Why do Liverpool keep getting the same referees?
You will be aware that Untold has held strong views about the PGMO, how they keep appointing the same referees over and over again and how they continually fail to have sufficient referees for the PL.
So far this season the PGMO have utilised all the 17 referees on their ‘Select list’ and, in addition, four more have done one game each. Of those on the Select list eight have done 20 games or more whilst three have done fewer than 10 games. It looks to me like there are only eight referees really trusted. If the other nine are allowed to do games for some teams why not all of them?
But either they are competent or not, and surely all of the teams in the PL deserve an equal standard of refereeing. I am sick to death of seeing Atkinson, Dean, Kavanagh, Tierney and Attwell. I wouldn’t mind too much if I felt they were all 100% competent but they all show that they are at best erratic and at worst downright strange in their decision making.
It’s not only Arsenal that is affected by repeat refereeing though.
The runaway leaders Liverpool have only seen 11 referees. Anthony Taylor has done most matches with (plus another 2 as Video Referee). To date no other club has had a referee six times. Paul Tierney has been involved the most (9 matches) if we include his appearances as fourth official as well as Video referee – he has been involved in 30% of the Liverpool games. Oliver, Taylor and Moss have also been involved in over a quarter of their games with six, Marriner and Pawson have been involved in over a fifth of Liverpool’s games.
| Liverpool | As Referee | As 4th Official | As Video ref | Total Involvement | Involvement % of games played |
| Michael Oliver | 6 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 27.6% |
| Anthony Taylor | 4 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 27.6% |
| Paul Tierney | 2 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 31.0% |
| Craig Pawson | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 20.7% |
| Martin Atkinson | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 13.8% |
| Chris Kavanagh | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 13.8% |
| Jon Moss | 3 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 27.6% |
| Andre Marriner | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 24.1% |
Sheffield United have had the joint most referees with 16, they also have the fewest serial visitors with two, but even with them things are odd. They have had both David Coote (total 11 matches in the PL) and Simon Hooper (9 matches) on four occasions – 40% of the total games the two of them have been in charge of.
As we keep saying the numbers don’t give a lot of confidence that match fixing in the PL can’t occur. The practices in place don’t appear to be sufficient to preclude the possibility of outside influences affecting results.
Here are the total matches allocated to each of the PL referees this season:
|
Games including matchweek 29 (7-9/03/20) |
|
| Martin Atkinson | 25 |
| Anthony Taylor | 23 |
| Michael Oliver | 23 |
| Mike Dean | 22 |
| Paul Tierney | 20 |
| Kevin Friend | 20 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 20 |
| Jonathan Moss | 20 |
| Andre Marriner | 17 |
| Craig Pawson | 15 |
| Graham Scott | 15 |
| Stuart Attwell | 15 |
| Lee Mason | 13 |
| David Coote | 11 |
| Simon Hooper | 9 |
| Peter Bankes | 7 |
| Andy Madley | 9 |
| Oliver Langford | 1 |
| Robert Jones | 1 |
| Darren England | 1 |
| Tim Robinson | 1 |
The next question to ask is “is this situation common across the other European Leagues? » With a little digging and using data readily available on the internet here are comparable figures for total games across the other 4 major European leagues:-
Germany – Bundesliga
| Referees | Total games (to 23/2/20) |
| Dr. Felix Brych | 12 |
| Tobias Stieler | 12 |
| Markus Schmidt | 11 |
| Felix Zwayer | 11 |
| Daniel Siebert | 11 |
| Marco Fritz | 11 |
| Manuel Gräfe | 10 |
| Deniz Aytekin | 10 |
| Bastian Dankert | 10 |
| Harm Osmers | 10 |
| Sascha Stegemann | 10 |
| Christian Dingert | 9 |
| Frank Willenborg | 9 |
| Benjamin Cortus | 9 |
| Sven Jablonski | 9 |
| Patrick Ittrich | 8 |
| Daniel Schlager | 8 |
| Martin Petersen | 7 |
| Guido Winkmann | 6 |
| Dr. Robert Kampka | 6 |
| Robert Hartmann | 6 |
| Robert Schröder | 6 |
| Sören Storks | 5 |
| Tobias Welz | 4 |
| Bibiana Steinhaus | 4 |
So in a smaller league, we have 25 referees used, one female (Bibiana Steinhaus), none more than 12 times and none fewer than four.
