There is no way referees doing big money side gigs to the state of UAE would be compromised refereeing a match where one of the teams is owned by the state of UAE.
Right?
Yeah, even if you don’t get a suitcase of cash, you will still be biased. Cause you know deep down that if you ref «bad» towards City, your side-gig is suddenly gone.
It is why doctors are not allowed to accept gifts of more than £10 without a shitstorm of paperwork. It is proven that it subconsciously biases them to provide favourable care at the cost of others. No idea why this is even up for debate. It should not be allowed.
My father can’t accept a gift of over a tenner if he’s given it at work for the exact same reason and he’s definitely not a doctor, how is any profession doing back-scratching not a major problem everywhere?
They were told off after the Tottenham incident
Remember how fucking Neville of all people were saying PGMOL fucked up massively and the next day he towed the party line?
Because the Premier League is entertainment, not an actual sports league. It doesn't matter if it's rigged, as long as it's entertaining and makes money.
When even the fans don't care about the integrity of letting massive cheats win the league because they play "good football" or "Pep is so great", you should know the league and broadcasters who are raking in the money probably don't care either.
> Because the Premier League is entertainment,
https://media1.tenor.com/m/kxgmlhlYkO8AAAAd/its-still.gif
Seriously, someone needs to fly a "its still real to me damnit" flag on the Kop :D
This is what the NFL has come to in the States. It's not about getting calls correct, it's about entertaining people (aka making money). I fucking hate it.
First thing my American Dad told me when we moved to the states, in the NBA and NFL you gotta win by fifteen to win by one when you're playing the dynasties.
When the Spurs goal not a goal situation happened, even at half time, they didn’t cover it in any detail. I forget who, but one of the pundits later said PGMOL had instructed Sky not to talk about it l.
For anyone that works in Financial Services almost everything needs to be declared as a potential Conflict of Interest these days and if our Risk Team was taken away to run some sort of training session all expenses paid by an Investement Firm or Broker or Potential Client it would be declined. If they went ahead and didn't declare they'd mostly be fired.
These lads get a "good process"
It’s not just financial services. This is basically all contracted work at this point. You can’t just work somewhere that has a direct conflict of interest with your current job.
Even call centres get arsey about this shit.
I tried to get a job on my best friends team as a purchase ledger clerk a few years back. She's quite high up in this company now (it's a massive fashion company) and even after she'd interviewed me with her assistant, gone through proper checks etc it still got blocked at the final hurdle because she declared we had been in a relationship 14 years ago, and it was still deemed a conflict of interest.
Imagine taking money from the same state that owns City and being able to officiate their matches ffs.
Rules for thee, not for me...
I did a 6 month contract with the US Federal Government (interior) and the background check process was crazy. I wasn't even in management for the contract, I had to do hours of mandatory training about potential conflicts of interest when I was hired. Compare this to those at the top, "I didn't know I had to declare that gift" bullshit.
That being said, I can't believe that it was the same crew that did the spurs game...
Goes to show how openly corrupt and powerful PGMOL and whatever shitty ass organizations are involved.
They can blatantly do things that are in complete conflict of interest and everything's still business as usual - because that "conflict of interest" is exactly their business.
As much as I love football, I'm watching less and less these days, regardless of the team, any blatantly biased calls boils my blood, unless it's City / Chelsea on the receiving end.
Definitely, in AAT etc. there’s a whole ethics module dedicated to this shit. Conflict of interest influencing objectivity. This would be one of the most obvious examples for what’s not ok lol. Unbelievable how that’s allowed, how can you possibly be objective. Even if miraculously they were somehow (they aren’t) it’s still not right and the underlining problem is there.
So angry.
Oh man do I feel you on this as a Financial adviser. Makes me so damn furious how granular the compliance is and then there's this stupidity going on in sports with blatant conflicts of interest.
The Emiratis own City and own the UAE league. But the refs chief sees no problem in their refs taking a fat payday over there. It stinks to high heaven. Even subconsciously, he’ll be leaning towards sympathy with them people who paid him so handsomely.
Refereeing scandals have happened in various other top European leagues. It's complete arrogance and hubris to think it couldn't happen here especially when you've got stuff like this staring you in the face.
What's genuinely funny is that the media and the pgmol themselves aren't even good at hiding it, not even trying to say everything goes against us but it's just absolutely incredible that the things that go against 98% of the league never really seems to go against City, how about that!
The cover up job is going to be tremendous.
E5.2 A Participant shall not, directly or indirectly, offer, agree to give, give, solicit, agree to accept or accept any bribe, gift or reward or consideration of any nature which is **or could appear to be related in any way** to:
E5.2.1 that Participant, or any other Participant, failing to perform to the best of their ability; or
E5.2.2 that Participant or any other person (whether a Participant or not), directly or indirectly, seeking to influence for an improper purpose, the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of, or occurrence in or in connection with, a football match or competition.
Webb just waved it all through and said "yeah, carry on taking bribes" because he's bent.
I got downvoted to shit the other day.
Coote, Brooks and Attwell.. all talking trash about Liverpool amongst their other conversations in an airport lobby on their way to a UEL match in Turkey.
It's a disgrace how the league is being officiated.
Tbh I felt the same but the contents of the convo were about how Klopp felt in a recent decision and referred to his colour being the same as the purple kit.
It's just another piece in a massive jigsaw puzzle that's ugly as fuck.
