Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

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piresistible
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Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by piresistible »

Anyone read this:




Halsey and Fergie were text buddies and no one cares?

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Two days ago there was what seemed a collective eye-roll when news broke that Mark Halsey’s book Added Time includes revelations that he texted former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson and asked him to publicly stand up for Mark Clattenburg after Clattenburg had been accused of racial abuse by Chelsea FC. Instead of rolling their eyes, however, all football fans should be asking some real tough questions about the apparently all too friendly relationships between managers and referees.

The original incident occurred on October 28th 2012 in a match fraught with controversy. United took an early two goal lead and Chelsea fought back to draw the game level. At that point it was really anyone’s contest.

Ivanovich, however, then saw straight red for a rather innocuous trip on Ashley Young, Torres received a second yellow for a pretty blatant dive, and then Chicharito scored the winner from an offside position. Chelsea was left furious as their fans rained down trash on the pitch.

Even the typically staid BBC described the refereeing rather harshly saying,


The game was balanced perfectly but it shifted decisively towards United when Chelsea lost two players to red cards just after the hour. Ivanovic was sent off for tripping Young as he raced on to Van Persie’s pass then, far more contentiously, Torres was also dismissed for picking up a second yellow card for diving…

Chelsea’s depleted numbers were always going to be in danger. And so it proved as United went ahead with 15 minutes remaining. Van Persie’s shot was blocked by the feet of Cech but when Rafael returned the ball into the six-yard area Hernandez turned in from an offside position.

It was after the second red card and the third goal that tempers exploded. Chelsea’s Obi Mikel was yellow carded and his teammate, Ramires, told Mikel that he thought he heard Clattenburg call him a monkey. This led to even more ugly scenes after the match with Halsey claiming that Clattenburg was assaulted by Obi trying to punch him and threatening to “break his legs.” Chelsea took the complaint to the FA and aired their dirty laundry in public, especially the claim that Clattenburg racially abused one or more Chelsea players.

Clattenburg was charged by the FA and subsequently subjected to calumny from all quarters. Seeing that the younger official was unable to muster his own defense in the public eye and that his career was on the line regardless of the outcome, it was then that Mark Halsey jumped to the defense of his friend and texted the Man U boss asking him to say something.

In the very next press conference, Ferguson did exactly what was asked and gave a sweeping defense of Mr. Clattenburg:


I don’t believe Mark Clattenburg would make any comments like that, I refuse to believe it. I think it’s unthinkable. In the modern climate I just refuse to believe it. It’s as simple as that. There’s no way a referee would stoop to that. I’m convinced of that. If you look at the modern game today, compared to where it was 25 years ago, it’s completely changed. I played myself and I know the banter that goes on between refs and players, and it was different 25 years ago than it is today. I have never had a player come to me, in the last 15 years, saying that a ref has sworn at him during a game. Ever. So that’s where I stand. I don’t believe it.

Let me put this as plainly as possible: a senior referee just publicly admitted that in the middle of a case, in the middle of a season, he reached out, behind the scenes, to the most successful manager in Premier League history and asked him to public muster a defense for his friend and colleague. Halsey did this knowing full well that doing so was a violation of his organization’s rules and an obvious breech of ethics.

Some of you are probably wondering “so what?” So what? It stinks of corruption and collusion, that’s what.

I’m not accusing anyone of throwing any matches or of any quid pro quo but I don’t have to because the perception that something might have been going on between Clattenburg, Fergie, and Halsey is enough to make this hugely problematic. For example, what if I tell you that Halsey awarded United a penalty in his very next United game? He did. Rightly giving a 16th minute pen in the wild 3-4 win over Reading. Clattenburg did too, awarding United a penalty in their 4-1 win over Fulham. I remember both matches well, both games had big calls that went against United as well — Halsey wrongly calling off a van Persie goal that looked to have crossed the line and Clattenburg failing to award a second penalty to United for a second Fulham handball.