Spain – La Liga
| Referees | Total games (to 23/2/20) |
| Antonio Miguel Matéu Lahoz | 14 |
| Estrada Fernández | 14 |
| Mario Melero López | 14 |
| Jesús Gil Manzano | 14 |
| Adrián Cordero Vega | 14 |
| Guillermo Cuadra Fernández | 14 |
| Javier Alberola Rojas | 14 |
| Juan Martínez Munuera | 13 |
| Medié Jiménez | 13 |
| César Soto Grado | 13 |
| José María Sánchez Martínez | 13 |
| Valentin Pizarro Gomez | 13 |
| Pablo González Fuertes | 13 |
| José Luis Munuera Montero | 13 |
| Carlos Del Cerro Grande | 12 |
| Eduardo Prieto Iglesias | 12 |
| González González | 11 |
| Santiago Jaime Latre | 11 |
| De Burgos Bengoetxea | 11 |
| Andrés Hernández | 7 |
| Alejandro Hernández | 6 |
21 referees, all engaged in between 14 and 6 matches
Italy – Serie A
| Referee | Total games (to 23/2/20) |
| Maurizio Mariani | 14 |
| Rosario Abisso | 13 |
| Federico La Penna | 13 |
| Davide Massa | 13 |
| Marco Di Bello | 12 |
| Daniele Doveri | 12 |
| Daniele Orsato | 12 |
| Gianluca Rocchi | 12 |
| Gianpaolo Calvarese | 11 |
| Daniele Chiffi | 11 |
| Piero Giacomelli | 11 |
| Marco Guida | 11 |
| Fabio Maresca | 11 |
| Fabrizio Pasqua | 11 |
| Marco Piccinini | 11 |
| Michael Fabbri | 10 |
| Antonio Giua | 10 |
| Massimiliano Irrati | 10 |
| Luca Pairetto | 10 |
| Paolo Valeri | 10 |
| Gianluca Manganiello | 9 |
| Eugenio Abbattista | 2 |
| Juan Luca Sacchi | 2 |
| Manuel Volpi | 2 |
| Gianluca Aureliano | 1 |
| Giovanni Ayroldi | 1 |
| Francesco Fourneau | 1 |
| Livio Marinelli | 1 |
| Alessandro Prontera | 1 |
| Riccardo Ros | 1 |
| Simone Sozza | 1 |
21 referees with between 14 and 9 matches with a further10 used for either 1 or 2 matches each
Finally France – Ligue 1
| Name | Matches to date |
| Antony Gautier | 16 |
| Hakim Ben El Hadj | 15 |
| Ruddy Buquet | 15 |
| Willy Delajod | 15 |
| Johan Hamel | 14 |
| Frank Schneider | 14 |
| Jérôme Brisard | 13 |
| Amaury Delerue | 13 |
| Mikael Lesage | 13 |
| François Letexier | 13 |
| Karim Abed | 12 |
| Florent Batta | 12 |
| Thomas Leonard | 12 |
| Jérémy Stinat | 12 |
| Clément Turpin | 12 |
| Eric Wattellier | 12 |
| Benoît Bastien | 11 |
| Jérémie Pignard | 11 |
| Olivier Thual | 11 |
| Stéphanie Frappart | 10 |
| Benoît Millot | 9 |
| Jérôme Miguelgorry | 4 |
| Alain Bieri | 1 |
23 Referees in total, one female (Stéphanie Frappart) and Alain Bieri is Swiss not French. With he and Migulgorry excepted all between 16 and 9 games.
So we can clearly see that the UK pattern of refereeing is out of kilter with all of the other major leagues in Europe. Our busiest referee has done 25 matches as against 16 in France, 14 in Spain and Italy and 12 in Germany.
All of the other leagues have more referees and the individual workload is far more evenly spread between them than is the case in England.
The more one looks at the data the odder it appears.
