
The referee’s decision was, by the standards of these things, quite simple. Football in general and the Premier League in particular have a knack for generating controversy from the ground up, but this didn’t seem a particularly compelling candidate for the hot-take treatment. The evidence was too clear and clear.
Early in the Premier League match between Sheffield United and Brighton last month, Sheffield United defender Mason Holgate collided with Kaoru Mitoma, Brighton’s dazzling winger. The referee, Stuart Attwell, showed Holgate a yellow card. A moment later, his video assistant, Michael Oliver, advised Attwell to take another look at the entrance.
The replay showed Holgate’s right foot colliding with Mitoma’s thigh. (The ball, to contextualize, was elsewhere). Mitoma’s leg crumpled with the force of the blow; He was still, even when the referee reviewed the video, writhing on the grass. Attwell overturned his decision and sent off Holgate, who looked hurt, shocked and bewildered. He had to admire the nerve.
That this turn of events – and the prospect of seeing his team play most of the match at a disadvantage – outraged the packed crowd inside Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane stadium does not count as a surprise. Viewers had not seen the replays. Most fans openly believe that any decision that goes against their team is wrong.
What was surprising, however, was the form his discontent took. They applauded Holgate as he left the field. They spent the rest of the game mocking Mitoma’s every touch. But they also expressed at length, loudly and expletive-laced their belief that the whole incident proved, once again, that the Premier League was incorrigibly corrupt.
It is tempting to test this accusation by asking two simple questions. No. 1: How could Premier League corruption induce Holgate to make a terrible tackle? No. 2: Why would the Premier League be corrupt to the detriment of Sheffield United?
Even if the league had decided for some reason that the presence of a long-standing and fervently supported team in an atmospheric stadium and a vibrant, eclectic city was an abomination, it wouldn’t need to do anything to ensure that it would soon disappear. With respect and love: Sheffield United don’t need any help getting relegated this season.
Questioning the accusation, of course, is futile, since the claim is not rooted in logic. That hasn’t stopped the word – corrupt – from providing something of a leitmotif for this Premier League season. Sheffield United are not alone in accepting the idea that the authorities, for whatever reason, are against it.
The same chant that echoed around Bramall Lane has also been spread by fans from, among others, Wolverhampton and Burnley in recent months, although if the curious process of osmosis by which these trends spread has a genesis, it is likely to have been at Everton. .
After all, it is at Goodison Park that the word “corrupt” has appeared on t-shirts, posters and banners, where the Premier League’s admittedly pompous anthem has been booed the loudest, where the roots of the conspiracy run deepest.
That, at least, makes some sense. In November, an independent panel stripped Everton of 10 points for failing to comply with Premier League financial regulations, suddenly exposing the club to the very real threat of relegation. It was the first time a club had been punished for such an infraction and the first time a team had been stripped of points in more than a decade.
But just as relevant was the fact that Manchester City, the league’s perennial champions, had faced 115 charges for flagrantly violating the same rules for almost a year and had not even heard their case. From Goodison Park it seemed that the Premier League was quicker to penalize one of the league’s middleweights than its reigning superpower.
However, it is noteworthy that Everton’s cause has been taken up by others. Wolves and Everton are unlikely allies: while the latter admitted to breaking the league’s financial rules, Wolves made the difficult and unpopular decision last summer to comply with them. If anything, Wolves should feel that Everton deserve everything they get.
Sheffield United are even more unusual. He has an old grievance with the Premier League relating to the fact that West Ham fielded effectively ineligible players in 2007, which ultimately led directly to Sheffield’s relegation. But it seems strange that his burning feeling of injustice should flare up again now. Sheffield United have not breached any financial rules. No points have been deducted. You have no real reason to complain.
And yet, it’s not hard to see why the idea of institutional corruption struck a chord. Justice in football is essentially as arbitrary as Everton claims. This week, another independent panel reduced his point deduction to 6 points instead of 10, a penalty that appears to be much more to the club’s liking.
