Chris Foy

[RobbieOR]

As some of you may know, he refereed the Mancs at weekend where they obviously lost. Ferguson wasnt happy at the injury time he played and had a fit in his post match interview.

 

He's refereeing Accrington Stanley vs Rochdale this weekend in League 2.

 

Unbelievable really.

 

The Football League | Match | Referees | Appointments | Match Official Appointments

[Hand Shandy]

It's not though really, is it?

[fowler9]

its unbelievable that it is so believable, where was Halsey's demotion last week incidentely?

[jamespp]

Match officials appointments 6-7 October

 

Tough game at Newcastle? They've got Webb

[Randy Marsh]

Laughable really, they don't even try and hide the corruption. As Rafa rightly highlighted in 2009, the man runs football in this country.

[Trumo]

I think the referees are allocated to referee certain matches several weeks prior to those matches. I've not looked into what happens with referees after covering our games, but it is certainly noticeable just how many referees are taken out of the firing line after covering a ManU game which didn't go the way his lordship intended.

[Newport]

Oh well, his first League Two game since February 2006 ...

[ZonkoVille77]

It's a complete joke.

Can't wait til the day he retires but something tells me he'll be given a nice cosy role at the FA and the corruption will continue, or perhaps get worse as he coaches eager little pups to take over from him when he eventually goes.

[Newport]

 

Tough game at Newcastle? They've got Webb

 

Who should be demoted himself. The red card on Jordi Gomez against Sunderland this weekend was a fucking joke.

[Trucker Paddy]

And people still believe the PL isn't corrupt

[ngogswilly]

I know as someone says its not really all that unbelievable.

 

What I do find unbelievable though is the dozens upon dozens of pundits and journo's who won't acknowledge the mancs have a disgustingly unfair grip on the game.

 

I'd love to know when the decision was made to give Foy the League 2 game, if it was after the weekend then its gone past being ridiculous.

 

I wonder how many points the Manc's would really end up with every year if the refs weren't scared shitless of stuff like this happening.

[coop]

The Dim in Beirut

 

The Truth is Out There

 

Oliver Stone once said: “Paranoia is having all the facts”. Many of us die hard football fans know exactly what he means.

 

I've long held the view that something very fishy goes on in English football.

 

I’m not the most naturally trusting of guys anyways. When it comes to institutions, I'm downright skeptical of them. I have very little respect or trust in governments, police, and media or football institutions. It's not me being paranoid either: week after week, I’m proven correct on my doubts about them (to any Liverpool fan the findings of the Hillsborough report came as absolutely no surprise).

 

When it comes to football, it's not even lack of trust. It's plain common sense.

 

In recent years, we've had a huge number of corruption scandals all across Europe. Several of them in Italy, the corrupt referee Hoyser in Germany, Fenerbahce being docked their title in Turkey, Spain's second division scandals, Marseille a while ago in France, Porto in Portugal etc...

 

Of course, the one league where nothing ever gets proven to be dodgy is in England. The richest and most watched league in the world is, we are told, completely squeaky clean.

 

Leaving aside the sheer ridiculousness of that statement, ask yourself this: if corruption gets proven all across Europe, how is the most popular league in the world, with the biggest prize monies in football, whose clubs are owned by some of the richest people in the world, run by stakeholders that are the most powerful media moguls in the world, immune from this? With the amounts of money at stake, how has it managed to be so clean for so long?

 

To dismiss any talks of corruption in the premier league is to fall for 2 of the traits that characterize the English the most: a sheer egocentric belief that they are better than anyone else and their complete faith in the country's institutions. To them, it’s entirely logical that that stuff goes on abroad where institutions are corrupt, but it’s impossible in England. Just like diving is a foreign disease and Uruguay is the epicenter of racism, unlike the multi cultural tolerance of middle England.

 

I share neither of those traits. By pure logic, when I see corruption in every facet of English life (MP's expenses scandal, banking sector, the war on Iraq, Leveson enquiry, Hillsborough, The Guilford 4, The Birmingham 6 et all...) as well as entire European football, I ask why is it impossible as many deem, for it to be happening in English football too?

 

I have followed football since 1986. I have seen for years how Manchester United benefits from refereeing decisions. I don’t need an investigation to tell me this: it happens on a near weekly basis to the point where people are so immune to it, they laugh it off.

