It is a rare occurrence for a new referee to be introduced to the Premiership roster of officials. Previous posts (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/11/structure-to-avoid-corruption-part-1.html) have addressed the risk of corruption through having such a small number of registered officials for the league (17 compared to 40 in Italy's Serie A).
So Steve Tanner was monitored very closely at Reading yesterday.
Our Trading Team expect that any new official will conform to the same external prompts and power hierarchies as the incumbent referees and Tanner did not disappoint. The obstacles that a young official must surmount to reach Premiership level unfortunately include rather too many "skills" that have little to do with officiating a football match.
There are very strong rumours around that the Premiership will pick 10 "elite" (sic) officials to referee all next year's games in the top flight. This is a structure that will magnify the corruption and manipulation and even more Premiership games will be determined by global betting patterns rather than by the skill of the teams.
Can't wait...
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