I have left football grounds before angry at the performance of referees, and – more recently – VAR. But when I have, it has always been after a defeat, or a draw when a poor decision prevented a Newcastle United win.
But I have never – in 61 years of watching football – witnessed such an appallingly bad performance as the one Chris Kavanagh and his assistants managed yesterday at Aston Villa. I’m still seething, and we WON!!!
Two games come close.
Anderlecht v Forest in 1984 was so obviously rigged that it was later discovered that the Belgian side had bribed the ref.
Then in 2009, when Chelsea played Barcelona, a bald Norwegian gave a series of nonsensical decisions that made sure the Catalans won the game. I’m no fan of Chelsea but I was incandescent with rage on their behalf that night.
Chris Kavanagh is in receipt of a six-figure annual income after he factors in match fees. Premier League refs end up on between £170k and £250k according to Google. That’s four to six times the UK median income.
Now I don’t mind people with the brains, skills and qualifications earning top dollar. However, if an accountant on £200k a year couldn’t count, or an engineer on the same kept building things that collapsed, or a surgeon on £200k kept amputating the wrong limbs, they’d be fired, and they’d never work again.
Yet in the case of Chris Kavanagh, I have no doubt that this man will still be stinking out Premier League stadia and enjoying his money until he chooses to retire. It beggars belief.
The problem Chris Kavanagh gave himself in the Aston Villa game was that all his deranged decision-making affected the same team. Two blatant penalties, a blatant offside and a blatant red card all disregarded with an imperious wave of the manicured hand. Jacob Murphy even showed him the holes in his shin where Digne used his studs in an attempt to break our man’s leg. Did Kavanagh think he got them doing acupuncture?
The PGMOL are arrogant, smug and self-serving. They’ll probably just agree that one of two incidents could have been managed better in hindsight and Chris Kavanagh will go on making a laughing stock of the Premier League for as long as he chooses.
His performance was so bad that Villa fans on social media were saying he was their best player. Unai Emery was so bewildered, even he said it was game that should have had VAR. It didn’t. It just needed a ref and assistants that knew a couple of things about football.
Rodri – the Manchester City midfielder – is on a misconduct charge for comments he made about the neutrality of refs after their recent game at Tottenham. I suggest his lawyers show the panel the full 90 minutes of Aston Villa v Newcastle and ask them to identify any times in the game when Chris Kavanagh was being neutral. I never want to see him anywhere near a Newcastle United game again.