The vast majority of PL referees are from Lancashire, Merseyside and Yorkshire. Most of the others are from areas north of the so-called north and south border - Watford Gap..

Again today, we see the agenda against Chelsea from Howard Webb's (Leeds) black and white army. Barnsley (Yorkshire) referee Darren England totally ignoring the handball by Rice and the less obvious punch by Raya on Joao Pedro.

Arguably, there is a discipline problem but, every foul by us results in a booking by these jokers.

Today it was 2 southern teams and this guy was definitely a 'homer' but whenever southern teams play northern teams, you'll see the same bias.

Alright, I'll get me coat...😗

The club didn't spend 2bn+ to have the club's fortunes dangle on a few referee calls.

There's no referee conspiracy, we're just awful.

He also missed three blatant advantages Arsenal should have got. I didn't see any bias today from the ref. Just a poor performance. Arguably VAR was more of a culprit than the ref.

They're just sh*t. I think they can be easily got at and influenced, but I don't think they are biased against certain clubs. As much as I hate Tottenham, they have every right to feel aggrieved today. They had a goal disallowed for a slight touch on the back of Gabriel last weekend, Fulham score a goal today against them from an even more obvious push.

They have no consistency and they are never held to task over it. It's not just here either, La Liga refs basically give everything to Real Madrid and Barcelona. Mbappe has been diving like crazy and he keeps doing it until the ref gives a penalty, he never gets booked for it. Then in Serie A, they have a chip on their shoulder and send players off for literally nothing at times. I also saw a Juventus player get sent off in the Champions League for landing on the Galatasary players calf / ankle after winning a header, it was a complete freak accident. The ref goes over to VAR with a super slow-mo replay and sends him off.

Officiating in the sport is a problem world wide, I also think just as big of a problem is players constantly trying to cheat the refs. Refs crumbled under the pressure and now they give a foul for stupid things that aren't even a foul. The amount of times I see people justify the attacker forcing contact to win a penalty by sticking their leg into a goalkeeper is infuriating. Same goes for players holding the ball up and waiting for the opposition player to get tight and then throwing their ass into them to win a foul. Seeing the refs blow for a foul in these situations drives me mad. They're not fouls.

12 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

They're just sh*t. I think they can be easily got at and influenced, but I don't think they are biased against certain clubs. As much as I hate Tottenham, they have every right to feel aggrieved today. They had a goal disallowed for a slight touch on the back of Gabriel last weekend, Fulham score a goal today against them from an even more obvious push.

They have no consistency and they are never held to task over it. It's not just here either, La Liga refs basically give everything to Real Madrid and Barcelona. Mbappe has been diving like crazy and he keeps doing it until the ref gives a penalty, he never gets booked for it. Then in Serie A, they have a chip on their shoulder and send players off for literally nothing at times. I also saw a Juventus player get sent off in the Champions League for landing on the Galatasary players calf / ankle after winning a header, it was a complete freak accident. The ref goes over to VAR with a super slow-mo replay and sends him off.

Officiating in the sport is a problem world wide, I also think just as big of a problem is players constantly trying to cheat the refs. Refs crumbled under the pressure and now they give a foul for stupid things that aren't even a foul. The amount of times I see people justify the attacker forcing contact to win a penalty by sticking their leg into a goalkeeper is infuriating. Same goes for players holding the ball up and waiting for the opposition player to get tight and then throwing their ass into them to win a foul. Seeing the refs blow for a foul in these situations drives me mad. They're not fouls.

Sums it up. Reffing is hard enough without players basically cheating.

On 01/03/2026 at 20:47, Scott Harris said:

Officiating in the sport is a problem world wide, I also think just as big of a problem is players constantly trying to cheat the refs.

Ive said this for years, players and coaches come out and complain about refs making mistakes, missing things after they and their players have spent 90+ minutes cheating at every single moment possible, and its just getting worse and worse.

The set pieces now are utterly shambolic, instigated by those delightful moral guardians of football arsenal. Its basically a scrum now, no skill just get the ball in and battle for it, and somehow they are allowed to manhandle way beyond anything weve seen before. We could genuinely have had a shout for at least 4 penalties on sunday.

