing about what happened, that would really damage them.

[Anubis]

7 hours ago, Red74 said:

I posted the other day how the media will all fall into line and act as one to protect the officials. First time I really took notice of it was the silence the night Andy robbo got elbowed and when I woke up the next morning, every single journo / media station had the deflection put onto us in full effect. 
 

Watch this..

 

https://x.com/deanregan88/status/1708963463983202594?s=46

 

Under that….

 

[Fowlers God]

This came up on my FB memories today. 
 

it's been going on for a long fucking time 

[Red74]

1 hour ago, Fowlers God said:

This came up on my FB memories today. 
 

it's been going on for a long fucking time 

I’m sure Everton got certain refs blocked from their games too. 

[No2]

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/oct/03/secret-recording-of-samuel-etoo-casts-shadow-over-cameroonian-football

 

May as well stick this one in here. Eto'o was the player that wiped out Suarez at Stamford Bridge, no penalty. The same player that nearly ended Henderson’s chances of growing football in Saudi. No red card. Referee that day? Howard Webb.

[BeefStroganoff]

I don't think Diaz goal is the worst decision. I still think the Rashford/Fernandes City goal is the worst decision Ive ever seen in modern football and it came mere weeks into Webbs appointment. I'm still flabberghasted even now.

[aws]

It’s not necessarily the decision itself but the way the decision was handled. The decision was referred to a match official who judged it was a goal but that goal didn’t get credited.  

[Byrnie]

14 hours ago, Section_31 said:

State of footy media these days.

 

 

It's disgraceful. You've been saying for years now about how it was headed that way, all for clicks and shit-stirring.

 

Realistically, VAR stopped the officials from stealing 9 points from LFC.

[JustTosh]

The explanation given that D England thought the ref had given a goal is incomprehensible to the extent I think we can conclude he’s lying, especially as he didn’t try to rectify it when he saw play was about to resume with a free kick to Spurs.

That doesn’t mean, however, he’s corrupt or has taken a bung. The most probable is that D England had a quick look at the offside and concluded it was indeed offside, thus saying: ”check completed!”. Then later he realized he’d made a huge blunder, lying to cover his incompetence by trying to blame some miscommunication.

Then again it’s a possible 2^nd answer. That would involve Scotland Yard.

[Section_31]

28 minutes ago, Byrnie said:

It's disgraceful. You've been saying for years now about how it was headed that way, all for clicks and shit-stirring.

 

Realistically, VAR stopped the officials from stealing 9 points from LFC.

 

Yeah it's all about 'engagement' and anger makes you engage, usually without thinking.

 

That's what Neville and, to a lesser extent, Carragher are employed for now, Keane too. They're not there to provide insights, they're there to provide 'controversy', which are then clipped for social media and inserted unbidden into news feeds under the hashtag 'yes, he really went there!' 

 

Cue fume. 

 

It's partly what's making everyone in this country mental, also partly what's causing such a rapid nosedive in the way footy fans behave re tragedy chanting etc. 

[an tha]

Taylor reffing us straight after all what has happened this week....and on VAR.....His manc pal Kavanagh....

 

 

[an tha]

1 hour ago, BeefStroganoff said:

I don't think Diaz goal is the worst decision. I still think the Rashford/Fernandes City goal is the worst decision Ive ever seen in modern football and it came mere weeks into Webbs appointment. I'm still flabberghasted even now.

It is the worst in terms of the fuck up that led to it not being given and the reasons for that fuck up.