Again, I’m not accusing anyone of any wrong doing. What I am saying is that football is a system of fiat. We have to know that the officials are not friends enough with the managers to ask favors for their other friends or we will stop believing in the system. And once that happens, the whole thing falls apart.

If they are asking each other for favors, favors which could change a man’s career and for which he will publicly express his gratitude, saying, “The messages of encouragement from those inside and outside of the game have helped me through the most stressful time of my professional life.” Then we have a system akin to letting the foxes watch over the hen house.

And as we know, that always ends with someone getting egg on their face.
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Natural Born Gooner
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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by Natural Born Gooner »

The only things to take from that article is Mikel should have been banned for a considerable amount of time if he did react that way, and Chelsea FC is a scummy, classless, gangster owned, ground-in shit stain on the Premier League (but we knew that already).

Wenger was meant to have contacted Clattenberg also after the incident, and tbh if true, I'm glad. To be falsely accused of something like that and your name dragged through the mud, I wish he sued the fuck out of those *word censored* when he had no case to answer.

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olgitgooner
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Referees - how honest are they?

Post by olgitgooner »

By Walter Broeckx
Written on Untold Arsenal
Tinfoil hats they said. We were idiots. We were mad. Crazy, deluded. The usual bunch of nice words you get when you dare to challenge the ‘authorities’ in football.

Now it seems that Mark Halsey has opened the box (dare I say Pandora’s box?) and it will be interesting to see how this will be dealt with by the media and the PGMOL.

Apparently Mark Halsey has openly admitted that he had phone and text contact with the former head of the PGMOL. No sorry, the formed head of Manchester United. It’s so easy to get mixed up at times.

I quote this from the article in the Mirror as someone send me the link. You can read it here.

Now Halsey is telling that it all was done in the aftermath of the incidents surrounding Clattenburg after last seasons fixture Chelsea – Manchester United. I will quote from the article : ‘I took matters in my own hands and rang Sir Alex asking him to speak out. “He agreed and used his Friday press conference to say he could not conceive of Mark saying such things. It helped the situation a great deal.”

Now the first question that arises if of course….how did Halsey contact Sir Alex? Did he have his number already? Now if that were the case this alone is already enough to raise the eyebrows. A ref is not expected to have the phone number of a PL manager. In fact it is against all rules to have direct contact with a manager.

But looking at the whole article it seems that this wasn’t the first and only time that Halsey had contact with Sir Alex. There were other contacts which nobody knew about until now. Just carry on reading and I quote again from the article:

‘Halsey added: “It took time to gain Sir Alex Ferguson’s respect but in the end we had a very good relationship.” He went on to insist: “One thing should be made clear about my relationship with Sir Alex. “I may have spoken to him a lot and shared texts but he knew when I crossed that white line there were no favours. Players and managers would not respect you if you gave decisions based on friendship.”

So if I understand this correct Halsey is saying that it took a while to gain his respect. Now pardon me but why on earth would a PL referee want to gain the respect of a manager? And what exactly has he done in the end to gain this respect?

What has Halsey done to get a very good relationship with Sir Alex? Give him a few decisions? Or broken the fundamental rule of refereeing that referees do not have informal direct contact with managers?

It is clear that having a relationship with one of the managers in the PL is totally out of order. And doubly so when this relationship is secret. As it was.

Because (and forgive me for repeating this but it is a fundamental point in our efforts to suggest that all is not well in the world of Premier League refereeing) it is forbidden by the rules to have direct contact with managers of the teams that you referee games of.

And yet this is what happened, as was confirmed and again I quote by “A spokesman” who said: “At the beginning of the season all our referees were reminded of the importance of adhering to the PGMOL protocols. This covers a number of issues, including making direct contact with managers and players, which for integrity reasons is prohibited.

“Any new publicity will only heighten awareness of adhering to these important PGMOL guidelines. Referees contravening the guideline would be subject to disciplinary action if any case against them were proved.”

