Half the penalties in Arsenal matches were wrongly given. The ref review of the season – 1 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

The final ref review of the season – Part 1

By Walter Broeckx

First of all I will start to give you all the results the refs have had this season on the important decisions. For the new and not regular readers this is a score on 100 when it comes to Cards, Penalties, Goals and Others. And the others is decisions that had to be taken or that have consequences on other decisions. For instance seeing a foul that should lead to a yellow or a red card. Seeing the foul is one thing for the ref, giving the right card is another thing.

But lets us move to the refs themselves and their points and  here we have all the refs and their points we had in English competitions  this season. And this review (and the one that will folow)  is based on 50 games we played in English competitions this season.

So here we have the total numbers of the important decisions in the EPL when it comes to games of Arsenal.

When it comes to cards you can say that half of them are correctly awarded.  And as well known cards are very important in a game. A red card can unbalance to a team a lot. Or not giving a card when a player makes a dangerous tackle can bring harm to a player and could lead to him being less fit after that. So it is important for a ref not only to see certain fouls but also keep an eye on when you must give a card and certainly when it comes to red cards.

If we take a look at penalties we see that not even half of the decisions are right. One out of two penalties are wrong. I think we all can think of some penalties that went against us in the season where you could wonder if the ref was blind or not competent.  Of course this also includes the penalties that should have been given  by the ref but when the ref decided to not give it.

As penalties are very important (even more important than cards) in a game it is absolutely something that should be looked after. The FA and the PGMOL (if they really are interested in bringing the refs to a higher level) should do something about it. Video evidence is one solution for this. But yes we know how the authorities think about that. Like the refs in some countries who are asking for such assistance for years without their Football Associations helping them out. So the refs who want to bend a game will have all the power they have to continue to do this in the future I’m afraid.

Let’s move to maybe the most important number: the goals.  When we have 10 goals in a game roughly 1 is wrong given or cancelled out wrongly. And again I think this is too much. Goals are the things that decide a game so it is absolutely vital that everyone does all they can to make sure that there are no goals wrongly disallowed or wrongly  given. Again the simplest solution looks to be video evidence. But again the persons who have the power are allergic to such a solution. For some reason they want to keep the power of the ref on the field as total.

Also in the table where I noted the record of the “other” decisions the score is very low.  Only half of these decisions were correct.  I think this is a terrible score for a league that is the best in the world.

And so the overall average scores of all the refs in the EPL is around 62%. This means that when a ref has to make 10 decisions in a game only 6 of them are correct in fact. I think this is dramatic. It is unacceptable in fact.

In Belgium this would mean that you are not fit enough to do games in the Jupiler league. What will the PGMOL do about this low score? Well if you know what they are going to do something about it please let me know.

As far as I have seen the only thing they ask is for all and everyone to just shut up about it.  And this is one thing we at Untold will certainly not do.