But that does not eliminate the feeling of injustice. If anything, it reinforces it: not only because one panel has ruled that another was being too harsh, as Everton claimed, but also because both sanctions have essentially been taken out of thin air.
No one disputes that the rules were broken. But the punishments for breaking the rules are not written; The Premier League is governed by convention, not a constitution. This is the first time this has happened. There are no precedents. Is 6 points too many? They’re very few? Should they really give points to Everton?
Nobody knows, and nobody can know, because this is all a game, invented, coded and altered by humans. At the same time, Manchester City has yet to face any consequences, and perhaps never will, either because it is innocent or because it has enough lawyers to prove it is not guilty enough.
That doesn’t make the Premier League corrupt, of course, but rather gives life to the idea that justice depends just a little on context. The same can be said for the belief that league executives are in the pockets of its most powerful clubs: it sounds like paranoia, but it’s not hard to see why this conclusion is compelling to some. A vast majority of the wealth generated by gambling is monopolized by a few. They hoard wealth, talent and trophies, and bend sport to their will.
At the same time, games are now decided by an anonymous, unaccountable authority, one that doesn’t seem (let’s put it kindly) to interpret the rules with absolute consistency from its remote, screen-filled cockpit.
Meanwhile, fans are forced to pay increasing sums to follow their teams, whether in person or on television. Their needs are rarely, if ever, taken into account: match times are changed at short notice to suit broadcasters, and the transport requirements of fans who turn an event into a spectacle are completely overlooked. . They are powerless, passive and forgotten.
In that sense, it is not surprising that so many clubs have internalized the idea that the institutions that oversee the game are corrupt, but rather that many have not. The anger, if anything, should be more widespread.
Still, it seems as if there is a lesson here, and not just for the people who run football. Protests may take place inside stadiums, but the frustration, dislocation and simmering resentment driving them reflect a sentiment that also exists outside.
Author Terry Pratchett once warned that politicians should pay attention to graffiti: not just its presence, but what it says. “Ignore graffiti at your own risk,” he wrote. “It is the heartbeat of a city. It is the voice of those who have no voice.”
Football stadiums, the last great secular gathering place of a fractured society, follow much the same rule. The Premier League is not corrupt, not in the sense that Everton, Wolves and Sheffield United fans think. But just because the statement is not logical does not mean it should be ignored. The stadiums speak. The league would do well to listen to what they say.
A trip back in time
It’s not especially difficult to see why Luton Town have won so many friends throughout their (first) season in the Premier League. The fans own the club. The team has emerged from the depths of non-league football. The team is hard-working, modest, and devoid of pampered, pampered superstars. The director is skilled, adaptable and extremely engaging.
However, upon visiting Kenilworth Road for the first time, another aspect of its appeal emerges: nostalgia. Kenilworth Road isn’t really a stadium, not in the Premier League sense. It is, instead, the kind of thing you would build if you had scrap metal and a time limit.
But for any fan over the age of 41 and a half, pulling a number completely at random, this is what the stadiums looked and felt like. It serves to give Luton the air of interlopers from another era, emissaries of old football against the glitter of the modern Premier League. For those who remember, for those who might even long, that is irresistible.
Advance warning
A couple of hours before the Carabao Cup final on Sunday, on the concourses outside Wembley, the lines of fans stopped. He started spreading the word that there was a problem with some e-tickets: the ones with QR codes were fine, but the ones with barcodes weren’t working.
It must be stressed that there was absolutely no sign of problems. A bit of a complaint. A touch of shaking as the clock ticked and kickoff approached. There was a lot of patient waiting, as fans once again snuggled into that familiar feeling of being a burden rather than paying customers.
In the end, everything went well – the stands slowly filled, the noise increased and the match began – but it is worth noting that, in about three months, Wembley will host the Champions League final. Again.
The last time it hosted a match of that magnitude, the Euro 2020 final (in 2021), the chaos that followed led to a wide-ranging investigation. If Manchester City or Arsenal, in particular, make it to European football’s biggest occasion, it will be considerable proof of how much the stadium authorities have learned from that experience. Sunday, from that point of view, should serve to concentrate some minds.