Tinfoilhattingham Forest
What happens when a Premier League club goes rogue and starts making outlandish claims of something akin to corruption within the league? We're about to find out.
It feels as though, as the possibility of relegation back to the Championship starts to hone into view, a heavy, toxic fog is starting to settle in over The City Ground. It is a fog of ‘corruption’—or at least, of ‘corruption’ claims—and the buy-in on the idea that the Premier League have some sort of secret desire to cause harm upon Nottingham Forest for some reason presumably has been as depressingly great as you’d expect in 2024, a year that is rapidly feeling like a tipping point in the growing battle between ordinary knowledge and conspiracy theorism.
So let’s run a few numbers. How does this conspiracy theory manifest itself in the real world? Forest are claiming that they should have been given three penalties at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon alone, but how hard done-by do the statistics reveal them to be over the course of this season? They have been given the joint least penalty kicks in the Premier League season with one, alongside Spurs. But the difference here is that Spurs have had 1,183 touches inside opposition penalty areas this season, or the fourth-most in the division, while Forest have had 725, or the fifth-least.
Broadly speaking, if Nottingham Forest believe there to be a penalty party going on elsewhere in the Premier League to which they’ve not been invited presumably for some reason, the statistics indicate that they’re mistaken. Seven clubs—a third of the entire division—have had three or less, while the idea that there is a conspiracy against them is further undermined by the fact that they’ve only conceded three penalties as well despite having an average of only 40.9% possession during matches. Spurs, by comparison, have conceded six, with an average possession rate of 61.2%.
In other matters that referees could influence, there’s nothing to indicate that they’re doing worse than other teams, when weighted against their league position. They’ve conceded 394 fouls, the seventh-highest in the division, but only nine more than Luton Town and 11 more than Burnley. They’ve picked up 79 yellow cards and three reds. Their yellows tally is the same as Spurs, who’ve picked up one more red card.
If there is a conspiracy against Nottingham Forest afoot for some reason presumably involving refereeing decisions to favour ‘big’ clubs while hurting ‘small’ clubs like Forest, the figures simply don’t bear this out. Forest’s three red cards are exactly average for the Premier League this season. Of The Big Six Cartel, Liverpool (5) and Spurs (4) have received more red cards than them, while Chelsea have received the same number. Manchester City and Arsenal have had two, and Manchester United have had one.
In short, if shadowy cabals are meeting on their secret island fortresses of solitude around the world and plotting the destruction of Nottingham Forest for some reason presumably, they’ve not been doing a very good job of it.
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“Ah”, but some will say, “corruption was a bad choice of word, but that’s not the main point; the main point is the incompetence. We intend to shine a light upon the Premier League and PGMOL’s dark practices”, to which the only sane reply to give is, “… … … what?”
There is nothing particularly secretive about the structure of refereeing in this country and besides, if these organisations were so “incompetent” in the first place, how could they have managed to get away with ‘corruption’ for so long? Or does this nonsense only apply to Forest? Does the sight of two European Cup winning stars on their shirts drive other clubs into an uncontrollable rage?
If we’re going to accept this incompetence argument with regard to referees, how does carrying on like this improve anything for the game in a general sense?The constant criticism, the streams of abuse, the relatively low pay (until you reach the near-top of the game) and the risk (certainly at lower levels of the game) of physical assault are the biggest reasons why referees have been leaving the game in droves over the last few years. The pool is smaller. The idea of former pros taking up refereeing has been thrown around (because they, presumably, could never be biased in any way whatsoever, could they?), but this wouldn’t solve anything much.
These are the biggest risks to refereeing standards. If fewer people take it up and more walk away, the available pool of possible referees will become smaller, and this can only make it more likely that there will be fewer with the superhuman qualities that so many critics demand coming through. I mean, why would you volunteer to put yourself through all that, if you see the reaction to every single match in the entire professional game?
And of course, giving up the lion’s share of 800 words to try and debunk this probably only feeds the fire itself. Within just a couple of days, Nottingham Forest had made gossamer-thin corruption claims against the Premier League and one of defamation against Gary Neville. There may well be legal action taken at the end of the season come what may, though it will be interesting to see if they still feel as strongly about all; of this should they stay up next month.
But to start talking about “corruption” in the first place is an extremely dangerous line to cross, and it does rather feel as though all concerned should be giving greater weight to the implications of making such a claim. This is not just another stop on the line adjacent to “incompetent”. It’s an allegation of criminal behaviour against what is ultimately a business, and which could potentially have extremely damaging effects on the league itself.
A study published on Statista last year estimated the Premier League’s ‘brand value’ as being around €9bn (£7.75bn), meaning that just 2% being knocked off that value amounts to more than £150m. Alternatively, we could consider television revenues. In February 2022, it emerged for the first time that the value of the EPL’s UK broadcast rights (£5bn for the period 2022-2025) would exceed the value of its overseas rights (£5.05bn for the same period).
Domestic television revenues seem to have plateaued while overseas revenues have continued to increase, but while this gives the Premier League a global broadcasting base, it also carries challenges, and one unnecessary question that those doing the negotiation will not want to field could be, “What about that club who says it’s corrupt?” A 10% fall in television revenues could cost the Premier League £1bn, and whether you like or dislike the way in which modern football does its business, it’s difficult to argue that this isn’t a significant amount of money.
Hyperbole? Maybe, maybe not. What would broadcasters say if this baseless talk of ‘corruption’ became embedded into the mainstream culture of the division? What if Nottingham Forest get a slap on their wrists and everybody else accepts this as carte blanche to behave like Marinakis? On balance, would all this talk enhance the global reputation of the Premier League or diminish it?
One of the big risks of defamation is that you cannot tell at the point that you say the thing what the cost to that business could be. And if it could be demonstrated that there was a depreciation in the ‘value’ of the Premier League or its television contracts, they could have grounds to sue. The same could be said for the none-too-subtle comments insinuations made about Stuart Attwell and his associations to Luton Town.
The complaints regarding Attwell don’t even really make any logical sense. Had there been any appetite from a Luton perspective on this game between two clubs just above them, they’d have wanted a draw, wouldn’t they? Even if we disregard the professionalism of those being accused, the fact that the figures seem to bear out that Forest haven’t been unfairly treated this season, and assume that there is an emotional reason why something like this could happen, the allegations made over Luton don’t even really make much sense from a strictly logical standpoint.
It is clear from their statement on the matter that the Premier League are royally pissed at Forest’s behaviour. “Extremely disappointed” certainly sounds like a classic piece of English understatement. For any trade body with just twenty members, for one of those members to make thinly-veiled accusations of this nature is likely to extend some way beyond “disappointment”. What sort of punishment they might receive is in the lap of the Gods. A fine seems most likely, but could they consider this level of ‘bringing the game into disrepute’ sufficient to deduct further points from them?
Because what we can say for certainty is that the Premier League needs to wrest control of this narrative away from the likes of Evangelos Marinakis, a man with a patchy history both within and outside of the game and with a history of intimidatory behaviour. The situation remains as it ever has. If he has proof of “corruption” which amounts to more than videos of 50/50 refereeing decisions and other completely circumstantial evidence, then he should take it straight to the police.
Otherwise, all of this looks like nothing so much as an attempt to control refereeing in a similar way to that which he has been accused of in Greece, or at least to take the heat off the extremely expensive (and largely ineffectual) team built on his watch at The City Ground. There must be a reason for Nottingham Forest doing this, for some reason, presumably. But corruption is a big claim to make and the end of the season is fast approaching, so Evangelos Marinakis should now either put up or shut up, if he wants to be taken seriously.