Do you really believe that we are being persecuted?

[Pretty Boy Lee]

I said after the Villa game and still beleive we are getting waaaay more ref support than I've ever seen.



Mario Balotelli aside as they think he's a cock I'm pretty sure.

[Moonchesteri]

No.

At times I find the board funny reading people's comments about refs in our matches.

[ross.mcfc]

Well the ref at Newcastle definitely had an agenda.

And Oliver Holt is persecuting us as a full time job.

But we have had a lot of penalties!

Maybe making up for the home game where we got a soft penalty, De Jong didnt get sent off, and they had a stone wall penalty denied.

[ross.mcfc]

No.

At times I find the board funny reading people's comments about refs in our matches.

Me too. What I love is the short memory some posters have. For example if Wolves next week park the bus and make no effort to win the game and get a 0-0 there will be outrage on this board about their negative tactics. Completely ignoring we did the exact same thing against Arsenal.

[ronk]

There have been a few threads recently concerning the diabolical treatment that we receive at the hands of refs, the fa, uefa and uncle Tom Cobley.

My question is.....

Do you think there is some diabolical conspiracy against us or do you think we are a bit unrealistic when considering the complexities and vagaries of football? Something less extreme perhaps?

Please don't include how the rags get favourable treatment unless it's directly against us, that's a different debate

hmmm. persecution? conspiracy? Perhaps not.

But what about this? We know that FIFA is a corrupt organisation and that this has permeated into the top levels of the game in many parts of the world. There's lots of dodgy stuff going on. If guys are lying and taking bribes and evading taxes and securing jobs for their friends and punishing whistle-blowers and flouting the transfer system to give powerful clubs an advantage and embezzling transfer funds (bungs), if they're doing all these things, what's to say that they'll stop at the borders of the pitch. It's happened before many times, it's happened recently, most of the time we don't hear about it but we still sometimes hear about it.

We know for example that the World Cup Playoffs were suddenly seeded when it emerged that several countries with significant football markets might be drawn against each other. We know that West Ham's punishment for playing Tevez and Mascherano got delayed until a decision could be made on what punishment could be meted out without relegating them, and then they had no points deduction when that's what they needed.

I wouldn't suggest that anyone in West Ham paid a bribe or used undue influence, but I might be inclined to suggest that the Premier League would have viewed West Ham as a more valuable and marketable club than Sheffield United and that this consideration played some role. This is still, of course, corrupt.

The structure of European football is very much a pyramid designed to make it relatively easy to keep the top clubs at the top while allowing some room for the rest to hope beyond hope.

I'm under no illusions (I think), I can see that we've started winning penalties and sometimes teams aren't allowed kick us off the park. That doesn't blind me to some of the unequal treatment we've received. As clear as day, van Persie elbowed Kompany, it was replayed once and the commentators missed it. Then replays moved onto earlier shots. Sky are pretty good at spotting things when they want to, in fact they are very good at it when it suits them.

Lescott scored a goal recently where no TV replay I've seen showed conclusively that the ball was across the line, the commentators fell back on the fact that the lineman was well positioned. Sky have been pushing hard for TV replays for goalines, so a goal where TV replays were unreliable as an indication is fairly damning. Why haven't pundits picked up on that one as they would have an incorrect decision? Whether conscious or not, there is a lack of integrity.

[Slim]

I believe the standard of refereeing has dropped quite substantially over the past few seasons and it makes it easier to point to a singular instance and say we were wronged. However from reading shared sites you find that most fans of almost every club think they are being wronged by refs.

Take the 1st Newcastle game for instance, they had a stonewall penalty turned down when Lescott kicked out at a Newcastle player, and the penalty Tevez scored could well have been given as outside the area on any other day. However City also had a penalty shout turned down(on Silva I believe) and when Tevez was hauled down for the penalty, Cleverley(If memory serves) should have been sent off as last defender.

I know for a fact that Newcastle fans think they were cheated out of a result and I think we were wondering why it finished 11v11 and what would have happened had they played with 10 men for the better part of 70 minutes.

[coMs]

Post by Patrick » Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:13 pm
There have been a few threads recently concerning the diabolical treatment that we receive at the hands of refs, the fa, uefa and uncle Tom Cobley.

My question is.....

Do you think there is some diabolical conspiracy against us or do you think we are a bit unrealistic when considering the complexities and vagaries of football? Something less extreme perhaps?

Please don't include how the rags get favourable treatment unless it's directly against us, that's a different debate

Do you think that the upcoming financial fair play rules would have been introduced had it not been for us.?

Possibly because there are quite a few Russian oil millionaires etc, starting to take an interest, so the threat of destabilising the old guard was already there. I think we brought it to a head but imo, we are a horse that's already bolted.

What it really does is stops Villa or Everton etc from ever doing something similar if they got a cash injection & causing Utd, Arsenal etc to regularly struggle to qualify for the Champions league. They've taken up the drawbridge & imo it's disgusting.

