“The club issued a statement on social media criticizing ‘three extremely poor decisions’ after their 2-0 loss to Everton.”
“As of this writing, Nottingham Forest’s statement on X/Twitter has been viewed 40 million times.
The 47-word post followed Forest’s costly 2-0 defeat to relegation rivals Everton on Sunday, during which referee Anthony Taylor denied them three strong penalty appeals, with VAR Stuart Attwell upholding those decisions.
The statement reads: “Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we
“Nearly 24 hours later, Forest announced that they had formally requested the PGMOL’s audio recordings of discussions between referee Anthony Taylor and VAR Stuart Attwell regarding each of the penalty incidents.
Sources indicate that the directive to issue the post came from the club’s higher-ups. The Football Association has launched an investigation to determine if the reference to Luton-supporting Attwell violated any rules.”
Jamie Carragher said it was something “a fan would say in a pub”, and Gary Neville described it as the actions of a “petulant child”. The club has drawn praise for publicly questioning the integrity of Premier League officiating, and condemnation for doing so in equal measure.
Naturally, it has split those of a Forest persuasion too, even if the entire fanbase is seemingly in unanimous agreement that various decisions have gone against their side at various points throughout the campaign.
1865: The Nottingham Forest Podcast asked their followers whether or not they supported the statement in a poll, to which 64 per cent replied, “Yes, we’ve had enough” and 36 per cent responded, “No, it’s embarrassing”.
“It’s got a lot of criticism, particularly by media pundits,” Paul Severn, board member at the Nottingham Forest Supporters’ Trust tells i.
“However, I think speaking as a fan you view it differently to those pundits on Match of the Day or Sky Sports or whatever because you’re the one watching it every week and seeing almost unbelievable errors being made.
I can think of six or seven games off the top of my head where [officiating has] directly influenced a result. Penalties not being given, red cards not being given. There was the red card [to Willy Boly] against Bournemouth. These are errors that fans of all clubs are saying are horrendous mistakes and it’s one after another.
“This is supposed to be the world’s biggest league with the best players and the best matches and you have to ask if this system is fit for purpose, because it is having a huge impact on results and could cost clubs potentially hundreds of millions of pounds
