Chris Hart – a Hammers-mad legal eagle is the chief executive of Torquay based Wollen Michelmore LLP Solicitors.
He is a personal friend and member of the ClaretandHugh Facebook forum and has written and rung the FA about the shameful Callum Wilson equaliser and referee Bobby Madley’s awful blunder. Now he has come to some more fascinating conclusions as to where this may lead and what the Irons ‘briefs’ should be doing as a result.
We are very grateful to Chris, for his professional insight into this awful affair and we will be forwarding this article to the club, Football Association and the Premier League.
By Chris Hart
So what would happen if West Ham were relegated by two points or less. I think we all accept that errors happen in games in terms of officials and also in terms of players simulating or making the most of situations. That’s part of the game – although West Ham do seem to have more than their fair share of contentious decisions go against them.
However what we have here is not only a case of blatant cheating by the player who persuaded the referee to review the decision because he didn’t touch the ball.
He then admitted within a few minutes at the end of the game that of course he did touch it (with the added insult of the club celebrating the “touch of magic” on its official twitter account) – but also it’s a case of the most incredible incompetence by the referee who has been persuaded to overturn a correct decision by his official by partly his own ineptitude but also by the player who has lied to him.
I’m not sure that the new rules on successful deception of the official will help because that’s about winning penalties or getting an opponent sent off. However this seems altogether more serious than that and I would have thought that there’s a case for a charge of bringing the game into disrepute against both the player and the club which could have serious ramifications.
That still leaves West Ham without two additional points that they would (probably) have secured without the act of cheating and the incompetence of the official in overturning a correct decision.
I can’t remember another incident like this – yes referees and assistants confer from time to time but I can only recall instances when the original decision is backed. To overturn it and then be wrong on two counts is very unusual. Interestingly, you’ll have seen that the Chilean FA recently ordered the retaining of a penalty shootout because of a refereeing error.
I think West Ham and their lawyers should be making a real fuss about this and making it now – so that the FA is on notice of repercussions if the incompetence of their official results in relegation. It’s a bit like the spat between Somerset and Middlesex with regard to relegation from the County Championship last September.
Once Middlesex were relegated they tried to go back to appeal a decision in the Surrey game several weeks earlier and their appeal was ultimately thrown out, partly I believe because they’d left it too late to protest that decision, which in turn could be argued to have an effect on other teams (Somerset) because they knew what they needed to do to stay up and did it.
To retrospectively move the goalposts after the event would have been unfair. This is why I think West Ham need to be making their case on this travesty to the FA right now.
Swings and roundabouts. We were lucky at Stoke with a decision that went our way and unlucky with this decision. West ham should just do what ManU do and request that this ref is never put in charge of a West Ham game again. I believe he is from Essex so maybe he is another in the long line of bitter Spuds.
Agree with E20 that it’s swings and roundabouts. I also think that the fuss surrounding this ridiculous referee has masked the fact that we were rubbish against Bournemouth. I sent a text to my mate during the game when the score was 2-1 and said that we’re lucky it’s not 5-1. If anyone had offered a point at that time I would have bitten their hand off.
This doesn’t excuse the scandalous actions of the referee in any way but let’s move on and take a convincing 3 points from the WBA game.
Someone out there must know where this idiot lives . Perhaps they should share the info .
He lives in Truro in Cornwall
With our luck the game would be replayed and we’d lose.
Move on ….Moyes needs to sort it out not the legal
fraternity
Gonna speak out here, everyone who keeps saying rubbish like ‘it masked how rubbish we were’ please remember thst we did claw our way back from 2-1 down to go infront 3-2. Ecen if we hadnt the point of this conversation is that there was a blatant cheat then deception then a ref over riding his linesmans decision. Stop getting so down on the team who no matter how crap were 3-2 up before the incident youre all starting to sound like spuds.
Rant over.
Agree E20 it does swing but that game Madley was all Bournemouth. Know its bad when even Spuds fans agree.
But could of been down to 9 men by halftime & that changes the game. And the most biased referring I have seen in a while. A neutral wouldn’t believe that we had more cards.
And FA are joke to still no bans so they need to do away w retro bans bc no consistency.
But I would take action bc they was disgusting decision making & I can’t believe he just had a bad day. Don’t overrule your linesman.
There is a very simple solution embraced by most sports now which is use of a video ref, as for nothing like this happening before what about the hand of god incident or the hand of Thierry Henry knocking us and Ireland out of World Cups I would say more important than a league match, players handling the ball into the net and linesmen being overruled by referees happens all the time at every level of the game, sometimes the ref’s are right and sometimes not but football at elite level can afford video ref’s knowing FIFA and UEFA they will fudge it for the big clubs advantage by creating grey areas that will allow the big teams to maintain an advantage but anyway that is an arguement for another day.
It’s too late to do anything about the 2 points lost….they’re gone and there’s nothing the FA can do about that. However what they can do is ban Callum Wilson for cheating in the same way Lanzini was punished for allegedly diving.
The FA should also immediately relegate Madley to the lower leagues as he clearly is not competent to referee in the premier league. His track record beggars belief!
If we are relegated by 2 or less points then perhaps the club should consider doing to Bournemouth what Sheffield United did to us when we were forced to pay them millions in compensation for supposedly breaking the rules with playing Tevez
Born and raised in Wakefield lol! A northerner ? Essex ? 😂
He’s a cheat ! Needs addressing ! But the FA will do nothing ? A legal action would bring it more attention that it needs , this isnt about one incident ! Its about historic decisions against us and others , the problem is that there are others who you can tar with the same brush! Var will tackle it but as I said before the FA will find a grey area to keep it going , its systemic cheating and the time has come for improvements to stop it and the way to stop it is to challenge every decision that is incorrect and force the change ! The FA has become a dictatorship, Its self governed bias needs to be addressed and clubs need a say in the decisions that need to be addressed ! Its become totalitarian , money not sport has been steadily spreading a cancer in the sport which is reaching heights never imagined 5 years ago! The Muppet Wilson and his remarks show the state of the game when he blatantly took the pee with his comments , he’s clearly uneducated in ethics or fair play and showed his disrespect to the sport he represents , the FA must act or face criticism to which the muppets would sweep under the carpet anyway ! Nazis in sport ! Its the same without the violence but the outcome is still the same , totalitarian rule ! Clubs need a bigger say ! 😎
Legal action?!?!
Jesus wept, we’re beginning to sound like the blunts!
The FA will do fa, so move on!
So we just suck it up until it happens again next week or the week after. If no one says or does anything this s##t will keep happening. Not only to us but all the so called little clubs. if someone makes a stand, hopefully other teams will back us and maybe, just maybe it might create a change for the better. Worse way it publicises the faults in the F.A.s policies. by highlighting the faults perhaps they will make changes. Nothing ever got changed without somebody standing up and confronting the problem. Someone has to be the first to put their neck out. Why not us. Nothing to lose as far as I can see.