David Rowlands

@martinpaul115 Arsenal home last May.

Can someone please tell me the last time a Slot Liverpool team played well in the 1st half. Not scored a goal or been winning. Actually played well with purpose and intent.

@brucemillington @Matt5cott And every player is world class too! No mention of PGMOL conspiracy either. Gabriel second yellow for any other team. These northern refs.

@Matt5cott Bad luck, Matt. The fairytale victory almost happened but not quite. A game effort by the plucky Gunners though.

If we win this game, with these injuries and with this referee, it is a massive statement. 🔴⚪️

@Matt5cott @brucemillington Perhaps he didn't get the e-mail from Howard.

@DjRowlands @brucemillington You plainly didn’t see what Kavanagh got up to yesterday, David.

UPDATE: Six points clear after 20 games. And now we are getting a full squad back. We are still simply elite. 🔴⚪️

@Matt5cott @brucemillington @Argos_Online Governance issues with PGMOL and a conspiracy to undermine your club with decisions that don't go your way are entirely separate issues. Poor decisions go for and against teams. Your club benefited from decisions going against your rivals and one for you this weekend.

@brucemillington @Argos_Online The act of exposing and closing governance deficits is not “conspiracy theory”, Bruce. This is how I’ve spent my professional career. Have you seen King of Lies: Football’s Greatest Con? It’s on Sky Documentaries right now. This is very much my lane.

This weekend I had two tasks: put together a bedframe for my youngest and to watch Arsenal beat Tottenham. Arsenal did their bit. But thanks to @Argos_Online sending me half a bed and a set of Scandinavian shelves yesterday, it’s really taken the edge off my NLD-Day. 🔴⚪️

@Matt5cott Which year?

@DjRowlands See you in March then, David.

P8 W8 D0 L0 F17 A0. There is every reason to believe this will prove to be the greatest football team ever assembled. 🔴⚪️

@Matt5cott Matt, the Invincibles (only 13th highest league points gained) never had to deal with PGMOL blatant attack on the club.

@DjRowlands Mock all you will, David. But I’m already quite sure this team would beat the Invincibles.

After nine games, Arsenal are on course to accrue more than 92 points. And that is after going to Old Trafford, Anfield and St James’s Park, and having played both City and Palace at home. 🔴⚪️

@Matt5cott Probably since football began.

@DjRowlands Not yet, granted. But that will come. This team is capable of achieving great for years into the future. I truly believe, without hyperbole, that they could become the best football team ever assembled in the 21st Century.

@Matt5cott I've heard that PGMOL have gone all in on Arsenal now. Message through from the big boys in Far East. Ratified at PGMOL meeting at the Dog & Duck pub in Barnsley (cos all refs are Northern and support those teams)last week. Only 1 dissenter and he was subbed off at Brentford.

Watching this Liverpool game, it really feels like PGMOL think City are in this title race.

@beav1967 You got 14 today and don't even pay PGMOL a retainer!

They were given 16 minutes of added time in that game …… SIXTEEN minutes

@Matt5cott UEFA refs at it now. Contagion.

I should like to play cards with this referee. He is easily conned. 🔴⚪️

@Matt5cott @brucemillington You may well be an expert but you provide no evidence to link this to your weekly claims that PGMOL are ruining AFC chances of finally winning something. Why AFC? Do all the referees get together and decide this? Just accept referees makes mistakes like you. Remember AFCON error!

@DjRowlands @brucemillington Oh, my mind is made up, David, because I am an expert in sports governance and I know what I see. If we lived in a jurisdiction of free speech, I would speak freely, but we do not so I am obliged to temper my assertions. This does not invalidate any of the vast body of evidence.

Let’s be very clear here: Arsenal being top of this league is nothing short of extraordinary - to name but a few reasons. (🧵; please feel free to add any of your own.) 🔴⚪️

@Matt5cott @brucemillington Frequently leads to corruption you state. So not always? And you also put forward corruption as a likelihood but then state you are not claiming corruption. Make your mind up Matt.