Her is a quote from Platini;

"It's mainly the owners that asked us to do something: Roman Abramovich, [Milan's] Silvio Berlusconi, [Internazionale's] Massimo Moratti," Platini said. "They do not want to fork out any more.

"Manchester City can spend £300m if they want to but if they are not breaking even in three years then they cannot play in European competition. I haven't spoken to Manchester City about this and I don't remember meeting their owner [Sheikh Mansour], but I'm sure I will. Roman Abramovich is a football person and passionate about the game. He loves football. He has come to me and said that we must do something about this."

Do yo still think the're not out to get us.?

[Im_Spartacus]

The number of penalties we have had at home would suggest that we are certainly not being persecuted by referees, and a number of sides have felt aggrieved with the performance of the ref at our place.

Newcastle have sent a video of key decisions to Premier League referees chief Mike Riley and asked for his observations. The move follows a letter they sent to the FA calling for De Jong to be banned.

The Tyneside club were unhappy with referee Martin Atkinson’s performance at Eastlands and included more than De Jong’s tackle in their video. It also featured the two penalty incidents — one awarded against Mike Williamson for his ‘foul’ on Carlos Tevez, which the Toon claim was not a foul and was outside the box, and one not given for Joleon Lescott’s foul on Shola Ameobi.

Can't really argue with the bit above, as the Lescott challenge was deffo a penalty, and there have been other incidents like that. The article above was from a post match article from the home game.......we have generally done ok with refs this season, aside from the incident on Weds night with Zabba - but even that, happened in the 90th minute, caused us no detriment and was reversed on appeal.

I think the press are cunts, but the game itself is not anti-city

[Ted Hughes]

The number of penalties we have had at home would suggest that we are certainly not being persecuted by referees, and a number of sides have felt aggrieved with the performance of the ref at our place.

Newcastle have sent a video of key decisions to Premier League referees chief Mike Riley and asked for his observations. The move follows a letter they sent to the FA calling for De Jong to be banned.

The Tyneside club were unhappy with referee Martin Atkinson’s performance at Eastlands and included more than De Jong’s tackle in their video. It also featured the two penalty incidents — one awarded against Mike Williamson for his ‘foul’ on Carlos Tevez, which the Toon claim was not a foul and was outside the box, and one not given for Joleon Lescott’s foul on Shola Ameobi.

Can't really argue with the bit above, as the Lescott challenge was deffo a penalty, and there have been other incidents like that. The article above was from a post match article from the home game.......we have generally done ok with refs this season, aside from the incident on Weds night with Zabba - but even that, happened in the 90th minute, caused us no detriment and was reversed on appeal.

I think the press are cunts, but the game itself is not anti-city

We got most of our favourable decisions for this season up to & including that Newcastle game. Since then it's been about 80/20 in favour of the opposition with obvious penalties being ignored & our players continually being booked & sent off for nothing, culminating in Zabba's ludicrous red card. The campaign by Newcastle & the media worked.

[Ted Hughes]

Post by Patrick » Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:13 pm
There have been a few threads recently concerning the diabolical treatment that we receive at the hands of refs, the fa, uefa and uncle Tom Cobley.

My question is.....

Do you think there is some diabolical conspiracy against us or do you think we are a bit unrealistic when considering the complexities and vagaries of football? Something less extreme perhaps?

Please don't include how the rags get favourable treatment unless it's directly against us, that's a different debate

Do you think that the upcoming financial fair play rules would have been introduced had it not been for us.?

Possibly because there are quite a few Russian oil millionaires etc, starting to take an interest, so the threat of destabilising the old guard was already there. I think we brought it to a head but imo, we are a horse that's already bolted.

What it really does is stops Villa or Everton etc from ever doing something similar if they got a cash injection & causing Utd, Arsenal etc to regularly struggle to qualify for the Champions league. They've taken up the drawbridge & imo it's disgusting.

Her is a quote from Platini;

"It's mainly the owners that asked us to do something: Roman Abramovich, [Milan's] Silvio Berlusconi, [Internazionale's] Massimo Moratti," Platini said. "They do not want to fork out any more.

"Manchester City can spend £300m if they want to but if they are not breaking even in three years then they cannot play in European competition. I haven't spoken to Manchester City about this and I don't remember meeting their owner [Sheikh Mansour], but I'm sure I will. Roman Abramovich is a football person and passionate about the game. He loves football. He has come to me and said that we must do something about this."

Do yo still think the're not out to get us.?

As I said, I think that when we started spending, it brought it all to a head but the plans were already being talked about before those quotes. I love Platini's comment that he doesn't remember meeting Sheikh Mansour but he's 'sure' he'll meet him , because of course Platini is so powerful that the sheikh would want to meet him personally.

[CitizenYank]

No I don't we are being persecuted. To be persecuted you have to really stand out as gits like Leeds United did
in the 70's or the NFL's Oakland Raiders always have. I mean when you think of Man City you think of club pride, full stands and singing Blue Moon. I mean it is not like we are Stoke or Milwall. We have always been a big club we just haven't been around the big table to ask for our slice of pie!! A bigger slice actually!!