Aldridge on referee ‘corruption’; claims insider source confirms referee bias at highest level

News
Posted by

Liverpool fans are rightly outraged after a performance from a group of referees that seriously hampered our start to the season and robbed us of at least a point against Tottenham, with John Aldridge now sharing some strong thoughts.

Taking to social media over several messages, the ex-Red wrote: ‘I have to say the players were defensively brilliant under the circumstances! I feel for Matip big time! But it’s so difficult to play 11 v 11 tonight, it was not right, stinks to high heaven folks. Corrupt

‘I’m sick about tonight, the way it turned out! Well done Spurs. You see if you were an LFC fan as a ref or VAR and there’s a 50/50 decision that helps your team (LFC), eg. Man City get a poss pen, you don’t give it 😉 Think about it seriously. It’s happened since the year 1900.

READ MORE: (Video) Udogie waves imaginary yellow card for Jota ‘foul’ but sees no punishment

‘See the refs say they follow Altrincham, York etc 😂 what a joke!! They hide behind that. Neil Midgley was the head of refs around 1998 and he was a great ref and gent 👍 he told me exactly how it works – CORRUPT. I’ve known it ever since so don’t tell me to hold my tongue. Disgusting.

‘It needs investigating for the good of the game!!!! And I’m not sour because of tonight! It is what it is and you all as football fans must realise it and kick up a fuss! Ask the refs association to let us all know who the refs really supported as a kid 😉👍’.

It’s certainly a string of bold statements from the 65-year-old but he does call into question the role of supporting a team as a fan and then being asked to make decisions against a rival in the league as an official.

VOTE for Empire of the Kop as Best Club Content Creator (Premier League) here: Football Content Awards
OR on X with Empire’s one-click X link with: I am voting in @The_FCAs for @empireofthekop in Best Club Content Creator (Premier League)

If we take the officials in charge of our meeting at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, then it is reported (via GOAL) that referee Simon Hooper supporters Swindon Town, fourth official Michael Oliver supports Newcastle United and VAR Darren England supports Barnsley.

As there’s only one man there who supports a Premier League club, the words of the former striker on social media have asked us to question the true loyalties of these men when it comes to making decisions.

Adding the supposed comments of Neil Midgley to his claims seems to suggest there was at least corruption in the game in the 1990’s but it’s hard to say if this has or hasn’t carried through now.

Regardless on whether you believe the claims of the former Tranmere Rovers boss here, for a performance to be so bad that their bosses needed to put out a statement confirming a huge error had been made – the standard of officiating is clearly not good enough and something needs to change.

You can view the series of messages via @Realaldo474 on X:

🤩 EOTK FPL Gameweek 6 Review 🤩: Botman the difference-maker? Son now a must-have? You’re a fool if you don’t pick Salah…

More Stories John Aldridge Liverpool Neil Midgley Tottenham Hostspur

32 Comments

    1. There has definitely been a negative and bias change in attitude by match officials towards Liverpool ever since Klopps comments late last season against the ref for not saying good things.
      No penalty call v Chelsea ,VVD red , McAllister Red and now Jota red. Diaz disallowed goal and we are only seven games into the season.

  2. why can’t the paying public hear what is being said by the officials who are collecting a wage paid by the fans and TV , this is not a secret society and doesn’t have the right to abuse the trust placed on them, if there is any lies being told by the referees to keep there job’s {like where they from or who they support ect.} the FA should remove them and replace them with referees from Europe if necessary. just a thought, something has to be done, there are lots of ideas out there ,it just needs putting right.

    1. Because they don’t want that same as they don’t want to use the technology used for the WC

  3. I have always been saying this. Liverpool is the most hated team by most referees in EPL. And now that Haward Webb is back to premier league, things will be more worse than ever before. Seven games with four Red cards!! Liverpool should be deregistered from EPL and either join Ligue 1 of France or LaLiga of Spain and leave the corrupt league.

  5. Nothing is going to change! Not anytime soon enough anyway! As these current crop of refs-officials are actually GANGSTERS and CROOKS posing as professional match officials!! PGMOL should really read “PROFESSIONAL GANGSTERS MANIPULATING ON-PITCH LAWS!!” In my personal opinion in game betting and legal gambling in general are destroying the greatest of sports ever invented and they do it by using Club/fan rivalries to bail themselves out in the eyes of the vast clueless majority of the masses!! And the threat of LEGAL ACTION against any mainstream pundit even thinking of saying what they truly believe is happening here with our match officiating!!

  6. It was NOT human error, for some inexplicable reasin the lines were not used…The question that needs answered is WHY ?????

  7. It is now understood that MacAllister may face further sanctions for his tweet on “12 man Spurs”. He is only saying what we are all thinking but Hooper 🤮💩🤮💩🤮💩 will only get a slap on the wrist for his inept display. PGMOL should all get fired and fined, including the head tosser Webb.

    1. Ryanbabbel was find £15000 for posting a photoshopped picture of Howard Webb in a Manchester United jersey

  8. VAR should be scrapped.It was brought in to stop human errors,but humans are operating it so we still get human errors.Results from var are about 50% right,50%wrong,same as before var.Lets go back to just the ref & linesman decisions.I thought the offside decision was wrong,i though the red card for tackle was a 50/50 decision,sometimes just a yellow,sometimes a red.The 2 yellow card decision for jota was all his own fault,if u get a yellow,for any reason,u don’t do a tackle like that 60 seconds later.

  9. Last season my team (Brighton) were on the end of numerous poor decisions. In a game against Palace we had a goal ruled out for offside that wasn’t. The officials later apologized as they admitted the lines were drawn in the wrong place. They claimed a system was then introduced so it wouldn’t happen again. A few weeks later it did happen again and the victim of that cock up? Tottenham. Liverpool aren’t the victim of a conspiracy anymore than we were last season.