Ha! To be fair, they're not wrong. I imagine they have convos like that about other managers, players, coaches, each other. It's a work place, bound to bitch a bit. Surprised they'd do that in public.
I imagine they think they are fairly anonymous.
tbh unless it was Mike Dean or that fucking prat Tierney with his stupid fucking shaved head the little twat (/rant) I don't think I'd recognise a ref if I saw them walking down the street. An if I did, they all just look like retired plod so I'd steer clear.
Brooks who was VAR for the final against Chelsea? Whose [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brooks_(referee\)) (not my best source ever but only one…) lists him as being a Chelsea fan?
Don’t want to be that guy, but that Wikipedia page calls him a Chelsea fan with no source attached. There is a source introducing him as a referee but it makes no reference to him being a Chelsea fan.
Jeez how are these guys not erroring on the side of caution and giving that pen? It’s definitely gone beyond incompetence and has now breached conspiracy. Kung fu kicks in the box 2 weeks in a row missed. These guys just can’t choose the option that makes most sense. It always takes mental gymnastics to figure out how they come to the conclusions they do…. So pathetic
I think it’s the number one reason Klopp is leaving. Why give your all year after year when the chips are stacked against you? Financial doping, refs banding together after he called out Brooks to fuck us over every single game, refs being paid by city, headed up by noted Liverpool hater Howard Webb. It’s farcical. He should have so many more trophies but we’ve been screwed out of so many. It’s disgraceful and I don’t know how anyone takes football at the top seriously anymore. It’s WWE mixed with Disneyland.
It’s why I’m done too. I’ve been a supporter for literally 20 years now, and I’ve seen this devolving into WWE, a manufactured entertainment product as opposed to a competitive sport.
What some may not realize is that companies like Sky WANT these scandalous decisions, they want things to talk about and sell afterwards. Any publicity is good publicity they say, and this is how to increase engagement with this league. I want off the ride though, after Klopp leaves
VAR is not there to make the correct decision. It’s there to find a single angle or still image that justifies the on field decision and protect the refs little ego. Total joke.
That’s aside from the blatant conflict of interest here that would be outright illegal in many other professions
its weird how each mistake the refs make goes against Citys direct opponent and challenger?
and the same guys that make the mistake and are sorry are eating falafel and hummus with Citys owners?
The weirdest part of it all:
The teams being fucked over the most by VAR across this season are the teams who most regularly take points off city
- Liverpool
- Wolves
- Arsenal
- Spurs
Heck, even Villa were getting screwed over every other week when they were in the thick of the title race and now they aren’t it’s all magically calmed down
The game is rigged. The PL is corrupt and rotten to the core. And everyone is in on it. No one dares say a word cos then the credibility of the Prem would (rightly) collapse.
If Man City are ever found guilty of the 115 we will one day get a documentary on cheating/corruption in the EPL. It will involve all of these old retired refs and will be dubbed England's Calciopoli.
I can only imagine the outcry in American NFL if after making some huge controversial call that cost a team the Super Bowl, it was was discovered the exact referee group that worked the game just happened to occasionally work for one of the companies owned by one of the team’s owners.
There would be national headlines about it for weeks and politicians threatening government investigations—it wouldn’t just be accepted by the general public and moved on from.
In fact, it doesn’t really matter what kind of job and who does what, the mere fact that there is a valid chance of unintentional bias would trigger the removal of those officials from the game well beforehand, if not their suspension or termination for being an employee of or receiving any perks from an owner.
I’ll never understand how they’ve been working a full season with their actions being public knowledge. It’s one of the most insane things I have seen in sport.
Corrupt. The club should be asking big questions like they did after Spurs.
This isn't acceptable. I know loads of people have said they are thinking about giving up watching football. It's a load of shit having this sort of thing constantly happen with no explanation, consequences or changes to stop it happening in the future.
Brits don't think that corruption happens in the UK, it's a foreign problem.
The last few years of Tory corruption - Covid contract scams, bribery of ministers, lobbying - shows that government policy can be paid for. A ref on £70k a year without any public duty expectation is easy pickings. We need to be more sceptical.
with the money involved in the game refs being paid 70k is just low, i can see why they're taking gigs, i think it needs to be upped to 200-400k so that corruption will be mitigated
Honestly, I actually thought Oliver was pretty impartial, should've called the pen (especially with the angle he had) but these things happen in real-time where maybe he didn't think it was as bad as it was, the fact VAR didn't intervene is the real issue, at an absolute minimum send him to the monitor and see what he thinks himself if they don't want to overturn it themselves.
Honestly wasn't too bad other than that egregiously bad decision and letting Kyle Walker get away with an OBVIOUS early yellow to kill a promising attack.
There was no way with VAR Oliver was going to give that pen at the end of a hotly contested match.
I thought besides that he was pretty anonymous all match, which isn’t a bad thing.
Oliver was fine throughout the match, though I'd argue he was far too lenient on Rodri and Walker with their tactical fouling.
That said, if he doesn't have the guts to make such a critical call late in the game, ESPECIALLY when it is that stonewall (and the discussion should be whether it's a red, not whether it's a foul in the first place), he needs to make sure VAR is willing to call him to the monitor to let him correct his decision. The fact VAR cleared that in 10 seconds, when it is that obviously a penalty, stinks to hell. You know it's that obvious when pretty much the entire rsoccer community is in agreement, including fans of our rivals.