Edited March 3Mar 3 by dkw

55 minutes ago, dkw said:

Ive said this for years, players and coaches come out and complain about refs making mistakes, missing things after they and their players have spent 90+ minutes cheating at every single moment possible, and its just getting worse and worse.

The set pieces now are utterly shambolic, instigated by those delightful moral guardians of football arsenal. Its basically a scrum now, no skill just get the ball in and battle for it, and somehow they are allowed to manhandle way beyond anything weve seen before. We could genuinely have had a shout for at least 4 penalties on sunday.

It reminds me of mid-00s NRL, when the Storm brought in MMA grappling coaches to coach tackling. Low scoring, drab games where teams basically played for territory rather than scoring, and the league dived to an all time low of interest as a result.

Listen to football phone ins, EVERY club's fans think there is a conspiracy against them. And ONLY them!!

They are all wrong, it's Chelsea that is the only club that is the victim of a conspiracy.

2 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

It reminds me of mid-00s NRL, when the Storm brought in MMA grappling coaches to coach tackling. Low scoring, drab games where teams basically played for territory rather than scoring, and the league dived to an all time low of interest as a result.

Yeah that was dreadful to watch, just became a wrestling match with a rugby ball, like a completely different sport to modern RL.

11 hours ago, dkw said:

Ive said this for years, players and coaches come out and complain about refs making mistakes, missing things after they and their players have spent 90+ minutes cheating at every single moment possible, and its just getting worse and worse.

The set pieces now are utterly shambolic, instigated by those delightful moral guardians of football arsenal. Its basically a scrum now, no skill just get the ball in and battle for it, and somehow they are allowed to manhandle way beyond anything weve seen before. We could genuinely have had a shout for at least 4 penalties on sunday.

I don't understand why they've let this escalate to become a ridiculous wrestling match at free kicks and corners, they basically suspend the rules that apply at all other times on the pitch to allow this ant football sh*t to carry on ..

They are straight on it to rule out a toenail offside goal though.

On 01/03/2026 at 20:47, Scott Harris said:

They're just sh*t. I think they can be easily got at and influenced, but I don't think they are biased against certain clubs. As much as I hate Tottenham, they have every right to feel aggrieved today. They had a goal disallowed for a slight touch on the back of Gabriel last weekend, Fulham score a goal today against them from an even more obvious push.

They have no consistency and they are never held to task over it. It's not just here either, La Liga refs basically give everything to Real Madrid and Barcelona. Mbappe has been diving like crazy and he keeps doing it until the ref gives a penalty, he never gets booked for it. Then in Serie A, they have a chip on their shoulder and send players off for literally nothing at times. I also saw a Juventus player get sent off in the Champions League for landing on the Galatasary players calf / ankle after winning a header, it was a complete freak accident. The ref goes over to VAR with a super slow-mo replay and sends him off.

Officiating in the sport is a problem world wide, I also think just as big of a problem is players constantly trying to cheat the refs. Refs crumbled under the pressure and now they give a foul for stupid things that aren't even a foul. The amount of times I see people justify the attacker forcing contact to win a penalty by sticking their leg into a goalkeeper is infuriating. Same goes for players holding the ball up and waiting for the opposition player to get tight and then throwing their ass into them to win a foul. Seeing the refs blow for a foul in these situations drives me mad. They're not fouls.

Your last point about players holding the ball up waiting for the opposition to get close etc etc is one of my pet hates. It's so obvious that it's about to happen but refs always call it a foul. It's got so bad that I've noticed that the other player just accepts it and walks away..

It's the accepted way now to get yourselves out of a tight situation,.... just cheat !

1 hour ago, The Rising Sun said:

I don't understand why they've let this escalate to become a ridiculous wrestling match at free kicks and corners, they basically suspend the rules that apply at all other times on the pitch to allow this ant football sh*t to carry on ..

Because most of the rules (aside from violent conduct) only apply when the ball is in-play. The ball is not in-play prior to a set piece being taken.

Arsenal are just taking advantage of a rule that has always existed, much like Liverpool and the back pass rule.

Edited March 3Mar 3 by SydneyChelsea