Exactly. I was complaining about that non-pen decision on Kulu to a couple of ManU supporters yesterday (after the game) and, as you can imagine, it fell on deaf ears. I tried to argue that statistically, it's hard to ignore evidence of some form of corruption, where it's simple self-supporting corruption or active outside-interest payments.
They asked if I had my kids vaccinated.
After the obvious 'fuck you', I explained that it's far, far more likely that there is corruption in a £300 Billion industry than not and
it's not all going to be a big bag of cash passed between clubs and organisers, it's going to be systemic, subtle and in some cases subconscious bias*, probably aligned with any active behind-closed doors corruption, if such exists, simply because their interests are aligned.
* I include this as corrupt because it's incorrect function with regards to the rules and supports whatever narrative is in play, as that's the line of least resistance.
In some cases, the PL just want the narrative to continue to the final day (which we all feared might happen before kick-off). The refs didn't want to make a call which ended the league early and cast doubts on their ability as adjudicators of the game. In other cases, some clubs make so much noise just to put pressure on the league, refs etc. so that they are blindly supporting those clubs in their bullying behaviour out of cowardice and fear of retribution.
If the narrative had been about Spurs keeping the league alive until the last day, then you can be sure they'd have examined that tap on Kulu's ankle until they reached the right decision.
None of this requires bags of cash. It just requires self-interest.
TLDR; When the narrative switches to us (if we ever get big, successful or lucky enough) then we will (probably) benefit from it - because it benefits them for us to benefit from it.
Of course, if the back-room payments are big enough, we ain't getting shit.
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If your tinfoil hat hasn't fallen off in shock, here's some further reading:
An interesting article on the beeb, which shows the subconscious bias (AKA 'Fergie time') for bigger teams.
It's a well-established idea among football fans that Manchester United get more added time when they're losing - but is this really true?
www.bbc.co.uk
Some time ago, there was a great investigation into match-fixing in Sumo wrestling. It was really hard to prove, but they used statistics to find evidence and then that surfaced a whole ring of corruption, which shook the industry. I think we're due something similar in football.