 

I have seen the influence Alex Ferguson has on every facet of the English game. When his Darren son got fired as manager of Preston North End, I watched with bemusement as Ferguson immediately recalled his loan players from Deepdale. I then watched in horror as another club in the premier league, managed by Ferguson’s father’s friend Tony Pullis, also recalled their loan players from PNE.

 

The message was clear: Mess with Mr Ferguson or his children, and you will be punished.

 

And not just from Mr Ferguson either. By his friends in football.

 

Recently, ex referee Jeff Winter stated that he once sent Roy Keane off in a match. He was then criticized by Ferguson and not given a Manchester United game to referee for 2 years. He saw that as punishment as he said that “The FA is reticent to give Manchester United games to referees that Ferguson has criticized in the past”.

 

Read that statement again. Ferguson criticizes referees that give decisions against his club. Most likely, these decisions happen in games Manchester United lose. The FA reacts to the criticism by not assigning said referees in future Manchester United games. Thus, the only referees assigned to United games are ones that Ferguson approves of.

 

The referees that have given decisions Ferguson deem to be incorrect against United, however, no longer referee their games (usually the most high profile ones). It’s a terrible indictment of sporting impartiality, justice and the way the game is run in England. This form of selective referee assignement led to the Juventus scandal in 2006.

 

Winter’s comments prompted me to do my own research. I focused on the referees that took charge of United 2 biggest high profile losses in the last decade or so.

 

Alain Wiley refereed United’s 4-1 loss to Liverpool in 2009. In that game, he gave both United and Liverpool penalties and sent off Nemanja Vidic. All 3 decisions were absolutely correct and Wiley was praised by Sky TV co-commentator Andy Gray for his performance. Not even Ferguson complained.

 

Later that year, Wiley was given another United game to referee and despite sending off Kieran Richardson of Sunderland, Wiley was lambasted by Ferguson for being “fat and unfit”. The game ended 2-2.

 

That would be the end of Wiley’s refereeing career. Wiley, it says cryptically on his Wikipedia page, “agreed to retire” at the end of that season. Agreed with whom? No one knows.

 

Last season, Manchester City romped to a 6-1 win at Old Trafford, inflicting on their rivals their biggest embarrassment under Ferguson. The referee on that day was Mark Clattenburg. He sent Johnny Evans off in the second half for a clear professional foul.

 

There have been 34 Man United league games since that day. The number of times times Clattenburg has refereed them? Zero. Not a single one.

 

It seems that the FA, for whatever reason, doesn’t want Clattenburg to referee Man United games anymore. Some of us more paranoid folk may just wonder who’s behind that decision.

The FA has no hesitation to hand United games to Howard Webb though: he’s been the most used referee in 34 United games since the 6-1 defeat to City.

 

Webb’s history in Man United games are well known and documented. All I have to say on the matter is that more than 18% of the penalties he’s awarded in his ENTIRE premier league refereeing career have gone to Manchester United. Over a 9 year period, that’s a huge percentage.

 

So in closing, let’s resume what we’ve discovered. We have an ex premier league referee who has openly stated he was not handed a Manchester United game for 2 years after sending off one of their players. We have an FA who, in said referee’s words, don’t hand Manchester United games to referees that the United manager has previously criticized.

 

We have a referee who took charge of a heavy United defeat and “agreed to retire” a year later after being called unfit by Alex Ferguson. We have another referee who hasn’t been handed a United game to officiate since he reffed a heavy United defeat 34 league games ago.

 

Meanwhile, the most used official in United games in that time is the man who has handed 18% of his entire career penalty awards to Ferguson’s team.

 

Factor in the fact that Manchester United CEO is ON THE BOARD OF the English FA, Alex Ferguson is a knight of the realm with political connections that go a lot deeper than football (just read Allistair Campbell’s diaries if you don’t believe me), and the evidence in the Darren Ferguson sacking that clubs that cross Ferguson get punished by his friends, and you have all the tools there for someone more investigative than me to really delve into.

 

But yet, nothing happens. Year on year, I watch as not a single journalist utters a peep on the subject. I watch as decision after decision goes United’s way and people in the UK, so much better than everyone else and trusting of their institutions remember, brush them off with insouciance.