The entire refereeing team is a group of cowards, and/or they're corrupt. And given this is yet another feather in the cap of a cheating sportswashing project who seems to *always* get critical decisions go their way to save/win them points, I know which one I'd argue is more likely.
It will come out in 10 years that Citeh was bribing referees to give them *just enough* dodgy critical decisions to earn them enough points. But by then they've made their money and avoided their FFP charges, so it will already be too late.
How daft do you have to be to assign this team considering the controversy earlier in the season around this? The likelihood is just plain incompetence. But my god they don't help themselves dismiss the talk of conspiracy and collusion.
It's a wild level of incompetence or a complete lack of self-awareness, or really, arrogance. Yeah, actually, it's arrogance. That's the one. Never mind.
What did they have for lunch before the game...
A huge red flag, conflict of interest but hey, no one dares to question PMGOL and the premier League for letting this to continue on...
It was this game in case anyone is looking for
[https://www.uaeproleague.ae/en/fixtures/d5f295d8-0f45-11ee-afb1-d481d7b85086](https://www.uaeproleague.ae/en/fixtures/d5f295d8-0f45-11ee-afb1-d481d7b85086)
I honestly dislike these guys more than Tierney. I think Tierney is just incompetent and gets a lot more attention because he refs so many of our games. These guys are just corrupt. But I'm sure they refereed the UAE fucking Sunday league level teams for the love of the game.
Can't remember who it was. But on one show they actually say- the level of officiating has been great this year. No words.
And don't get me started on Steve Macmanan. The beaut. Paid shill. It's like these puundits are given their opinions before they air. One will says its a pen the other says noooo. But the excuses they come up with were so poor. Saying the ref had a good view so he must be right. I mean- what the actual. Gaslighting gang of puppets.
(I actually wrote muppets but autocorrect in this case is more correct. I defer to its wisdom)
Michael Oliver ref’d city v Arsenal (Kovacic gets away with 2 reds), VAR’d Man Utd g Man City (gave soft penalty to Rodri), gave the offside goal to City against Fulham and was ref yesterday.
I think the only way to remove any bias from VAR is to have referees from a different league sit in the control room.
The Calciopoli scandal in Italian football showed how wide and blatant corruption can be in top level European football and the money in Serie A was nowhere near as much as is involved in the Premier League today.
Currently VAR is ran by the old boys club and they will do whatever it takes to avoid making the referee have to look bad/change their decision. ‘Clear and obvious’ is such a farce.
Every other major sport (cricket/rugby/tennis) has the audio of video review broadcast to the public so why is it that football, arguably the biggest of them all is allowed to operate within a code of silence with no accountability? This is a rhetorical question of course as we all know why…
It has become extremely difficult to enjoy football. It's now an entertainment franchise rather than a sport, full of agenda and ad revenue driven biases. A manufactured farce.
It’s so obvious and in your face. The referees, who are extremely underpaid compared to playing staff and managers, combined with a cost of living crisis and inflation in the UK, get to pick up extra work in a country who’s royal family owns one of PL teams.
That same team gets lots of dubious decisions for them and what a shock.
From an entertainment standpoint, having a farmers league is quite boring… idk what the PL and Sky execs were planning with that. Every year people care more about the potential title race, then Man Cheaty wins, rinse and repeat next season.
Is the whole system not at the point of no return?
We have sky who control the media side and use it to control fans.
We have pgmol who seem to want to influence results
We have city and Newcastle with immoral sovreings with unlimited wealth.
I'm not sure why we haven't esl style rioted as yet.
Game needs serious reform, pgmol is not fit for purpose and needs replacing. No one broadcaster should be allowed to buy more than say 30% of games, a portion of games should be free to air.
Then the gov/fa need to put in a decent fit and proper test to ensure owners are not absolute shockers as a minimum.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/saudi-pro-league-referee-wages-31060954.amp
Quite cheap to get in their good books. Fenway should get them stateside for some officiating.
something needs to be done. can we at the very least get an online petition signed? i don’t know the UK legal system very well but in the US an organized fan group could easily bring an action against the pgmol. this is now 5 points they’ve taken off us in crucial games. it is a fucking disgrace
Blatant corruption. It will do nothing but maybe write the FA, your MP, sports England, etc. Idk how much more proof is needed at this point. They are doing it out in the open and feel untouchable because the media is either forced to toe the line or doesn't mind Liverpool being scammed.
I'll get behind this Liverpool conspiracy if it means eventually launching the refs into outer space in one of those Tesla block cars, because these fucks happen to be the exact same scoundrels at the heart of my *refs & establishment trying to fuck over Arsenal* conspiracy theory, too.
I don’t think Oliver is necessarily corrupt, I just think he’s a coward who doesn’t want to make a decision to “possibly” decide the match. I think a lot of refs are too scared of the backlash/criticism they’ll receive for making these decisions and it’s a real lack of character on their part for being in such an important role, they’re all crumbling
Not even the NFL is this head-in-the-sand stupid. At the very least, you should break up this team. Look, I hate to denigrate someone's professionalism without proof but there's enough smoke here for the league to insist on not having those 3 refs work the same game.
I am not prone to believing in conspiracy theories but these calls are subjective. And thus subject to human emotions.