  10. They are saying its human errow! Are they on their feet or lying down? To me, decision taken by Howard & the VAR deciders its human willing.

  11. I’ve never understood why ex footballer who want to stay involved are not encouraged to become referees
    They understand the working’s and mechanic’s of the game and have a fitness level to keep up with the Flow of the match

    1. Lower league ex players might be interested in becoming refs, but not top players. Besides the fact that most of them don’t need the money enough to want to take on that job, they also probably don’t fancy all the abuse they’d get from fans as refs. It’s quite easy to work out why ex-players are not becoming referees. Refs are usually wannabe footballers who couldn’t make it, and taking up a job as a referee is not at all appealing to most ex-players. Two different worlds.

  12. The EPL is supposed to be the best in the world, how is that possible with rampant refereeing corruption, more like a central african country.

  13. some of these are the most ignorant comments seen so far. 1.the VAR team made a mistake and two officials have now been stood down for it. 2. LFC are entitled to pursue the Premier League legally of course. 3. however in the “olden days” before VAR they still would not suddenly get a replay or points alteration. 4. people seem to use the word corruption really ignorantly. The 2nd hand angry remarks of Aldridge about what he heard in conversation in the 1990s amount to nothing in proving corruption. By corruption do we mean money- driven incorrect or illegal decisions? or just people venting off about refs. not giving their team the decision? 5. by the way if a ref/lino supports x or y how could this possibly affect their decision making in an a vs. b match? 6.From my limited knowledge the EPL is one of the least corrupt leagues vis a vis money and corrupt officials. 7. pple should remember that Jota (who got a red on Sat.) should have got one last season v Tottenham BEFORE he got that last minute winner. 8. As for Mcallister tweeting that 12 man garbage he will regret it. He brings himself and his team into disrepute rather than the EPL or his opponents. tks for yr patience

    1. Do you mean the event concerning Skipp ? As in the Oliver Skipp who should have been sent off earlier in the game and therefore wouldn’t have been around for Jota to interact with ? That Skipp ?

      The events on Saturday were down to incompetence or corruption (possibly both) – and suspensions or sackings need to happen.
      Release the audio, and lets hear what was said !

    2. As you’ve said yourself in your comment, you’ve got a limited knowledge in the EPL so why don’t u stop spouting biased rubbish online!

    3. what a pile of crap, if you want to take the information back to that game last year, then let’s remember which spurs player got away with an instant red card offence, this match was “fixed” by very poor officiating, admitted as such with the disallowed goal, the over turning of a yellow to red for curtis was a terrible injustice, firstly the ref took action on the incident, which was the correct decision, no malice in the tackle and connection only made the player after the foot of curtis rolled over the ball, this was not a dangerous act or intentional, therefore VAR should not of intervened to change the refs mind, and the ref should have grown a pair and said this too, but 90% of your comments are utter tosh

  14. Maybe the TV pundits should also be in the loop with VAR, as they have a lot more of a clue. It was clearly on side Diaz,s goal, it was clear for all to see. Even for all us the public to see within seconds.

  15. Ha ha! Describing Aldridge as “Former Tranmere boss,” is doing the exact thing you are accusing the refs of. If what Aldridge says is true, at least half of the refs must support Liverpool. What a shame you didn’t have one of your own on the game on Saturday for a change.

    1. The first mention of Aldridge in this piece is as an “ex red”. And this site is for Liverpool fans, so we all already know John Aldridge played for us. Stop being dumb. If you know anything about writing an article, you don’t keep repeating the same phrases over and over again. So later, after initially describing Aldo as an “ex red”, they also describe his as the “former Tranmere boss”, that’s completely normal. No-one is trying to hide the facts here. Everyone knows Aldridge played for Liverpool. Your comment sounds unbelievably stupid, you’re looking for hypocrisy or contradiction where there is none. Grow a brain and get a life.

  16. Strange how many penalty’s Liverpool get awarded at Anfield, yet that’s acceptable, Klopp has taught players the dark arts to perfection, yet as soon as things go against them they bleat like children! It happens accept it don’t keep trying to influence referees to your way of thinking, nothing but sour grapes. COYS!

    2. Your mother must be a ref because like you, she also has her eyes in her @r$e. Only an idiot shouts sour grapes when you cannot score a winner against 9 players when you have 12 and need an own goal to decide who wins. We will see how much sour grapes you have when the decisions go against you. Clearly LFC live rent free in your head that you have to troll this site to sprout your biased and uninformed bull$h!t. Absolute sphincter muscle you are.

    3. Bobby id rather lose to spurs than any of the big teams cos you know they wont be in the mix come end of season

  17. Yes Bobby, Liverpool always get pens at Anfield don’t they ? 4 in the whole of last season home and away, the 10th highest in the league. Only 9 teams got more all season, including …erm Spurs. Disgraceful isn’t it ?

  18. If webb is the head what do you expect as a liverpool play, webb and fagie work hand in hand to keep liverpool down since webb was officiating and these pipo still influence e epl today so the solution is to sack webb and his company then all will be well

  19. I believe that the case of VAR/referee tandem shows not incompetence but corruption. An incompetent one will make wrong decisions against both teams, and biased people could still act with integrity. It wasn’t the case with VAR/referees on Sunday.

  20. There were several things wrong in that game,firstly why did the linesman flag so early,when they have been flagging after shots on goal have been made for ages. Then the lines would have had to be shown. Curtis should not have been shown a red card. It was a genuine attempt at the ball, his foot only made contact with the player after rolling over the top of the ball, no intent to injur his opponent at all. Jota should not have been booked for the first offence, the player he was chasing caught Jota’s shin with his foot not the other way round.

Comments are closed