PREMIER LEAGUE PRODUCT TAKES ANOTHER HIT

PGMOL RUINS PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON AND OTHERS ARE NOTICING

I guess the most dangerous thing in life is allowing yourself to be beaten down by abnormal behaviors that run counter to the spirit of whatever you care about. If you’re about free speech—but only for your tribe—you’re not for free speech. If you demand respect in your personal life but say mean things to service workers, you’re not really a principled person. If you demand the very best from referees but can’t call out other bad decisions, you don’t really care about the values of the Premier League and the product they put on show.

It would appear that’s exactly how PGMOL has survived. Premier League clubs don’t go to bat for each other at an exec level, and fans of rival teams don’t really give a shit when others are on the receiving end of terrible decisions—so long as it’s not them, and the banter is good.

Well, I think the worm is turning on that front…

Myles conceded another rank decision yesterday after getting into a tussle while chasing a long diagonal ball over the top. The challenge started outside the area, there was minimal contact, but Darren England and VAR combined to deliver another shocking outcome.

Mark Goldbridge called it absurd—and so did countless other big accounts from other clubs.

We’re reaching a point where the Premier League is losing its enjoyment because the suits at EPL HQ seem to have decided that bad decisions—and the trending topics around them—are part of the theatre. We’ve gone from wanting to see the best possible football on the planet, to thinking actually, it’s the drama that matters. Football is shifting from sport to entertainment. We’re not competing with rugby or the NFL; we’re competing with Netflix and WWE Raw.

This is a dangerous position for the league to be in. It takes 30 years to reach the top, but once the product degrades, it doesn’t take long for the decline to settle in. It was only in December that the NBA had to do some collective soul-searching when their numbers tanked by as much as 25% for some games. The thesis? The shift from dunks to three-pointers was killing the entertainment. Fans were fine… then all of a sudden, a large chunk said goodbye and started watching pro pickleball.

Will the Premier League see a shift—or a sudden decline—if people feel like the league is being rigged by the soft power Premier League referees execute on a weekly basis?

Who knows. But you do wonder if there’s someone at the highest level of the Premier League who spends their waking hours genuinely concerned about the product… because this PGMOL issue is dragging like a late-stage Game of Thrones finale, and it feels like everyone in the room is pure numbers, revenue, tweet volume… without a cultural context voice at the table.

Darren England doesn’t like Arsenal. He was part of the crew that sent off Myles at Wolves. Does he hate Myles? Or is he just a coward swayed by mean players and a nasty crowd? Who is going to sit him down with his team and explain away such a shocking call? Lean into letter of the law all you like, perception is all that matters, and fans around the world think it was bad decision that ruined that game. That’s all that should matter.

I have rarely seen a ref so keen to end a game that he blows early—then gets bullied into restarting it because the other team wants to take a free kick. Wasn’t that an incredible insight into the weakness of someone supposedly at the peak of refereeing standards?

To put it into focus: Darren England was banned from refereeing Liverpool for 14 months after wrongly disallowing a goal. How many refs get banned from officiating Arsenal? Doesn’t seem like too many.

Here’s the bigger picture: we’re at least nine points down this season due to direct, shocking decisions. Then there are the secondary consequences—like not having Saliba available for the Liverpool game. It’s fair to say the league could have been a title race. But PGMOL’s lack of favorability toward Arsenal has butchered it.

That’s not bias, hyperbole, or excuse-making. Those are straight facts. Instead of the league going to the last day—as it could have—it ended a month ago.

Who is that good for, besides Liverpool fans?

And that brings me to Arsenal fans who pile on with stupid complaints like “we have to find a way around these issues.”

No. We should not have to find more than one goal at Everton just in case PGMOL do something that corrupts the game.

… and this is the reality. Gyökeres or Šeško? Who cares? None of it matters if Arsenal don’t figure out a way to put PGMOL on notice—that they’re going to pressure the fuck out of them until legitimate changes are made to uplift standards beyond talking to the dimmest interviewers in sport and trying to gaslight the world into ignoring their lying eyes.

I don’t really have much else today. I’m angry. The focus of the game should be on a great win at Everton. Instead, we’re talking about the people who shouldn’t even be noticed.

See you in the comments. x

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