Simply a myth in the Premier League
Following Wigan Athletic’s defeat to Newcastle on Saturday, Roberto Martinez gave additional firepower to the age old argument that referees favour the so called bigger sides. Martinez was quoted as saying, ‘it’s just that we’re Wigan Athletic and it’s very difficult to get it wrong against us.’
The idea has been around for so long that many football fans and managers mention it as if it is fact, but following Martinez’s comments, a question must be asked. Is it merely a myth that small sides do not get the decisions?
As a fan of English football, any suggestion of considered bias towards certain clubs is disappointing, we all want to see fair, unbiased officiating in football. Yet it would be naive to think that incorrect decisions really do even themselves out over the course of the season, as if by magic.
The reality is that certain clubs are going to get more decisions over a season, the campaign after that, that club may get less, but do the bigger clubs get more of these decisions? The evidence does not suggest that they do, indeed no evidence or study has ever proven such a claim.
However, there are other factors that influence the chances of teams getting decisions. Manchester United famously went 10 years without a penalty being scored against them at home, with only 3 penalties awarded in that time. This led to many fans to declare that it was impossible for smaller clubs to get a decision at Old Trafford.
Yet, those claims do not allow for the quality of player at Manchester United, the team throughtout that the time was top draw and logic dictates that top quality players are less likely to concede penalties and more likely to win them than lesser players.
It is true that the more fans in the stadium, the more voices the referee has to block out. Naturally, some referees are going to be better at this than others. It could be argued that teams with bigger stadiums such as Arsenal and Manchester United are more likely to get decisions due to this. However, if the crowd is raucous, such as at Loftus Road on Sunday, surely the amount of people in the stadium is insignificant in comparison to the atmosphere.
This season, both Kenny Dalglish and Andre Villas-Boas have argued that decisions have consistently gone against their sides. As the managers of Liverpool and Chelsea, their claims do not do much to support Roberto Martinez’s words.
Roberto Martinez may feel harshly dealt with and he may feel that Wigan get less decisions because of who they are. In reality, there is no reason that Wigan will not be on the end of beneficial decisions before the season comes to an end. The fact is, the argument that ‘smaller clubs do not get the decisions’ is just a myth.
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“The evidence does not suggest that they do, indeed no evidence or study has ever proven such a claim.”
Where is this evidence? What are you basing this conclusion on?
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although i agree that the likes of man u have better players and more of the ball so thy wil get mny more pens i still think the ref bottles major decisions against the big teams but finds it very easy to give 50 50′s in there favour. think because they dont want to upset old red nose and the likes and the fans play a big part to
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“Yet, those claims do not allow for the quality of player at Manchester United, the team throughtout that the time was top draw and logic dictates that top quality players are less likely to concede penalties” – Yes but why only them? They were always challenged for every title, except maybe last year. Logic dictates that one player from your team will give away at least one penalty each season at home. 3 penalties in 10 years? Are you kidding!?
You can look on untold arsenal for a study which clearly shows that most times the refs are harder on arsenal.
Also, the BBC posted the results of some studies on their website a while ago, which showed that Webb was the kindest referee to united at old trafford last season in terms of bookings etc, and he had refereed about twice as many games as any of the other refs (this was about halfway through the season I think).
I can’t agree that the referees favour the big teams, because most times I watch an arsenal game, the refs clearly give the other team more than they give us, regardless of whether it’s home or away (although whether arsenal are considered “big” at the moment is debateable), but the refs CLEARLY favour united overall. I counted 11 obvious red cards last season that they avoided including rooney ELBOWING SOMEONE IN THE HEAD right in front of the ref, and he did nothing. There was also vidic getting away with last man fouls, and neville getting away with obvious 2nd bookable offences. The reason they got hammered against City was that the game was so big that the ref couldn’t ignore the obvious red card, as he might have done in a smaller game (also he wasn’t howard webb). Had they been officiated correctly last season, I doubt they would have won the league.
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craigdoc Reply:
October 25th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
i agree to the red cards you have pointed out as for your feelings on arsenal i cant comment because i’m a spurs fan but i’m sure your right. i can name plenty of times spurs have given man u a good game only for the ref to do something silly and change the match
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Am I the only person in the world that has noticed it’s not the big clubs that get decisions, it’s big players! And there is NOTHING that can be done about it… the type of person that would happily kill an animal for food wouldn’t kill their own pet (promise this has a point)… Basically, someone having a name and a recognisable face creates empathy, rooney does something, but seems to acceot he done something wrong and walks over apologetically he will get Yellow instead of Red in some cases (unless he just kicks someone al a England) it will never change because fouls are based on perception and you perception can be altered by relationship or knowledge of a person, you automatically give them more. Something in football that will have to be lived with. The only way (as a player) to stop being a victim of this is, sadly, to be better at your job and become one of the bigger players.
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There is a survey about refferes on
http://www.untold arsenal if anyone is interested.It is very good stats about
the officials.
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