Sunday 28 October 2012

Time for the FA to give the PGMOL the red card as Super Sunday descends into Calamity Central



How many more incorrect red cards, indefensible onside / offside decisions and lost points must Premier League clubs go through before the Football Association finally take action against those who seem to be untouchable?

In a game of high stakes, with the eyes of the world watching, it is unfortunate that another weekend will be remembered for the abhorrent decisions taken by those supposedly responsible for rules and governance of the national game.

The tired old excuse of the Referee’s Association that “the modern game is so fast; split second decisions must be made in real time with no replay” just doesn’t stand up anymore.

The Professional Game Match Officials Board was set up in 2001 when the status of Referee at the highest level changed from amateur part time teachers and police officers into dedicated professionals. 

It was setup with the “responsibility of developing excellence in officiating in the English game at the professional level”.   It later became a public limited company and changed its name to the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL).

When the news was unveiled to the football public in June 2001 former FIFA Referee Rodger Milford declared “I am sure this will mean more consistency from the officials on points of law which cause controversy".  How ironic is it that 11 years later that very statement couldn’t seem further from the truth.

As an Association, the FA, quite rightly chooses to openly punish those managers and players who contravene its rules.  Statements on websites and via media agencies let the footballing public know who, why and what their players are being disciplined for.  The same is not true for the professional referee’s who officiate on the game. 

The select group of referees earn an estimated £30’000 - £60’000 per year depending on exact numbers of matches officiated.  This is a far cry from the part time wages that were given out pre 2001.  Although still a long way from the hundreds of thousands of pounds earned by those players and managers at the very top, referees are paid a wage on a par with Football League 2 players and as such, should be subjected to the same public explanation of sanctions and disciplinary procedures that those players are.

The FA is always very quick to administer financial and availability sanctions to players and managers, but referees are subjected to either a lower league fixture or rest week.

It is now time that referees and assistants at the very top receive a fine equivalent to their match fee if they make a horrendous game changing decision.  You only need to look at the live Super Sunday games today, 28 October 2012, to see just how incompetent decisions can affect games in the most severe of ways.

A closer program of integration is needed between the PGMOL and clubs, it is also blatantly obvious that the time has come for the FA to hold its officials to account publicly and state exactly what is happening.  A simple statement on a par with that rolled out for players and managers would restore confidence of a waning public who see an ‘old boys club’ where in house never minds replace a much needed disciplinary procedure.

Genuine parity throughout football would bring officials back into line, if officials make cataclysmic errors like the world witnessed again today, then they should be fined their match fee.

Also like their professional player and manger counterparts it’s time they faced the press after the match. The old ways of staying silent and slipping out quietly just doesn’t wash anymore.

Will the FA act? I very much doubt it.  Is this a more serious issue than removing your shirt during a goal celebration, or, having the wrong coloured sock tape? Most definitely

11 years after its inception has the PGMOL and FA really made its officials more accountable regarding their performances in matches?

Monday 17 September 2012

The Strategic Constable



The 15th of April 1989 will be remembered for many reasons.  The day that resulted in 96 people losing their lives for attending a football match, the day when worlds were changed forever and the day when “the biggest cover up of all time” was instigated.

Within hours of the first deaths South Yorkshire Police set in motion a smear campaign of a magnitude never seen before and likely will never be seen again.  

At the forefront of this campaign was the South Yorkshire Police Federation and its Secretary at the time, Constable Paul Middup.

I contacted the now retired Middup three times on the morning of 15 September 2012 by telephone. Below are the transcripts from the three conversations:

11:37am - 15 Sep 12
PM: Hello?
Me: Mr Middup?
PM: Yes
Me: Mr Middup, Good Morning, I wonder if you’d like to answer some questions regarding Hillsborough.
PM: No thank you, I’m not making any comment at all, thanks very much, bye... (Hangs Up)

12:20pm - 15 Sep 12
PM: Hello?
Me: Mr Middup, this is your chance to put forward your side of the story
PM: No thank you
Me: Mr Middup, you were happy to chat after Hillsborough
PM: (Silence….. hangs up)

14:43pm - 15 Sep 12
Mrs Middup: Hello?
Me: Hi, can I speak to Mr Middup please?
Mrs Middup: I’m sorry he’s not in can I help?
Me: I was hoping to speak to him reference ‘ticketless drunk mob’ claims made 23 years ago?
Mrs Middup: Is this about Hillsborough?
Me: Yes it is, I was hoping he’d like to put his version of events forward
Mrs Middup: I’m afraid he’s not speaking to the press; he’ll talk to you but won’t say anything
Me: It may be in his best interest to release his side of the events which took place during a meeting on 19 April 1989
Mrs Middup: I’ll pass the message on but I think the answer will still be no
Me: Well you have my number so please ask him to call if he’d like to
Mrs Middup: Thank you very much (Conversation ends.. hangs up)

I tried to contact the former Constable Middup a further number of times during 15 September 2012 but his telephone was either engaged or rang out without answer.

This somewhat confused me.  Middup was extremely vocal in the hours and days after the Hillsborough disaster.  He was one of the first to push the image of drunken fans urinating on Police Officers; he was the first to push the idea of fans stealing from the dead.  He later remarked in a meeting of the Joint Branch Board (19/04/89) that:

“He had initially been interviewed on radio – Radio Sheffield, which had been successful and it had snowballed from there” 
In the days after Hillsborough Middup met with Senior Police Officers and the MP for Sheffield Hallam (Irvine Patnick) and conspired to write a version of events which was released to Sheffield based, White’s News Agency.  This version of events was picked up by The Sun and directly led to the now infamous ‘The Truth’ headline and subsequent article.
However, prior to this Middup went on television to publicly reinforce a web of deceit that was spun in the hours after the disaster.  Middup went on Yorkshire TV the day after Hillsborough and gave the following interview at 6 minutes and 22 seconds:





Pay particular attention to the phrases which began to be used at every opportunity:
"And I’m saying to you that if police officers had have been in there, when this mob surged through, the police officers would’ve been trampled to death underneath it. You just can’t handle them. And the vast majority of that lot had been drinking, the ones that were arriving late, and they will not be told what to do, they won’t do anything you try to do, and what can you do? "
This line of blame continued and was underlined again in the meeting of the Joint Branch Board (19/04/89) where the then Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, Peter Wright, backed Middup’s claims and insisted: 
“If anybody should be blamed it should be the drunken ticketless individuals"

Middup claimed “the Chief Constable had said the truth could not come from him but had given the Secretary a totally free hand and supported him. The Secretary commented that never before have so many senior officers sought him out and thanked him”
Middup portrayed himself as the knight in shining armour, the one that would save face for the South Yorkshire Police.  Surely he must have known that as a member of a uniformed service his words would be taken on face value.  He must have known that with his direct input the blame would be automatically shifted from incompetent policing onto a ‘drunken mob of late arriving ticketless louts’. 
I wanted to talk to Middup about where these seeds were originated and by whom.  Was it all his idea? Was he coaxed into being the face at the front?
Middup has not broken his silence since the release of the Hillsborough Independent Panel report.

This leads me to my final question, and maybe the most notable:

Middup was only a Constable; in modern military terms he would be described as a ‘Strategic Corporal’ a soldier that possesses technical mastery in the skill of arms while being aware that his judgment, decision-making and action can all have strategic and political consequences.

Were the South Yorkshire Police so bereft of leadership that they allowed a base rank to orchestrate one of the biggest lies and cover-ups of the 20th century?