In March 2010, we produced a post on a peculiar bias in the decision making of Jon Moss, a then Football League Referee - "Doing A Little Deal Down The Moss" (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2010/03/doing-little-deal-down-moss.html).
The post is reproduced in part below.
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"Yesterday, Jonathan Moss, a bog-standard referee from the wrong side of the Pennines, gave a fallacious penalty (the infringement occurred outside the penalty area) that allowed West Bromwich Albion to defeat Blackpool by 3 goals to 2.
Blackpool manager, Ian Holloway, was furious about the decision.
And why is this of any concern to the likes of you?
Well, Mr Moss should never have been allowed to officiate on this match in the first place.
Below we list all of the occasions where Moss has refereed either West Brom or Blackpool during his five year Football League tenancy.
Scunthorpe 1 Blackpool 0
WBA 3 Luton 2
Norwich 1 WBA 2
Blackpool 3 Scunthorpe 1 - despite having Brandon sent off by Moss after 38 minutes.
Blackpool 0 Plymouth 0
WBA 4 Ipswich 0
Peterborough 0 WBA 3 - a penalty and sending off in favour of the Throstles.
Hull 2 Blackpool 2 - Sent off Kaspar Gorkss of Blackpool.
Blackpool 1 West Brom 3 - Gave West Brom their equalising penalty.
Burnley 2 Blackpool 0 - A penalty to seal the Hillbilly victory.
Blackpool 0 Watford 2
Blackpool 1 Nottingham Forest 1 - Ian Evatt sent off after 68 minutes.
Blackpool 2 Newcastle 1 - must be because it helped West Brom!
Scunthorpe 1 West Brom 3 - two sendings off and a penalty when the game was one-all sorted out this particular affair.
WBA 3 Blackpool 2 - gives Albion fake penalty for winning goal.
So, what are the scores on the doors?
West Bromwich Albion matches with Mr Moss blowing the whistle:
7 matches.
7 wins.
4 penalties in favour of West Brom and none against.
3 sendings off in favour of West Brom and none against.
Blackpool matches with Moss's sides:
10 matches.
2 wins and 5 defeats.
0 penalties in favour of Blackpool but two against.
0 sendings off in favour of Blackpool but three against.
How exactly do the Football League reach the decision of who referees whom?"
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It was with an air of inevitability that it was noticed that Mr Moss had been promoted to the PGMOB Select Group of match referees for the current season.
His close 'relationship' with West Bromwich Albion is now enhanced since new club agent John Colquhoun was appointed (along with Roy Hodgson following the Anfield Fiasco) by his friend Jeremy Peace.
We have been reliably informed that Colquhoun and Moss were first acquainted in the early nineties when Colquhoun was a player at Sunderland/Millwall while Moss was on the Academy teams.
Moss was already qualified as a referee but did not focus on dressing up in strange outfits and exerting authority over groups of men until he gave up playing in the late nineties (like Colquhoun).
Moss has already had involvement in four West Brom matches this season as either referee or 4th official (an increasingly influential role in the world of microphone contact and television replays).
In total, Moss has officiated in 10 matches and four of them have involved WBA!
On the one occasion he was refereeing Albion, Moss gave them a penalty in a highly suspicious collection of betting patterns against Everton in the Carling Cup. West Brom still blew it causing Hodgson to memorably rip off his expensive Italian jacket and throw it to the Goodison turf.
How exactly does Mike "Kipper" Riley at the PGMOB reach the decision of who referees whom?
One of my colleagues contacted the Premier League about the selection of referees and the seeming control that various clubs have over the choice of match officials.
Their response alleged randomness so we did a statistical analysis of the PGMOB selections and random it is most definitely not.
Interestingly, the Premier League have now removed all historical information on the match refereeing team appointments from their website in a truly Stalinesque example of transparency.
Why is it illegal to print this information elsewhere?
Why?
What is it about the appointment of match officials that leads to such secrecy from the Premier League?
What is it about the appointment of match officials that leads to Spanish referees only being made public at 00:00 hrs on the day of the event?
What is it about the appointment of match officials that leads to UEFA delaying release until the day before Champions League and Euro 2012 matches?
What is it about the appoinment of match officials that leads to a representative of the Polish Presidency of the EU pleading for greater co-operation to tackle corruption, including reforming member states' legal codes and giving referees short notice on which matches they are due to officiate?
Corruption!??!!?!
Is this the same corruption referred to by Pierre Cornu, the lawyer tasked with fighting corruption in football on behalf of UEFA.
We have quoted the man here before: "I don't think that we will be able to eradicate this problem. We don't pretend. It's just everywhere. It's like drug trafficking. There will always be drug addicts. The only way to not bring people to court is the legalise drug trafficking."
He continued that corruption risks damaging "the very soul of sports" and will jeopardise funding for football. Cornu claims that the criminalities are arranged via corrupt match officials.
We are not saying that Jonathan Moss is involved in corruption.
He might just get carried away by the airing of the word "Albion" or perhaps throstles are his thing. Who knows?
But some referees most definitely are very very very corrupt indeed and if it is possible for clubs to place match officials on key events, we are looking at horseracing rather than the beautiful game.
A Game Theorist might suggest three solutions to this systemic problem.
i) Vastly increase the number of match officials - 18 isn't enough for 'the biggest league in the world' especially when a number of them hardly ever officiate and when the leading lights are involved in two matches most weekends (one as referee and one as 4th official).
ii) Randomise the selection process.
iii) Bring in video replays for ALL contentious decisions.
The Bundesliga is markedly cleaner than the big three leagues of England, Spain and Italy when it comes to the corruption inflicted on the game by match officials.
When a rogue official did surface in Germany he was dealt with and imprisoned.
Is it any coincidence that attendances are markedly higher in the Bundesliga and tours of real English football fans make their way over there for a real football experience?
