According to this exclusive in Daily Mail, the big kahunas of football were so aghast at Mike Jones’ horrendous day at Newcastle that they’re just throwing money at refereeing now. The highlights of the story: The amount of money spent on refs is due to nearly triple, to somewhere around 1 million pounds annually The goal is to both raise current
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Ever wonder what (if any) thought goes into the Premier League referee appointments week in and week out? While it’s something of a trade secret, I’ve managed to dig up an old list that seems to still be relevant. While these may not be the only criteria PGMOL use, this list seems pretty comprehensive. The referee’s current form – We saw
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The big game this week is Manchester City v. Chelsea. Mike Dean will officiate that one. He’s near the top of the charts on yellow cards, and only Andre Marriner and Martin Atkinson have handed out more red cards. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles these two teams of prima donnas footballers. Elsewhere, Phil Dowd is managing the Anti-Mark
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Let’s state this right up front: ManU are collapsing. So there’s no reason to go over their calamitous 3-1 defeat at Chelsea. What is worth discussing are two calls Phil Dowd made in injury time, one to send Nemanja Vidic off with a straight red card and one to keep Rafael on with a yellow. Either way, ManU ends up with
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I tuned in late to the Crystal Palace v. Stoke game, expecting Mark Clattenburg to be refereeing, only to see a bald head running around the pitch in yellow Has he shaved his head? Clattenburg got paid way too much money for that hair to do that, I’d say. And I was unfortunately right. Lee Mason took over for Clattenburg
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It’s starting to get a little boring. Apparently, whenever a team starts to go completely lousy, the manager comes out and says something stupid about the referees to try and obfuscate the issue: that his team suck. First, there was good old Brendan “Geographically Correct” Rodgers. Then there was the Great Adam Lallana Affair over at Southampton. Both were smear campaigns
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There’s only one big game this week: Manchester United v. Chelsea. My man Phil Dowd will take charge, and it’s a good thing. These clubs and their managers are a handful, to say the least, and Dowd leads all Premier League referees with 55 yellow cards to date. (Though no red cards. Yet.) Mark Clattenburg has a tough one with
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Mike Jones seems like a nice enough guy. But boy has luck not been on his side lately. First, he got punched in the face accidentally while mediating a “debate”. (Which was totally not funny, and yet totally was. Cause getting punched in the nose is just comedy gold.) But he might have wished someone would punch him in the nose
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It appears that the latest Mark Clattenburg controversy is grinding to an ignominious halt. When last we’d left our intrepid hero, Clattenburg waved off two penalty appeals in Southampton’s loss to Everton at Goodison Park, and Saints lost their shit. The general feeling is that Clattenburg got both calls right. What happened next was when things got really surreal: Clattenburg apparently
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Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers won’t fight an FA charge that arose after he made thinly veiled accusations that questioned referee Lee Mason’s impartiality. Rodgers, incensed by Mason’s performance in Liverpool’s Boxing Day clash at Manchester City, suggested that the calls didn’t go the Reds’ way because Mason is from “Greater Manchester.” “Hopefully we don’t have a Greater Manchester referee again
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PLAY THE ADVANTAGE 