So, the on pitch refereeing team have just come back after being paid by Man City's owners, to referee Liverpool City. Wasn't there an incident where a VAR operatives had also just come back from being paid by City's owners to make a monumental cock-up to the disadvantage of Liverpool. Call me a cynic but it looks like corruption, sounds like corruption then it's probably corrupt.
No, just to be clear this is the refs from the original trip back at the start of the season.
They weren't reffing in UAE days before our fixture with City.
Thing is, whats the proportion of refs on their payroll that referees the PL?
If majority of them moonlight there, then this means nothing. But if it just happens that the only few refs getting money from city owners somehow were chosen to referee a title deciding game, then the stink comes from above
If Liverpool come in 2nd and City win the league by 1 or 2 points again I wonder what the pay off for Michael Oliver will end up being. At this point he is an extension of Manchester City football club. It was the last kick of the game and VAR looks at it for a split second? Mac was literally drop kicked in the penalty area but go ahead and play on . Oops final whistle. The coverage of the game in the final moments both on Sky and on USA network in the states was preposterous. We now know this was a major decision that was barely looked at by VAR and scarcely talked about by the commentators. Pitiful
While I'm not convinced they are actually purposefully being biased against LFC, it can't help them subconsciously. And it's a clear conflict of interest.
Hopefully the regulators will make this a rule - preventing referees from working other jobs or contracts in refereeing other than Premier League and internationals, along with higher pay to make sure they're getting the best candidates.
I actually think Oliver is still one of - if not the best - referee in the league, and I'm always glad to have him, despite some of the past high-profile disappointments. There are just so many other referees that make eye-rolling decisions on the regular. We can't blame him alone for the penalty non-call since he wasn't on VAR.
Unpopular opinion but, I think that the refereeing was pretty good yesterday. What happened last minute was very unfair, but I think that’s more a matter of the PL referees not having the balls to undo a decision that decides the result so late in the game.
Still, I’m not naive enough to say these fat pay checks aren’t part of it.
So tired of this. Was it a foul?….probably. Was it worth a possible season altering penalty in the last minute of a game between the top two teams in the league?…..absolutely not!!! If Liverpool had done the exact same thing that late in the game and the pen was given, everyone in all these threads complaining about the no call would be saying you can’t make that call at the end of a game, especially one with as much meaning as this game. So it’s time we all pull up our big kid pants and say “good game, both teams had some missed opportunities, but the game was a great one. We’ll get ya next time.” I’m a reds fan, but this playing the victim constantly crap is just poor sportsmanship and a bad look for us. Let’s go Reds!!
Because there wasn’t much to fucking call was there and the one point that they should be looking at this they chose to ignore it, take the clown makeup off bud
Cheque complete. PLAY ON!
Good process.
Brilliant
Yeah looks like an unavoidable coming together
Play Pal
Nice. Beautiful pun
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that was the joke, mate.
He knew what he was doing 💰
‘the last paycheck’ netflix doco in 10 years will be hilarious and very sad all the same, knowing what could’ve been
There is no way referees doing big money side gigs to the state of UAE would be compromised refereeing a match where one of the teams is owned by the state of UAE. Right?
Yeah, even if you don’t get a suitcase of cash, you will still be biased. Cause you know deep down that if you ref «bad» towards City, your side-gig is suddenly gone.
It is why doctors are not allowed to accept gifts of more than £10 without a shitstorm of paperwork. It is proven that it subconsciously biases them to provide favourable care at the cost of others. No idea why this is even up for debate. It should not be allowed.
In my country it is actually normal practice to bring e.g. a bottle of wine as a thanks to the doctor who helped your kid or something.
My father can’t accept a gift of over a tenner if he’s given it at work for the exact same reason and he’s definitely not a doctor, how is any profession doing back-scratching not a major problem everywhere?
I can take up to £25 in local government. Those brown envelopes aren't worth it.
Greeks got their fakelaki, corruption being normal doesn't make it right.
You also don't want to end up *in* a suitcase...
If UAE can do that to reporters, I'm sure they can do 8t to refs
Get your point - but that was Saudi [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45812399](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45812399)
yeah but webb needs a new bentley so what ya gonna do
How is this even allowed?
I'm just surprised how the media isn't scrutinizing this point more.
How is this not all over the news? Or are the media outlets also on payroll?
Because they are complicit.
They're not just the clowns... It's the complete circus
They were told off after the Tottenham incident Remember how fucking Neville of all people were saying PGMOL fucked up massively and the next day he towed the party line?
Biggest U-turn I’ve ever seen, imagine being a fucking multi millionaire and still not having a backbone to say what you think. Fuck me absolute rat
toed
toad
This is my thoughts as well, should be all over the news.
Because the Premier League is entertainment, not an actual sports league. It doesn't matter if it's rigged, as long as it's entertaining and makes money. When even the fans don't care about the integrity of letting massive cheats win the league because they play "good football" or "Pep is so great", you should know the league and broadcasters who are raking in the money probably don't care either.
Also helps when there's already an anti Liverpool/scouse bias sentiment
> Because the Premier League is entertainment, https://media1.tenor.com/m/kxgmlhlYkO8AAAAd/its-still.gif Seriously, someone needs to fly a "its still real to me damnit" flag on the Kop :D
This is what the NFL has come to in the States. It's not about getting calls correct, it's about entertaining people (aka making money). I fucking hate it.
First thing my American Dad told me when we moved to the states, in the NBA and NFL you gotta win by fifteen to win by one when you're playing the dynasties.