 

In Italy, there would have been phone tap investigations a long time ago. In "so much cleaner than everywhere else" England, we’re paranoid.

 

Why is that?

 

Well, when you look at who runs the sport in the country, you understand a bit more. Rupert Murdoch’s Sky live off the premier league. So do his other publications like the Sun. The English media’s last priority is going to investigate and damage one of their biggest cash cows.

 

Imagine the hit to the revenue streams of the media and clubs if corruption is proved in the premier league? The richest league in the world, so carefully and beautifully marketed across the world, would suffer a huge blow. The effects an investigation would have on Manchester United, the cash cow’s biggest cash cow, would also be devastating.

 

So it’s all swept under the tabled and every refereeing decision shrugged off. “They even themselves out” we’re told by journalists who get banned from United press conferences for asking a question about team selection.

 

God knows what would happen to them if they investigate United’s behind the scenes dealings.

 

Maybe, like Preston, they’ll learn that if you cross Man United, all of football will turn their backs on you too

[RedPaul]

That's an interesting read and perspective. I do wonder how much Ferguson's influence pervades the corridors of footballing power and suspect it is quite considerable now. He's got it right though, as marginal refereeing decisions against you can cost you league titles, so it's best if you indirectly influence them to make decisions in your favour and I think that's what Ferguson does very effectively. It doesn't really get exposed as the power he has seems to frighten journalists off.

What interests me also is that the only person perhaps to have had the character to really challenge Ferguson at the media level was Mourinho and I wonder if he'd stayed at Chelsea who would have got the upper hand eventually. Unfortunately Rafa tried more directly but was absolutely pilloried by the media, but perhaps the explanation for that lies in the blog above.

Everyone likes to mock a good conspiracy theory, but the only way to prove/disprove something is to use evidence, and the blog above certainly starts the process.

[Captain Turdseye]

18% of Webbs penalties. Fucking shameless.

[Stu Monty]

Oh well, his first League Two game since February 2006 ...

 

Where have you got that from mate?

[sybian]

Just like the Jimmy Saville abuse allegations, everyone knows it's going on but no one is prepared to put his job on the line and speak out .

[Guest davelfc]

Chris Foy has not refereed a league two match since 2007/2008. He's only reffed the occasional league one match in the interim. He's been almost exclusively a Premier League, Championship, and FA cup ref for years. And all of a sudden, after being complained against, he's been assigned a league two match. What can possibly explain that?

Games refereed by C J Foy in 2007/2008 | Soccer Base

Hmm

[Gym Beglin]

Eye opening article, even for someone who hates United like I do.

 

Would love to see a refereeing comparison between European and English refs for United games.

[Neil G]

The Dim in Beirut

 

The Truth is Out There

 

...

 

 

I was going to post that if nobody had already. Good read, especially the part where he points out the improbability of the English game being clean when corruption has been uncovered in so many other major European leagues.

 

This was another interesting article from a few years ago:

 

Revealed: Manchester United get more injury time when they need it | Football | The Guardian

[Reacher]

That's shocking. Where's Major Tom to add some rationale?

[MLB]

People need to spread this around as much as possible and make sure there is a lot of focus on it. It might not change anything of course, but the more media attention this kind of blatant corruption gets, the better.

[Lurtz]

Words fail me. That article is excellent. I've just emailed it to Panorama with a few bullet points. Unlikely I'll get so much as a reply though, let alone any chance of seeing the BBC standing up to that team and their connections to the FA Board and refereeing bias.

[derykw]

I see Mike Jones avoided sanction for ignoring Barnett`s three pronged assault on Suarez.

 

It`s demoralising the grip Utd/PurpleNose have on our national game.

[Major Tom]

Words fail me. That article is excellent. I've just emailed it to Panorama with a few bullet points. Unlikely I'll get so much as a reply though, let alone any chance of seeing the BBC standing up to that team and their connections to the FA Board and refereeing bias.

 

How do you think it pans out, RL?

 

How, for example, did Utd get Foy demoted if that's what people are saying here.

[Hooch]

Absolutely believable is right.

That article Coop posted is excellent. And it doesn't even touch on the fixture list and cup draws, which I also think are bent to fuck.

 

Has Brian Reade got an email address?

He's the only journo I could think of that would consider raising this.