@DjRowlands @brucemillington Where you have no governance and multimillion pounds of incentives, the result is, overwhelmingly frequently, corruption. As I said, the balance of probabilities is what applies. So standing by insisting nothing is wrong and PGMOL requires no reform just perpetuates the problem.

@Matt5cott @brucemillington But the comments you make about refereeing incidents can't be proved or linked to your so called facts. You have no evidence. Where is the connection to betting rings? Are officials in PGMOL receiving money? Admit it, it's just inconsistent and human refereeing.

@DjRowlands @brucemillington Jesus Christ David, the real facts are all there in the thread. Lmk when you read them.

@Matt5cott @brucemillington Possibilities as you say Matt. Smoke and mirrors. When you have some real facts let us all know.

Right, so to spell it out then: my case is that there is a manifest and egregious failure of governance oversight over PGMOL. This much is indisputable. Further it is that such governance failures are fecund ground for corruption (ditto). And that we get numerous referee interventions (“errors”) in numerous games. I have advanced the entirely reasonable possibility that this could be, in the above context, consistent with the manipulation of games for betting markets. Yet you have repeatedly and entirely overlooked this commentary in favour of accusing me of fan bias. Which is odd.

@Matt5cott @brucemillington Most people agreeing with you are just AFC fans looking to hang blame on someone/somebody. Most of your fellow football thinking gurus like Bruce don't agree with you. If every decision made via PGMOL was directed adversely at AFC you might have a case. But they aren't.

@DjRowlands @brucemillington I thought, “He’s accusing me of all sorts but I’ll engage patiently, explain everything clearly, and see what he says. He seems an intelligent bloke, so maybe he’ll have the courtesy to come back with an intelligent response. I’ll give it a couple or few days.” Well done, David.

@Matt5cott @brucemillington Hi Matt Not sure what that means. Accused of all sorts -really. My view is that PGMOL are not clever enough to knowingly do all the things you accuse them of. Also, there is no clear intent as to how this impacts games. Every club benefits and suffers. Refs and VAR are just poor.

@Matt5cott @brucemillington I have never asked for you to name names. I was intrigued how this corruption you talk of works in a season/match context. If true, there is no consistency as most of the major objective mistakes are spread around clubs. Most of your moans are subjective and tarnished by AFC bias

You misunderstand. You are looking for things there for which there can be no evidentiary proof, thanks both to the offshore system and the absence of regulatory/governance scrutiny. If there is corruption and it is a club owner pulling the strings, then that will bring one set of outcomes. If it is the illegal betting markets, that will bring many others. I am sure many people will have opinions as to whether either or both have already taken place. The point is, none of that matters to what I am saying. What I do have clear and demonstrable evidence for, which I have presented to you, is a strategic failure of governance – which, as I have also shown, is a condition in which corruption thrives. I have also demonstrated manifest incentives to instigate corrupt activity, which is another. These elements are more than enough to demand reform of and formal oversight for PGMOL, which is why I frequently do. Another thing I know for a fact is that in this context my club is disfavoured with frequent referee appointments that are subject to egregious conflicts of interest. And I see frequent referee “errors” from those conflicted referees, covered up by the “Chief Refereeing Officer” in his weekly Pravda show. These are things I also bring to the fore, because they are the on-field events taking place with what is in all probability a corruption-incubating governance failure as the backdrop. I am sure other clubs feel similarly aggrieved. Perhaps we all would if individual matches were routinely being manipulated to order for illegal-betting markets; in that event there wouldn’t be a single, cogent thread of behaviour, rather a constellation of inexplicable decisions across a season without any individual club broadly benefiting. Who knows? Anyhow, I am not going to allege individual criminal conduct on here. You seem to want me to, for whatever prurient reason, but it is not something I will indulge you in. It is entirely unnecessary in any event. The burden of proof in sports law is not that of beyond reasonable doubt, but of the balance of probabilities. And in all I have shared with you, there are more than enough causes for concern to meet that threshold. You seem an intelligent man but you are blinkered to the reality: English football’s judicial function is compromised beyond belief by its enormous failure in governance. If you choose to ignore that, or, worse still, to deride those who attempt to shine a light on that fact, then you are complicit. Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I’ll leave you with a few pictures. I think them interesting.