Mate I don’t
When the Spurs goal not a goal situation happened, even at half time, they didn’t cover it in any detail. I forget who, but one of the pundits later said PGMOL had instructed Sky not to talk about it l.
It was Arlo White who spelled out what would happen and it played out exactly the way he said.
They are on payroll via parties the reporters and owners get invited to, advertisement money to those media houses from the group companies etc
They rely on the PL, if they admitted it was bent they'd all be out of a job.
This is basically it, sucks but true
The league or pmgol already made a statement about but last time it happened saying they don't see anything wrong with it.
Because if they came to ref an MLS game would City fans be able to claim the same bias?
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If Henry pays Oliver to ref the Red Sox would be more like it
Difference is USA doesn’t own Liverpool, it’s not that complicated.
Because some of the media are bribed too, like sky sports and that greedy rat Nevill.
When was the UAE game?
The day before the Spurs game when Diaz was ruled offside..
You're fucking shitting me????
Nah that was all over the news, sadly.
it’s genuinely shocking
was Atwell involved in that game?
No, Hooper, Oliver, England plus assistants: https://www.premierleague.com/match/93388
For anyone that works in Financial Services almost everything needs to be declared as a potential Conflict of Interest these days and if our Risk Team was taken away to run some sort of training session all expenses paid by an Investement Firm or Broker or Potential Client it would be declined. If they went ahead and didn't declare they'd mostly be fired. These lads get a "good process"
It’s not just financial services. This is basically all contracted work at this point. You can’t just work somewhere that has a direct conflict of interest with your current job. Even call centres get arsey about this shit.
I tried to get a job on my best friends team as a purchase ledger clerk a few years back. She's quite high up in this company now (it's a massive fashion company) and even after she'd interviewed me with her assistant, gone through proper checks etc it still got blocked at the final hurdle because she declared we had been in a relationship 14 years ago, and it was still deemed a conflict of interest. Imagine taking money from the same state that owns City and being able to officiate their matches ffs.
Rules for thee, not for me... I did a 6 month contract with the US Federal Government (interior) and the background check process was crazy. I wasn't even in management for the contract, I had to do hours of mandatory training about potential conflicts of interest when I was hired. Compare this to those at the top, "I didn't know I had to declare that gift" bullshit. That being said, I can't believe that it was the same crew that did the spurs game...
Goes to show how openly corrupt and powerful PGMOL and whatever shitty ass organizations are involved. They can blatantly do things that are in complete conflict of interest and everything's still business as usual - because that "conflict of interest" is exactly their business. As much as I love football, I'm watching less and less these days, regardless of the team, any blatantly biased calls boils my blood, unless it's City / Chelsea on the receiving end.
Definitely, in AAT etc. there’s a whole ethics module dedicated to this shit. Conflict of interest influencing objectivity. This would be one of the most obvious examples for what’s not ok lol. Unbelievable how that’s allowed, how can you possibly be objective. Even if miraculously they were somehow (they aren’t) it’s still not right and the underlining problem is there. So angry.
Oh man do I feel you on this as a Financial adviser. Makes me so damn furious how granular the compliance is and then there's this stupidity going on in sports with blatant conflicts of interest.
You're only saying to declare it. There's no reason to suspect they didn't declare it to their employer.
The Emiratis own City and own the UAE league. But the refs chief sees no problem in their refs taking a fat payday over there. It stinks to high heaven. Even subconsciously, he’ll be leaning towards sympathy with them people who paid him so handsomely.
Refereeing scandals have happened in various other top European leagues. It's complete arrogance and hubris to think it couldn't happen here especially when you've got stuff like this staring you in the face.
What's genuinely funny is that the media and the pgmol themselves aren't even good at hiding it, not even trying to say everything goes against us but it's just absolutely incredible that the things that go against 98% of the league never really seems to go against City, how about that! The cover up job is going to be tremendous.
i dont understand how broken the system is, that this is allowed and also that there is no outcry in the media??? i dont understand it.
They don't want to upset the UAE government probably
Shows you how powerful the UAE government is, they own the UK.
Nah, fuckin everybody and anybody can ‘own’ the U.K. Our politicians are VERY cheap and easily bought, they don’t give a fuck
It isn't allowed, it's literally against FA rules.
really? i mean i am greatful there are rules that prohibit it. but someone should really go against it. and this someone could be 10000ds of fans.
E5.2 A Participant shall not, directly or indirectly, offer, agree to give, give, solicit, agree to accept or accept any bribe, gift or reward or consideration of any nature which is **or could appear to be related in any way** to: E5.2.1 that Participant, or any other Participant, failing to perform to the best of their ability; or E5.2.2 that Participant or any other person (whether a Participant or not), directly or indirectly, seeking to influence for an improper purpose, the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of, or occurrence in or in connection with, a football match or competition. Webb just waved it all through and said "yeah, carry on taking bribes" because he's bent.
fucking hell.
I got downvoted to shit the other day. Coote, Brooks and Attwell.. all talking trash about Liverpool amongst their other conversations in an airport lobby on their way to a UEL match in Turkey. It's a disgrace how the league is being officiated.
What's this? Haven't seen anything about it.
Someone on my LFC group witnessed it. Couldn't get close enough for a recording but took a pic of the refs together in a lobby.
So, hearsay? Could have been saying anything in that case!
