I mean, I’m not saying that there was any corruption or explicit instruction to give them a penalty, but even the minor thought that a certain club’s state-owners might pay me/hire me more often can be incredibly enticing.
I mean, I’m not saying that there was any corruption or explicit instruction to give them a penalty, but even the minor thought that a certain club’s state-owners might pay me/hire me more often can be incredibly enticing.
It’s not just about what they “deserve”. It’s staving off corruption, and also attracting top talent to the job. The weak talent pool we have for officials at the top level is clearly evidence of that. You can afford to pay someone shit wages in retail because you can always throw a new body in there when you burn out the others. Not so with refs, it takes years to train up a PL level ref.
And to be clear, I advocate for higher wages for the officials, but hand in hand with greater consequences for huge errors like we’ve seen.
The idea that higher wages prevents corruption is false. Only checks and balances will do that, and football has very few.