So what Halsey did was against the rules. And the fact that he talks about doing it for Clattenburg is one thing but from the rest of these quotes we can have the impression that he had more contacts with him. And contacts before the Clattenburg incident.

So this leaves us with a few questions that need urgent answers:
1.How did Halsey have Sir Alex’ phone number?
2.How did Sir Alex have Halsey’s phone number?
3.Since when did they have each other’s phone number?
4.What did Halsey do to get a very good relationship with Sir Alex?
5.Are there any other refs who also have the phone number of Sir Alex?
6.Does Sir Alex have phone numbers of other refs?
7.Has there ever been any contact (phone or text) between Sir Alex and any other refs?

If the answer to the questions 4, 5 or 6 is a yes then the PL, the FA and the PGMOL should take immediate action. Because this is unacceptable. As the PGMOL spokesman has said himself.

The only actions that should be taken in such case are : remove the refs from their function as refs, and ban Sir Alex from any function in football for the rest of his life.

Those are two steps that are necessary to do immediately to gain some credibility. And then depending on how many phone numbers of how many refs are involved declare the games of these refs involving Manchester United as lost.

They took away 6 Tour de France victories from Lance Armstrong because he had cheated with doping. I wonder how many league titles should be taken away because Sir Alex had “very good relationships” with some refs and the refs had “earned his respect”. Because the fact alone that refs might have contact with the most important manager of them all is enough to bring the whole league in to disrepute.

In the years gone by I have on numerous occasions said that the only way forward would be to investigate phone calls as they did in Italy to find out the calciopoli wrong doings. If the police had done this also in the PL then the contacts between Halsey and Sir Alex would have been found out. And action could have been taken earlier.

Oh how they shrugged their shoulders when I wrote that I saw all the signs of Calciopoli in the PL. Well Calciopoli in Italy was also based on making phone calls nobody knew about. What more phone calls have been made between Sir Alex and other refs?

The fact that it came out now because of a ref retiring shows is amazing. But it shouldn’t be. Because the PGMOL pays money to refs who end their career. The only thing they have to do to get that big cheque is to sign a declaration that they will not say a word about their career once retired.

Another thing that needs to be answered urgently is the question: Has the PGMOL started an investigation to check if other refs had contact with Sir Alex? When did they investigate this and how?

I wonder…why on earth do the PGMOL have to pay “silence money”? Is there so much more to hide then?

(If you are new to our continuous review of referee issues in the Premier League you might find it interesting to look at the article list at the foot of our latest ref review…)

END OF QUOTE. Beginning of rant......

Referees should be totally neutral.

Of course they are not (in many cases). But having personal telephone contact with managers (for example the ex Man Utd manager) is TOTALLY against the rules.

I am still angry about the way our Invincibles were prevented from going 50 games unbeaten because of a referee who , in my opinion, (legal requirement) was bent. Mr Mike Riley allowed our players to be kicked up in the air. Reyes was targeted as a soft touch. He was never the same player again. Ferdinand hacked an attacker down when he was the last defender. No red card. Not even a yellow. Rooney dived. Penalty.

Sickening.

clockender1
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Re: Referees - how honest are they?

Post by clockender1 »

its not a shock, there was a study done that if you reffed a United loss, on average the next time you reffed United was 2 years, if you reffed a win, it was 6 weeks.

United have been the FA's and media's favourites since they started winning EPL titles. that's why our 98, 02 and 04 titles were even sweeter.

91 too - united got docked 1 point and us two. then we dicked them at home 3-1 after winning the league before kick off.

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Chippy
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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by Chippy »

I've merged the 2 threads. Oldgit obviously didn't have his specs on. :twisted:

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northbank123
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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by northbank123 »

Jesus if JD gets back on here he'll have to get his tin hat on, remember him foaming at the mouth at United/referee threads before.

Tbh as insensitive as it sounds people won't run with this story much because it's Halsey, and after his illness he's become probably the first ref in history that you can't really slag off.