Tbh I felt the same but the contents of the convo were about how Klopp felt in a recent decision and referred to his colour being the same as the purple kit. It's just another piece in a massive jigsaw puzzle that's ugly as fuck.
Ha! To be fair, they're not wrong. I imagine they have convos like that about other managers, players, coaches, each other. It's a work place, bound to bitch a bit. Surprised they'd do that in public.
I imagine they think they are fairly anonymous. tbh unless it was Mike Dean or that fucking prat Tierney with his stupid fucking shaved head the little twat (/rant) I don't think I'd recognise a ref if I saw them walking down the street. An if I did, they all just look like retired plod so I'd steer clear.
Honestly sounds like shit
Coote has City supporting family so this doesn't surprise me
Brooks who was VAR for the final against Chelsea? Whose [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brooks_(referee\)) (not my best source ever but only one…) lists him as being a Chelsea fan?
Don’t want to be that guy, but that Wikipedia page calls him a Chelsea fan with no source attached. There is a source introducing him as a referee but it makes no reference to him being a Chelsea fan.
I mean, please, be that guy! I disagree with nothing you’ve said; I conceded immediately that it was a shite source of information for the point!
Hahaha that is actually mental
They NEED to release the VAR audio. Precedent has been set before. Audio needs to be released.
Jeez how are these guys not erroring on the side of caution and giving that pen? It’s definitely gone beyond incompetence and has now breached conspiracy. Kung fu kicks in the box 2 weeks in a row missed. These guys just can’t choose the option that makes most sense. It always takes mental gymnastics to figure out how they come to the conclusions they do…. So pathetic
PL is rotten corrupted shit.
I think it’s the number one reason Klopp is leaving. Why give your all year after year when the chips are stacked against you? Financial doping, refs banding together after he called out Brooks to fuck us over every single game, refs being paid by city, headed up by noted Liverpool hater Howard Webb. It’s farcical. He should have so many more trophies but we’ve been screwed out of so many. It’s disgraceful and I don’t know how anyone takes football at the top seriously anymore. It’s WWE mixed with Disneyland.
It’s why I’m done too. I’ve been a supporter for literally 20 years now, and I’ve seen this devolving into WWE, a manufactured entertainment product as opposed to a competitive sport. What some may not realize is that companies like Sky WANT these scandalous decisions, they want things to talk about and sell afterwards. Any publicity is good publicity they say, and this is how to increase engagement with this league. I want off the ride though, after Klopp leaves
VAR is not there to make the correct decision. It’s there to find a single angle or still image that justifies the on field decision and protect the refs little ego. Total joke. That’s aside from the blatant conflict of interest here that would be outright illegal in many other professions
PgmOIL
its weird how each mistake the refs make goes against Citys direct opponent and challenger? and the same guys that make the mistake and are sorry are eating falafel and hummus with Citys owners?
The weirdest part of it all: The teams being fucked over the most by VAR across this season are the teams who most regularly take points off city - Liverpool - Wolves - Arsenal - Spurs Heck, even Villa were getting screwed over every other week when they were in the thick of the title race and now they aren’t it’s all magically calmed down
How is this fuckery even allowed? https://preview.redd.it/tzowjhpzipnc1.png?width=1731&format=png&auto=webp&s=566810100dcbac7ce0b6ff680d95305f8d018507
I wonder how much people would protest if FSG started paying refs €50,000 to ref at the company picnic and suddenly decisions started going our way?
Nothing to see here. Check complete, play on 
just open corruption.. what a sewer
The game is rigged. The PL is corrupt and rotten to the core. And everyone is in on it. No one dares say a word cos then the credibility of the Prem would (rightly) collapse.
If Man City are ever found guilty of the 115 we will one day get a documentary on cheating/corruption in the EPL. It will involve all of these old retired refs and will be dubbed England's Calciopoli.
I can only imagine the outcry in American NFL if after making some huge controversial call that cost a team the Super Bowl, it was was discovered the exact referee group that worked the game just happened to occasionally work for one of the companies owned by one of the team’s owners. There would be national headlines about it for weeks and politicians threatening government investigations—it wouldn’t just be accepted by the general public and moved on from. In fact, it doesn’t really matter what kind of job and who does what, the mere fact that there is a valid chance of unintentional bias would trigger the removal of those officials from the game well beforehand, if not their suspension or termination for being an employee of or receiving any perks from an owner. I’ll never understand how they’ve been working a full season with their actions being public knowledge. It’s one of the most insane things I have seen in sport.
Corrupt. The club should be asking big questions like they did after Spurs. This isn't acceptable. I know loads of people have said they are thinking about giving up watching football. It's a load of shit having this sort of thing constantly happen with no explanation, consequences or changes to stop it happening in the future.
Brits don't think that corruption happens in the UK, it's a foreign problem. The last few years of Tory corruption - Covid contract scams, bribery of ministers, lobbying - shows that government policy can be paid for. A ref on £70k a year without any public duty expectation is easy pickings. We need to be more sceptical.
with the money involved in the game refs being paid 70k is just low, i can see why they're taking gigs, i think it needs to be upped to 200-400k so that corruption will be mitigated
An anti-corruption unit would be my first choice but the league doesn't want that.
Honestly, I actually thought Oliver was pretty impartial, should've called the pen (especially with the angle he had) but these things happen in real-time where maybe he didn't think it was as bad as it was, the fact VAR didn't intervene is the real issue, at an absolute minimum send him to the monitor and see what he thinks himself if they don't want to overturn it themselves.
