This two part look at refereeing decisions will analyse the extent to which the claim that big teams receive preferential treatment from the men in black is true.
There is not a doubt that they will sometimes make mistakes. Occasionally, a weekend is dominated with strange decisions, overshadowing the men who are supposed to be making the headlines. But there is one accusation levelled at referees that is rarely if ever considered. Do referees favour the bigger teams? It is a charge made by many, most vehemently Tony Pulis at Stoke who insists that
“There is definitely a bigger split of decisions that go for the top clubs,” claims the fiesty Welshman, whose slander of referees goes unchecked. Pulis, when making those comments, went on to complain that a Chelsea player once left the pitch so slowly towards the end of the game in a ponderous sojourn to the changing room that would not be tolerated had it been a smaller side.
What is most intriguing in those words from Pulis, is that they came just days before a clash with Chelsea. It is often said that managers like Arsene Wenger or Sir Alex Ferguson like to pressure referees before games with their comments to the press. The same goes for the likes of Pulis, who are equally keen to use the media to pressure referees. By implying that referees favour the teams at the top, small teams have a powerful weapon with which to beat the officials before games against the top sides and to influence those crucial decisions during those games that could go either way.
Besides, the decisions that go against teams at the top tend to have less impact on their results than teams at the bottom. The best teams in the league, if they dominate a game, will often be able to win even with a couple of poor decisions going against them in a game. For smaller teams, the margins are smaller, and they are more reliant on referees getting those decisions right. And decisions going in favour of the big sides are highlighted more than others. Just after Christmas, Manchester United dropped two points at Birmingham when Nicola Zigic used his arm to help the Midlands side to equalise. A few days later, Manchester United got away with a stonewall penalty that West Brom should have been awarded when Gary Neville committed an obvious foul in the area. Yet one incident received considerably more attention than the other.
And what of the accusation that the top teams are favoured? If there was a statistical, rigid and accurate compilation of all incorrect decisions made by referees, we could reach some solid conclusions. There is not. But there is some evidence, from the intriguing Right Result initiative that was tried a few years ago in the Premier League.
I first came across The Right Result at the end of the 2007-2008 campaign, and found its independence and scrupulous methodology intriguing. It consisted of a panel of independent former referees, officials and players who would judge each week’s controversial decisions and then make judgments based on those decisions on what the result of the game would have been.
Clearly, this method is not rock solid. Most obviously, a penalty that is not given but should be, does not necessarily mean that had that penalty been given it would have resulted in a goal. It resorts to probability to make its judgments as to the way a scoreline would pan out if refereeing decisions were correct. And of course, who is to say that the panel is correct in calling a refereeing decision?
Yet whilst the flaws are obvious, it is also a far better way of judging the extent to which fortune plays a part in football than to rely on the rantings of the managers of Stoke, Blackburn and certain other smaller teams.
The Right Result is also helpful in trying to answer other crucial questions such as whether big teams are favoured by referees, or if refereeing errors balance themselves out over the course of a season.
The answer, according to The Right Result, is not just that the big teams are not favoured by referees, but that they arguably are hard done by. In simple points terms, the independent panel found that 2008 champions Manchester United barely profited at all as a result of refereeing errors. Arsenal, who finished third, should have finished second, but this was down to them being harshly treated by the men in black, rather than second place Chelsea being particularly fortunate. The only one of the ‘big four’ to benefit from refereeing errors were Liverpool, who should have finished behind Everton, according to the panel.
This in itself should dispel the myth that the big teams are favoured by referees. In the second part of this feature, the fortune of the smaller teams in the Premier League will be analysed in more depth, and it will be seen just how off the mark the claim is that teams at the top receive the benefit of the doubt from referees.
