Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Ha.... got to give Ratcliffe 10 out of 10 for bare faced cheek. He thinks Old Trafford needs replacing, because it's falling apart at the seams, so is mooting the idea that building a brand spanking new stadium could make OT a "national stadium for the north" in his words, or at least words to that effect.

Of course, he continues, a national stadium for the north should probably be funded by the FA or the govt or at least somebody not called Man Utd

when I saw that I nearly wet myself laughing..... the big daft bollock

Watching the Valencia v Madrid game, and sadly it looks like Valencia defender Moucthar Diakhaby just got an absolute horrendous injury. Tchouamendi from Madrid was running in to challenge the ball and seemingly lost his footing just as Diakhaby stretched out to kick the ball... the Real lad then landed full force into his outstretched leg, and trapped it under him as the Diakhaby's momentum took his body the opposite direction.

Both sets of players were visually in shock, and Diakhaby was clearly in a state of extreme pain.

I cross my fingers and toes that doesn't look anywhere near as bad as it seems....

Watching the PSG game, they're playing bottom of the table Clermont and are 1-0 down after an hour...they are dreadful....the standard of french football these days is shocking

God Bless the corruption in Belgian Football.

Christian Burgess was sent of a couple of weeks ago for a ridiculous red card in a match v Genk. Attempting to take a throw on deep in injury time with Union 2-1 down, the Genk striker wanting to waste time decided to sprint to Burgess and attempt to block the throw coming in by standing on the line where Burgess was lining up. Burgess, not wanting to waste time, threw it in with the Genk player then jumping a metre of the ground to block the ball... the ball then hit him square in the face, and the referee sent off Burgess for violent conduct. The Genk player, on a yellow, was not booked for time wasting or purposefully prevent the quick throw. Everyone in the Belgian press complained of a grave misjustice.

After the game, a disciplinary hearing quashed the red card on the Monday, a decision that was made without inviting the club or player to the hearing. The Belgian FA, not happy with its independent decision panel, appealled this decision asking for a 3 game ban (crazy in itself, as the panel had quashed a 1 game ban). Burgess, who was not in attendence, then received the original letter informing him of his automatic ban for a red card from the FA, issued after the hearing of his ban had been quashed, and which no longer applied. At no stage in the next 6 days did the Belgian FA inform him of the fact his ban had been quashed.

Union then played Cercle with Burgess watching in the stands serving his phantom ban. During the game, the Belgian FA released a press release expressing shock that in pre-match interviews, Union players and managers had referenced him being banned, and stating that his ban was under appeal with the player eligible to play that week. There is a funny video of our keeper, Antony Moris, being told of it after the game in an interview and losing the plot.

Cut to this week after the Cercle game, and the Belgian FA then said in lieu of a decision concerning his ban, his original ban of one game would have to stand. This was totally wrong, and still no reference was made to the tribunal that had acquitted him. Union, having only been told of his ban for Cercle then expressed puzzlement that not only had the FA broke their own rules and were acting against the independent tribunals decisions, but if he had been banned for one game, then the only documentation referring to it officially was from the FA for that Cercle game he missed. Essentially, he had served his ban if there was one, end of discussion.

To cut a long epic short, the FA then claimed his three game ban being appealed applied before the case disproved the FAs case, which is flattly illegal. Union served the FA notice of legal action, and as per Belgian law, the instant preliminary hearing required to allow a legal case to progress found huge problems with the FAs position, ones that are only explainable in purposeful actions.

No sooner had the court asked the FA explain themselves, that the tribunal magically became decided .... although seeing as though all the Belgian FA legal team were in court, its quite obvious that no tribunal had taken place. It seems that it had taken place days before, and had once again affirmed Burgess' ban being quashed. So the Belgian FA had essentially gone bandit to make sure Burgess was missing at least 2 games.

The sh*t will now hit the fan, but this is the 4th dubious case where the FA have done this before teams play Anderlecht. We already had the result of Genk V Anderlecht overturned in a court because the referee gave a goal by VAR while his discussions with his team proved he had noticed an infringement by Anderlecht, but informed the goal could be given regardless. I think that referee was fired. I hope Union see the court case out. Frankly bored of the consistent bias and unquestionably tainted refereeing decisions when ever we play a big Flemish club. Always from the same two referees who happened to be from Brugge and Antwerp respectively. And then all referees making sure Anderlecht always win

Just as a recent example of this clear corruption, take a look at this foul against Union defender Machida a couple of weeks ago in Antwerp. He gets hit in the neck by a player with his feet nearly 2 meters off the ground. The referee did not refer it to VAR, and the video referee claims he could not contact the referee to refer him to the screen for the clear red card, even when the referee is seen talking on his microphone to VAR for 30 seconds.

https://twitter.com/medioclubID/status/ ... 0644728905

Machida himself was then given a second yellow card when the referee picked out the wrong player for a foul on the break. To cap it all off, VAR then applied the old handball rule in awarding Antwerp their last minute equaliser, which they later apologised for and admitted was a clear error.

I dont know why I waste my weekends watching Belgian football, its clearly fixed.

blimey... that looks like the sort of 'yellow' card tackle usually committed on Sean Longstaff

doubtless the ref decided that the offending player was trying to pull out of the challenge

People always talk about how many poor decisions referee make on big decisions, but I think the most annoying and puzzling thing is how they struggle so much to stop people time wasting.

I was watching Brugge v Antwerp today. In the last ten minutes alone, Brugge successfully got the referee to stop play for three phantom head injuries, the best of which involved the referee stopping an Antwerp counter attack after noticing a player was down at the other end of the field.... said player had fouled the goal keeper, pretended to be injured, realised he was actually out of play as the keeper booted it up, then got up and ran a few metres, threw himself back on the floor holding his head, and there we go.... 2 minutes wasted. The funniest thing was the referee appeared to lecture him for pretending to be injured AFTER stopping play for what he thought was an injury... guess the thought process there. No card. Another incident, with Antwerp waiting to cross a free kick in, twice a Brugge player passed the ball and kicked it away. No card for the most blatant of cards ever.

In the end, we got 7 minutes injury time. In reality, that amounted to a VAR check (from the 88th to the 92nd minute) which resulted in a free kick, from that kick we got another phantom head injury, play stopped for 2 minutes. From the free kick for the phantom foul/head injury, a long ball then resulted in a free kick to Brugge with another phantom injury and another 2 minute stoppage. From that free kick we got a corner.... which Vanaken then refused to take, got lectured by the referee instead of a card, finally kicked it in after messing around with the placement of the ball after being told to get on with it, ball went out, ref blows his whistle 10 seconds early.

I'd guess all in all, we got about 10 kicks off the football in the last 15 minutes of the game.

P*** poor

astonishing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/vi ... v02xj9e73o