Last season, Football Is Fixed created the Bum Ref Index to demonstrate which officials had the most negative and, in many cases, most corrupt influence on outcomes in the matches in which they officiated. Mark Clattenburg was the best referee for season 2006/07 (for final end of season ratings see: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/05/bum-ref-update-20062007.html).
We intend to continue with the public monitoring of the Premiership officials for the new season.
The Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) still insists on maintaining a very small roster of officials for the games in the English top flight. Where all the other main European leagues utilise between 30 and 40 referees, the PGMOB sees fit to depend on a mere nineteen officials. Obviously, the smaller the grouping of referees, the greater the likelihood of potentially corrupt structures being developed - the benefit to a manipulating bookmaker is evidently greater if a controlled official is in charge of, on average, twenty games per season than if the official were to be in charge of less events.
Last year saw the retirement of two major referees - Gallagher and Poll. Enough has been written in many previous posts about Poll and the PGMOB lost control of both of these officials in their final season as Poll became repeatedly imbalanced while Gallagher did not do as he was told resulting in a two and a half month ban and a virtual exclusion from televised live matches (only one token event which will teach him to get in the way of the Portsmouth betting juggernaut).
In an enlightened piece of highly dubious marketing, all referees are to be sponsored by AirAsia for season 2007/08. AirAsia was established in 2003 as a joint venture with the Shin Corporation of Thailand. Shin was founded in 1983 as Shinawatra Computer by Thaksin Shinawatra, former Prime Minister of Thailand and the human rights abuser who now owns Manchester City, and took on its current name in 1999. On January 23, 2006, the Shinawatra family sold its remaining 49.6 percent stake in the company to nominees of Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government's investment arm, illegally pocketing $1.88 billion in the process. These funds are currently frozen in Thailand although Shinawatra managed to secrete some of his ill-begotten gains offshore. The upshot of this piece of creatively corrupt marketing is that the PGMOB is allowing its officials to be sponsored by an organisation that has very close direct links to the criminalised owner of one of its clubs.
Perhaps Keith Hackett (the General Manager of the PGMOB) would like to explain to the other nineteen teams why this manipulated mode of marketing is seen as viable for the English Premiership.
Kamarudin Meranum, the deputy chief executive officer of AirAsia gloats: "AirAsia prides itself on a reputation for reliability and dependability. These qualities are reflected in the work of the PGMOB and its referees whose dedication and commitment to fair play are crucial to the success of English football."
If AirAsia are truly equivalent to the PGMOB officials, we would strongly advise all air passengers to give the firm a very very wide berth indeed.
Update: The PGMOB are already up to their usual tricks with regard to the high turnover live matches with a very late referee exchange between Riley and Bennett for the games at Villa and Chelsea - we're not talking injury or illness here but a market influenced machination. All early professional trading was undermined by this alteration and we would advise all market operators outside the corrupt inner loop to be aware of this repetitive manipulation throughout what promises to be the most subversive season to date. An additional factor to this adjustment was its complete absence pre-match from any media apart from Setanta. Indeed, the BBC Match Of The Day programme were still referencing Bennett as referee at Villa Park on Saturday night's programme.
Finally, to avoid confusion between the Premier League (the corrupt body that ruins our game) and the Premier League (the actual matches), we will continue to refer to the matches as being in the Premiership.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