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Bradywasking
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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by Bradywasking »

Wasn't it Halsey who sent off Sol Campbell in 2003 at Highbury ? There was a story that the little cheat Solskjar was willing to back up Sol in his appeal but red nose wouldn't allow it...

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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by Jon »

northbank123 wrote:Jesus if JD gets back on here he'll have to get his tin hat on, remember him foaming at the mouth at United/referee threads before.

Tbh as insensitive as it sounds people won't run with this story much because it's Halsey, and after his illness he's become probably the first ref in history that you can't really slag off.
Well I don't mind slagging him off. He reffed the 2nd leg league cup semi against Ipswich. The ball hit him and instead of waving play on he blew for a drop ball.
Making his own rules up. One tiny incident in the grand scheme of things I know. Don't know if we'd turned that tie around when it happened but I let the **** have it, illness or not.

Also, that night we one the league prior to kicking off against Man U, travelling to the game was surreal, I just floated on air.

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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by OneBardGooner »

I heard part of an interview MH gave on the radio and have to admit he doesn't sound too bright! - He always seemed like an Okay(ish) Ref - who made mistakes as all refs (and Peeps do), but all he kept doing was saying' If people want to know the real/full story and facts they'll have to buy the book' in a very lame attempt to get people to buy it.

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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by OneBardGooner »

Chippy wrote:I've merged the 2 threads. Oldgit obviously didn't have his specs on. :twisted:
Oh Dear Chips You've done it now!! :D :wink:

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Re: Referees - how honest are they?

Post by OneBardGooner »

clockender1 wrote:its not a shock, there was a study done that if you reffed a United loss, on average the next time you reffed United was 2 years, if you reffed a win, it was 6 weeks.

United have been the FA's and media's favourites since they started winning EPL titles. that's why our 98, 02 and 04 titles were even sweeter.

91 too - united got docked 1 point and us two. then we dicked them at home 3-1 after winning the league before kick off.
Yeah! I always thought that we got stitched then... :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

But we had the last laugh! :D :barscarf:

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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by Perryashburtongroves »

The only thing that surprises me is that Howard Webb didn't answer Ferguscum's phone.

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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by arseofacrow »

OneBardGooner wrote:I heard part of an interview MH gave on the radio and have to admit he doesn't sound too bright! - He always seemed like an Okay(ish) Ref - who made mistakes as all refs (and Peeps do), but all he kept doing was saying' If people want to know the real/full story and facts they'll have to buy the book' in a very lame attempt to get people to buy it.
No, be came accross like it appears that most of these *word censored* have since professionalism came in, really in need of the acceptance of managers and high profile players.

Halsey should not do any more interviews.

:roll: :banghead: :twisted:

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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by officepest »

northbank123 wrote:Jesus if JD gets back on here he'll have to get his tin hat on, remember him foaming at the mouth at United/referee threads before.

Tbh as insensitive as it sounds people won't run with this story much because it's Halsey, and after his illness he's become probably the first ref in history that you can't really slag off.
From what I've read, Halsey's been pilloried in the media (print and tele) for his rather stupid admissions. Cancer notwithstanding, he comes across as a rather desperate wannabee.

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g88ner
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Re: Halsey's revelation about Sir Red Nose

Post by g88ner »

I'm baffled by these revelations that Mikel kicked the refs door in and threatened to break his legs... how is that only a 3 match ban? :shock: :?

Di Canio got 11 games for pushing a ref and Petit got 3 games for simply putting his hands on Durkin a few years ago. And manager's frequently get touchline bans for criticising refs in interviews! All of these incidents pale in comparison to what Mikel did. :?

Crazy. Are the FA that scared about about being PC that they'll let someone behave like a thug with little or no punishment? they should have thrown the book at Mikel for such behaviour, yet it's been largely swept under the carpet. His colour and the false allegations are irrelevant - if that was Suarez, he'd be facing a 6 month ban, I reckon.

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