We'd 100% have been awarded that penalty at the other end. Definitely not fixed. Just coincidence. It evens itself out.
I still don't think it's fixed, however I totally get the frustration. We're always told there's no agenda, and that ref decisions even themselves out over a season. I think the stats say we've had 3 league penalties since the start of 21/22 (105 games). I think 16 against? That isn't even. By any measure. That's before you sprinkle in things like the VAR farce at Wembley. What we'd really need to look at, is ratio of penalties awarded to penalty claims. But I doubt even that would normalise a ratio of 3:16. People said they wanted us to complain to the FA. Which we have done. Several times. It seems to have made absolutely zero difference.
I think it would give the appearance that refs have doubled down on giving stuff against us and nothing for us. But still we are on the wrong end of it more often than not most weeks.
Think it’s 1 in the last 69 league games now. 0 in 13 this season, 1 in 46 last season and 11 games since the last penalty the season before absolutely disgraceful!
And rightly so, to be honest. The FA can't change things retrospectively*, so what could we possibly ask for? They're never going to put out a blanket 'go easy on them' command. All that's needed is better referees (and for whoever was behind those VAR calls at Wembley to be sacked, and possibly tarred and feathered, then maybe deported to a desert island for a period of self-reflection). *I actually think retrospective decision changing is the way to go, personally, but I realise that it would be opening up a whole can of worms.
Yeah but surely this could just mean that our players foul a lot more in the box than teams we're up against?
There's no anti BFC conspiracy. That's a ridiculous assumption. Problem is we have a set of rules that the officials dont know how to interpret. Completely farcical.
Then how do you explain the differential in penalty awards? Surely inept referees are inept for both sides (in the long run).
It could mean lots of things. However I would suggest that a ratio of 3:16 is not a normal distribution. It’s more than 5x penalties awarded in the opposition favour, over 105 games. I can see how people might think that’s a trend, not just a blip. I would love to see more data, particularly on number of penalty claims.
There was a similar incident at Oakwell against Burton - player blocks the ball, his arm is away from his body, no penalty. Not to mention the heroic goalkeeping from Brayford at Burton last season.