When Keith Hackett, warts n'all, retires from his stewardship of the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) next summer, he will be replaced by a current referee - either Mike Riley, Steve Bennett or Pete Walton.
This is a major decision for the future of the English game at its highest levels.
As the match officials are a significant part of the problem with Premier League football, the successful candidate will directly influence the hyperreal future of the Premier League.
One of these candidates stands head and shoulders above the others when the most important qualification for the post is taken into account - the ability, obviously entirely unconsciously, to tilt your match decisions in a direction most pleasing to the liabilities of a certain grouping of market makers.
In this post, we assess each of the candidates which is not a particularly edifying process and we suggest who, quite literally, is the bookmakers' favourite.
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© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
