Football, Diving and Refs...

After the end of this Premier League weekend, and after the match between Chelsea and Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on 28th October 2012, a lot of allegations have been made about the wrong decisions taken by the match official in-charge – Mark Clattenburg. And no prizes for guessing whom he seemed to favour, with the decisions (of course Manchester United). At least that’s what most people think, or want to think. Some also go on to say that Ashley Young could have stayed on his feet rather than ‘going down’, which led to Ivanovic being red carded.

Reading news about the post match reactions and verdicts by many football pundits and writers, I came across a series of articles in the English daily – The Sun. The links to the stories are given below:

1. Allegation 12. Allegation 2

In these allegations, the writers have pointed out that the referee’s wrong decisions were taken intentionally to favour Manchester United in their attempt to win at Stamford Bridge after a decade. It says that Manchester United like always were favoured, and given the offside goal, so that they could win the match. Also, Roberto Di Matteo goes on to say that Ivanovic’s sending off was harsh and Torres’s second yellow was unjust. According to him, Torres was right to ‘go down’ and it was Jonny Evans, who should have been carded. Among the ‘The Sun’ writers, Steven Howard thinks Clattenburg is among the Manchester United players and Shaun Custis believes that Jonny Evans was coming towards Torres at such a great speed, that it was nonsense to call Torres’ fall a dive.

To all the allegations, I would like to present some facts and points. First of all, for all the people saying and thinking that referees intentionally favour Manchester United, and hence, allowed the offside goal – In the same week, in three matches (including Chelsea vs MUFC), linesmen got their decisions wrong regarding the offside positions of players which led to goal.

In the match between QPR and Arsenal, it was Arsenal who got lucky and even though Arteta was way offside, they got their goal allowed. Again, in the match between Liverpool and Everton, Suarez was clearly onside and had his goal disallowed. So, if in these cases, where I think the decisions were much easier to be made than that in the case of Javier Hernandez’s goal, the linesmen got it wrong. This doesn’t mean that the officials favour Arsenal and Everton. Linesmen are humans and hence are bound to make errors.

In this picture, Arteta is miles offside, but still the linesman allowed the goal. In Liverpool’s case, Suarez was way onside, but unfortunately, his goal was disallowed. But in the case of Javier Hernandez, you can see in the picture that he is marginally offside. Having said that, nobody cares about the decisions that the match officials get wrong in other matches. But when it comes to the matches of Manchester United, even if a slight mistake by the officials leads to a fortunate result/circumstance for MUFC, every person who seems to dislike Manchester United come up with allegations that referees favour United.

If people draw such conclusions based on the wrong decisions by referees and linesmen, then they should believe that Arsenal had the linesmen in their pockets and so did Everton. But, of course that is not the case. If linesmen can make mistakes like they did in case of Arsenal and Liverpool, then every QPR and Liverpool fan should come up with such allegations against Arsenal and Everton respectively. Only in the case of Manchester United, a single wrong refereeing decision becomes so highlighted that it is us United fans who have to take the brunt. Any sane person who takes a look at the pictures can understand, that if linesmen can make such mistakes in the other two matches and they call it just a human error, then the same can also happen in United’s matches. It would be baseless and reckless to come up with such allegations.

Now, coming to the red card decision part. Roberto Di Matteo says Ivanovic’s red card was a bit harsh. I think he should go and check the rule books. According to him, Ivanovic clipped Young’s legs only by mistake and that it was unintentional. Even in the wildest of dreams, if one accepts that, what is the referee supposed to do? Let him off and say – Don’t do it again?

Also, in the case of Fernando Torres, most people claim that Torres didn’t intentionally go down and was brought down by Evans, I would request them to watch replays and then comment. Although, Evans’ foot connected with that of Torres, it was so delicate, that even Torres realized it after a split second and then decided to go down (probably hoping that Evans would be carded). Even after having a clear opportunity, he decided to go down. Also, with the reputation that he has, and the current scenario regarding diving, even if it wasn’t a dive, nobody can blame it on the ref completely. Anyway, he should have been sent off in the first half for his reckless challenge on Cleverly. But, nobody wants to debate about that decision.

Bottom line – I do accept that the goal that Hernandez scored was offside and should have been disallowed, but Torres deserved to be sent off and United deserved to win. Such mistakes by referees can happen, but that doesn’t mean concluding that Clattenburg favoured Reds and took those decisions intentionally.