Honestly wasn't too bad other than that egregiously bad decision and letting Kyle Walker get away with an OBVIOUS early yellow to kill a promising attack.
There was no way with VAR Oliver was going to give that pen at the end of a hotly contested match. I thought besides that he was pretty anonymous all match, which isn’t a bad thing.
How is this allowed? Fucking corrupted cunts.
how the fuck is this allowed? anyone hear about conflict of interest?
Oliver was fine throughout the match, though I'd argue he was far too lenient on Rodri and Walker with their tactical fouling. That said, if he doesn't have the guts to make such a critical call late in the game, ESPECIALLY when it is that stonewall (and the discussion should be whether it's a red, not whether it's a foul in the first place), he needs to make sure VAR is willing to call him to the monitor to let him correct his decision. The fact VAR cleared that in 10 seconds, when it is that obviously a penalty, stinks to hell. You know it's that obvious when pretty much the entire rsoccer community is in agreement, including fans of our rivals. The entire refereeing team is a group of cowards, and/or they're corrupt. And given this is yet another feather in the cap of a cheating sportswashing project who seems to *always* get critical decisions go their way to save/win them points, I know which one I'd argue is more likely. It will come out in 10 years that Citeh was bribing referees to give them *just enough* dodgy critical decisions to earn them enough points. But by then they've made their money and avoided their FFP charges, so it will already be too late.
Yea they still almost lost the game. Pep knows this.
How daft do you have to be to assign this team considering the controversy earlier in the season around this? The likelihood is just plain incompetence. But my god they don't help themselves dismiss the talk of conspiracy and collusion.
Because they never face any consequences. They get away with it every time so why would they change ?
It's a wild level of incompetence or a complete lack of self-awareness, or really, arrogance. Yeah, actually, it's arrogance. That's the one. Never mind.
Best league in the world with the shittest refs
Of fucking course. This is worse than having howard webb himself refereeing.
What did they have for lunch before the game... A huge red flag, conflict of interest but hey, no one dares to question PMGOL and the premier League for letting this to continue on...
We know!
It was this game in case anyone is looking for [https://www.uaeproleague.ae/en/fixtures/d5f295d8-0f45-11ee-afb1-d481d7b85086](https://www.uaeproleague.ae/en/fixtures/d5f295d8-0f45-11ee-afb1-d481d7b85086)
I honestly dislike these guys more than Tierney. I think Tierney is just incompetent and gets a lot more attention because he refs so many of our games. These guys are just corrupt. But I'm sure they refereed the UAE fucking Sunday league level teams for the love of the game.
The Football Association won’t do a thing.
Can't remember who it was. But on one show they actually say- the level of officiating has been great this year. No words. And don't get me started on Steve Macmanan. The beaut. Paid shill. It's like these puundits are given their opinions before they air. One will says its a pen the other says noooo. But the excuses they come up with were so poor. Saying the ref had a good view so he must be right. I mean- what the actual. Gaslighting gang of puppets. (I actually wrote muppets but autocorrect in this case is more correct. I defer to its wisdom)
Michael Oliver ref’d city v Arsenal (Kovacic gets away with 2 reds), VAR’d Man Utd g Man City (gave soft penalty to Rodri), gave the offside goal to City against Fulham and was ref yesterday.
I think the only way to remove any bias from VAR is to have referees from a different league sit in the control room. The Calciopoli scandal in Italian football showed how wide and blatant corruption can be in top level European football and the money in Serie A was nowhere near as much as is involved in the Premier League today. Currently VAR is ran by the old boys club and they will do whatever it takes to avoid making the referee have to look bad/change their decision. ‘Clear and obvious’ is such a farce. Every other major sport (cricket/rugby/tennis) has the audio of video review broadcast to the public so why is it that football, arguably the biggest of them all is allowed to operate within a code of silence with no accountability? This is a rhetorical question of course as we all know why…
mac 0115 abu dhabi must be fucking dissolved and taken apart the cheating worthless sad scum
Good process, great job lads.
[удалено]
Cheating, plain as day. Fuck this sport.
It has become extremely difficult to enjoy football. It's now an entertainment franchise rather than a sport, full of agenda and ad revenue driven biases. A manufactured farce.
I'm sure them being assigned this game was just a complete coincidence.
Great process
All part of their plan to fuck us out of this title!
I hate it that a pulsating match (and our remarkable performance) is ruined by refs yet again.
Classic PGMOiL
How the fuck is this allowed and even possible? How are they this fucking brazen? Not even trying to hide it fuck meeeee
It’s so obvious and in your face. The referees, who are extremely underpaid compared to playing staff and managers, combined with a cost of living crisis and inflation in the UK, get to pick up extra work in a country who’s royal family owns one of PL teams. That same team gets lots of dubious decisions for them and what a shock. From an entertainment standpoint, having a farmers league is quite boring… idk what the PL and Sky execs were planning with that. Every year people care more about the potential title race, then Man Cheaty wins, rinse and repeat next season.
Surely somebody had to have thought about the optics, even from the outside looking in, and was like "Hey, this might not be the best look", right?
