The recent relaxation of our hectic fixture schedule finally allows us to publish the third part of Gunnersaurus Stunt Double’s trilogy on the current state of the game. If you missed his excellent earlier pieces, Part 1, ‘Fishbowl, Anyone?’ can be found here and Part 2, ‘Divided We Fall’ can be found here. Let’s be having (pace Delia) your tuppenceworth in the Drinks.

I should like to start by noting that I wrote this piece last November (2024) but due to scheduling conflict on GoonerholicsForever it is only appearing now. It was not written as a response to any refereeing decision(s) more recent than that, and I leave it to readers to assess if any decisions since November have provided it with additional relevance.
The idea that referees are impartial is ludicrous. Subconscious bias is a scientifically proven phenomenon which impacts how human beings think and how we make decisions. At some level, all (human) referees are biased.
Referees could try their best to mitigate the effects of subconscious bias if they accepted it is something capable of untowardly influencing them. Unfortunately, in a move typical of the culture of PGMOL, they seem to think they are the only group of humans alive who are unaffected by it. But, as ever, they claim expertise and impartiality they do not possess.
If The Face Fits
So, whom are they biased against?
Well, the evidence available is limited by the studies done. There are consistent results from across a variety of sports to show that home teams have an advantage. It is not a huge advantage but noticeable, especially over time.
However, I cannot find any reliable information on some other interesting areas, probably because no-one has studied them properly. There are questions that we need the answers to.
For me, two pressing ones given our current situation are:
- How does subconscious bias affect referees who support one of the clubs they referee?
- How does subconscious bias affect referees who support a rival club of those they referee?
Let me briefly note that subconscious bias is, essentially, a phenomenon which sees us favour people and groups who we identify with as being like us or feel an affinity towards, and act against those we see as different to us or feel antipathy towards.
With that understanding, it is no surprise that one of the most studied and widely seen subconscious biases relates to race. The scenarios that this has been found in are legion. For example, overwhelming subconscious bias has been shown to exist across US police forces (as well as overt racism, but that is not today’s topic). This boils down to white people in positions of power who are more likely to believe other white people are law-abiding and honest, and non-white people are less so – and to act on these subconscious assumptions.
Our current crop of referees are almost exclusively white men born around the 1980s who grew up in the North of England. Even at its most progressive, that location in that era was not an environment that would stand up to examination by the standards of today. I would be staggered if PGMOL referees do not have any subconscious racial bias (I’d argue it is vanishingly unlikely as almost everyone does) yet there have been no studies I can find on subconscious racial bias impacting officiating in any sport.
You’ll have to use the eye test to see if Grealish gets freekicks for the same fouls that Saka doesn’t. Whatever conclusions you make, remember that the question is valid, if not vital, and that the common belief that white referees do not consciously favour white players provides those of us who believe this (including me) with a basis for our own confirmation bias, affecting our ability to evaluate this impartially. That makes it even more important that we develop a culture of openly questioning what factors affect the fairness of decisions made, rather than a culture where decisions are above meaningful scrutiny.
Whose Side Are You On?
There is little empirical evidence for how a referee who supports a club referees them or their rivals – Jarred Gillett on VAR may appear to treat Liverpool like he is their own personal Santa Claus but that isn’t actually evidence of bias, or cheating.
That said, it is worth noting that are there are easily verifiable statistics from statistically significant groups of games overseen by individual referees since the formation of the PGMOL that, all things being equal, can be considered anomalous, at best. Some officials have consistently higher rates of awarding penalties to certain teams, or lower rates of awarding them yellow cards, for example, when compared to the league average and their own personal average.
If they support or have an allegiance to the clubs involved, would we expect to see data like this? Yes.
Would we still expect this even if the individual officials were trying to be impartial and even believe their own propaganda and truly think they are impartial? Yes.
Does it make sense to suggest that our football club allegiances engender subconscious bias? Yes. This has been proved in studies not relating to refereeing and would provide a sound hypothesis to explain the data showing anomalies in the way referees treat certain teams differently to the expected norms.
I can find no-one who has commissioned a study on this. Someone needs to.
A previous article in this series about the necessity of fans from different clubs banding together was met in the bar with much suggestion that there is too much enmity for that, even though it would be to our mutual benefit. When even the conscious bias (in many cases fully developed into a visceral enmity) is this deeply ingrained, it would seem ridiculous to deny the subconscious bias.
The Unlikely Referee
So, without hard data, let’s use our little grey cells; allow me to go on a flight of fancy and imagine that yours truly had been asked to officiate a Spurs game. (You’ll have to assume I had the necessary qualifications and skills, of which I have neither, although the current referees only have one out of two themselves).
I’d recuse myself immediately.
That’s it. It would not go any further.
I should not be anywhere near refereeing a Spurs game. And it is not because I would try to be unfair towards them. I am a huge believer in sporting fair play and would much rather see a fair game that Spurs win than an unfair one which they lose (or a fair Arsenal loss over an unfair win). Indeed, in a nutshell, it is why I am writing this article, because the current situation is intrinsically unfair, and that goes against everything the game stands for to me.
But, no matter how hard I tried consciously to be impartial, I would fail because they are Spurs and I couldn’t put that aside no mater how hard I tried.
Picture it: I would assume Richarlison has not been fouled no matter how much he rolls around on the floor; I reckon there is a high chance that Romero has just missed the ball and kicked some bloke three feet in the air, regardless of how much he makes an incredulous face and does that little two handed roll action to tell me the striker dived, and I have seen Spurs get so many dodgy penalties against us that it would take a two-footed slide tackle from behind for me to be sure enough to award them one. That’s hardly fair, is it?
Although, thinking about it, I’ve seen a quite a lot of refereeing performances that have rather had that feel to them.
Change The Collective
Put simply, there is no guaranteed way to negate subconscious bias in individuals, but it can be limited structurally within an organisation; in this case by having a wide pool of referees, who have different biases. With regard to biases involving specific teams, these must be clearly identified and the officials who hold them must be kept away from any matches they might affect.
The current group of homogenous white men from the North of England are institutionally unfit to referee the game, without any reference to them as individuals. We need far more representation in terms of age, race, gender, geography, allegiance and doubtless other areas too. The wider the net, the better, as long as they are professional and competent.
Currently, PGMOL employs a small pool of unprofessional incompetents. The worst of all worlds.
PGMOL has also actively refused to release who their referees support because they privately fear it would look bad.
Indeed, it would. Especially in light of many of their contentious decisions.
It should not need saying, but it manifestly does: all referees should have to publicly declare who they support, and no referee should be allowed to be part of the officiating team for any of their own team’s games or the games of their rivals. This would require a far larger group of officials, which is exactly what we need anyway.
PGMOL are against this as it would render most of their current crop of referees unfit to referee many of the teams in the league. Which, of course, they are.
Playing The Long Game
Let me finish by driving home a few points. Regardless of what we think of the current PGMOL officials, and my personal opinion is extremely low, as an institution they are unfit for purpose.
No official should be involved in a game where there is even the possibility of a suggestion of a conflict of interest.
Any homogeneous group of people, in this case middle-aged white men from the North(west) of England, would be unfit for officiating football across England, and any and all focus on the individuals involved and their respective qualities, or lack thereof, fails to address the point that the system itself is inherently flawed.
We need a large pool of diverse and skilled referees.
Anyone or any organisation that says otherwise is part of the problem.
Here’s looking at you, PGMOL.