If I were a corrupt referee...

[The Cube]

If I were a corrupt referee ... I would offer a range of services.

For the basic service I make no guarantees about outcomes but I will make sure your team gets every 50-50 decision. This is ideal for an inferior side looking to hold on for a draw, or for the better side to increase the chance of a win. Should your team go two or more goals up I will return to normal decision-making.

The silver service is a lot more expensive but in this one I will give your team some of the big decisions as well. So whilst I won’t totally fabricate a penalty, so much goes on in the box that I’m sure there will be dubious challenges I can take advantage of. Equally well, your own defenders will know they can get away with a lot more.

Then there is the gold standard where I will guarantee the result, although not the score. Let’s be clear from the start - this is going to be expensive. I take the risk of never being able to referee again, so your payment will have to cover the rest of my working life. You will want to use this for games like semi-finals, play-off finals or relegation deciders.

Before taking this on, I will expect your team to have a reasonable chance of winning, so really what you are paying for is that final step. Think of it as a chance to make up for the mistake of not paying the extra few million for that top striker. Even with this service, I am going to try not to make it too obvious (that wasn't me in the 1975 European Cup Final, for instance). What I will do as a start is not to award any free-kicks to your opponents unless it’s completely unavoidable (or one of the linesmen flags). It’s practically impossible to argue convincingly after the event against 90% of challenges so this is fine. In fact, if you can find any big game where a team has 4 free-kicks or fewer then you can pretty well guarantee that the ref was operating some sort of similar system.

Getting no free-kicks helps to starve your opponents of possession. I suggest that your players get into the box regularly, as sooner or later there will be a clumsy challenge I can take advantage of. Chances are the defence will get so frustrated I will even be able to award genuine penalties. This of course also makes it easier for me after the match because any queries will start with penalty decisions that I can easily justify.

Your opponents’ frustration also gives me the chance to book players for dissent, or perhaps even send off a coach or non-playing substitute if I get the chance. Not the players on the field, of course, unless we’re really lucky.

With the gold service, I don’t ease off whatever the score because anything can happen. And also I will cover myself with a side payment to a pundit or two just so that there’s a voice out there agreeing with my key decisions. Just listen to coverage of any game, and you will see that happens even without money changing hands.

Now, let’s talk about who I like to deal with. I never take "contributions" from players, club employees, directors or the like. It’s just too easy for later investigations to come up with information. Very rich fans will probably be OK. However, my real preference is to do business with club sponsors. Even better, if they are a multi-national as they can always find a way of getting the money from some arms-length subsidiary into my Cayman Islands account without any real prospect of anyone making the connection.

But my number one favourite customer is when the sponsor is also a bookmaker. Of course, they must kep the people setting the odds in the dark, but there will still be plenty of ways they can recoup the costs from their day-to-day business. Which means I charge more of course, but no need for you to know that.

The other great thing about my gold standard package is that the football authorities are so incompetent they probably won’t do anything about it. So I may not even have to retire.



Post number 1000 on the current incarnation of the board - thought I’d go for a big one.

[sputnik]

tldr

[Sutekh]

stbigf

[LWJ]

What's this got to do with The Team?

[John Smith]

This forum is like a mental institute

[Mr Angry]

You are Mike Dean, and I claim my £500 in used tenners passed over at Leigh Delamere services.......

[genome]

[Fox Talbot]

Fair enough post - he'd have got a better reception on an Italian site as UK refs at League level are generally thought to be above suspicion these days as they are so closely monitored by assessors and TV cameras.