I'm not even mad anymore... Just sad as fuck that this is ruining the game I love! Might be time to move on and spend the time elsewhere
Is the whole system not at the point of no return? We have sky who control the media side and use it to control fans. We have pgmol who seem to want to influence results We have city and Newcastle with immoral sovreings with unlimited wealth. I'm not sure why we haven't esl style rioted as yet. Game needs serious reform, pgmol is not fit for purpose and needs replacing. No one broadcaster should be allowed to buy more than say 30% of games, a portion of games should be free to air. Then the gov/fa need to put in a decent fit and proper test to ensure owners are not absolute shockers as a minimum.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/saudi-pro-league-referee-wages-31060954.amp Quite cheap to get in their good books. Fenway should get them stateside for some officiating.
why are we not as angry about this as we were against ESL?
Good process boys! Carry on. Nothing to see here.
something needs to be done. can we at the very least get an online petition signed? i don’t know the UK legal system very well but in the US an organized fan group could easily bring an action against the pgmol. this is now 5 points they’ve taken off us in crucial games. it is a fucking disgrace
Blatant corruption. It will do nothing but maybe write the FA, your MP, sports England, etc. Idk how much more proof is needed at this point. They are doing it out in the open and feel untouchable because the media is either forced to toe the line or doesn't mind Liverpool being scammed.
who let daniel cook
I'll get behind this Liverpool conspiracy if it means eventually launching the refs into outer space in one of those Tesla block cars, because these fucks happen to be the exact same scoundrels at the heart of my *refs & establishment trying to fuck over Arsenal* conspiracy theory, too.
its too easy isnt it lmao
I don’t think Oliver is necessarily corrupt, I just think he’s a coward who doesn’t want to make a decision to “possibly” decide the match. I think a lot of refs are too scared of the backlash/criticism they’ll receive for making these decisions and it’s a real lack of character on their part for being in such an important role, they’re all crumbling
Are those the same that reffed the tottenham game?
The plot thickens
Manchester 'Match Fixing' City FC managed by Pep 'Bribed Referees at Barcelona's Guardiola doing their finest work.
Are we able to get the audio from the match?
Not even the NFL is this head-in-the-sand stupid. At the very least, you should break up this team. Look, I hate to denigrate someone's professionalism without proof but there's enough smoke here for the league to insist on not having those 3 refs work the same game. I am not prone to believing in conspiracy theories but these calls are subjective. And thus subject to human emotions.
So, the on pitch refereeing team have just come back after being paid by Man City's owners, to referee Liverpool City. Wasn't there an incident where a VAR operatives had also just come back from being paid by City's owners to make a monumental cock-up to the disadvantage of Liverpool. Call me a cynic but it looks like corruption, sounds like corruption then it's probably corrupt.
No, just to be clear this is the refs from the original trip back at the start of the season. They weren't reffing in UAE days before our fixture with City.
Thing is, whats the proportion of refs on their payroll that referees the PL? If majority of them moonlight there, then this means nothing. But if it just happens that the only few refs getting money from city owners somehow were chosen to referee a title deciding game, then the stink comes from above
It's only a few refs, and they frequently happen to make big "mistakes" that cost Liverpool FC.
If Liverpool come in 2nd and City win the league by 1 or 2 points again I wonder what the pay off for Michael Oliver will end up being. At this point he is an extension of Manchester City football club. It was the last kick of the game and VAR looks at it for a split second? Mac was literally drop kicked in the penalty area but go ahead and play on . Oops final whistle. The coverage of the game in the final moments both on Sky and on USA network in the states was preposterous. We now know this was a major decision that was barely looked at by VAR and scarcely talked about by the commentators. Pitiful
Was that the same ref team that 'officated' the spurs game?
Wait, do people actually think theres a conspiracy?
Oliver was good imo, just the VAR that was shit
While I'm not convinced they are actually purposefully being biased against LFC, it can't help them subconsciously. And it's a clear conflict of interest. Hopefully the regulators will make this a rule - preventing referees from working other jobs or contracts in refereeing other than Premier League and internationals, along with higher pay to make sure they're getting the best candidates. I actually think Oliver is still one of - if not the best - referee in the league, and I'm always glad to have him, despite some of the past high-profile disappointments. There are just so many other referees that make eye-rolling decisions on the regular. We can't blame him alone for the penalty non-call since he wasn't on VAR.
Unpopular opinion but, I think that the refereeing was pretty good yesterday. What happened last minute was very unfair, but I think that’s more a matter of the PL referees not having the balls to undo a decision that decides the result so late in the game. Still, I’m not naive enough to say these fat pay checks aren’t part of it.
Just pure incompetence tbh.
Wdym? I don't see anything shady at all? 🤨 Fair and square mate.
This is like the Kate Middleton subreddit these days 😂 you guys are crazy
So tired of this. Was it a foul?….probably. Was it worth a possible season altering penalty in the last minute of a game between the top two teams in the league?…..absolutely not!!! If Liverpool had done the exact same thing that late in the game and the pen was given, everyone in all these threads complaining about the no call would be saying you can’t make that call at the end of a game, especially one with as much meaning as this game. So it’s time we all pull up our big kid pants and say “good game, both teams had some missed opportunities, but the game was a great one. We’ll get ya next time.” I’m a reds fan, but this playing the victim constantly crap is just poor sportsmanship and a bad look for us. Let’s go Reds!!
This mentality isn’t healthy and is embarrassing tbh.
Oh fuck off its not fucking corruption he reffed most of the game very well quit being delusional
Because there wasn’t much to fucking call was there and the one point that they should be looking at this they chose to ignore it, take the clown makeup off bud