As football fans, we often love to play the victim. We love to feel like the world is out to get us and our team and it is always personal.
It makes any future success taste all the sweeter, giving it more of a Universal Studios vibe – ‘A bunch of soccer fans, brought together by their feelings of injustice, set out on a quest to right the wrongs of the soccer authorities for what they did to their club.’
But the reality of these situations is often completely different.
Take Leeds United for example.
The most recent outcry from their fans emerged from the aftermath of their clash with Brentford at Elland Road.
Firstly, in an incident that occurred off the pitch, Bees midfielder Sergi Canos appeared to head-butt Ezgjan Alioski in the back of the head. It was caught on camera, yet the incident received no retrospective action. It was a blatant show of injustice. But was it an evil decision? Probably not.
Then, centre-back Pontus Jansson was handed a one-match ban for his post-match comments regarding referee Jeremy Simpson’s performance and his decision to award Brentford a first-half penalty. It was possibly a harsh punishment, given how a fine is a typical penance for similar comments. But evil? Almost certainly not.
Leeds fans were livid with the decision, which is fair enough. They had and have every right to call into question the rulings.
But the word chosen by most of them to lead with was ‘corruption’. A word that insinuates calculated and deliberate wrongdoing. Once again this was viewed as a case of the EFL and the FA conniving to bring the Whites down.
The club’s choice of words when responding did not help to fuel these accusations either, simply saying that they see “no value” in filing an appeal to Jansson’s ban. Showing that their own suspicions are perhaps beginning to align with that of their fans.
But the events of Saturday evening showed once again that this occasional desire to feel wronged will only stretch as far our own sides.
With Nottingham Forest 1-0 to the good at Elland Road and heading for an impressive three-point haul away to Marcelo Bielsa’s high-flyers, Kemar Roofe resorted to desperate measures and diverted the ball into the back of the net using his lower arm in the 82nd minute.
It was blatant cheating.
Aitor Karanka was furious. Costel Pantillimon was furious as were his teammates and the Forest fans in the away end and watching on television were also livid. It was a huge and undeniable injustice.
Just as the Elland Road faithful viewed the decisions to award Brentford a questionable penalty, deem Canos innocent of wrongdoing and ban Jansson as sure signs of the Football League’s corruption, surely Roofe’s quite blatant and unmissable handball goal was the same?
And of course, it was not. Why? Because it did not damage Leeds United. Whilst they can undoubtedly understand that the goal should not have stood, they most likely do not think it is a show of corruption either, just as Brentford fans no doubt understood that Canos should have been banned and that their penalty was at least questionable.
No fan of any team would accuse a governing body of corruption when their own side has benefited from a dodgy decision within a match.
Corruption, then, is not the word. A more appropriate one would be incompetence.
Incompetency is, and always has been, rife within the Football League. The Canos headbutt, the Jansson ban and the Roofe handball all come back down to the organisation and their inability to improve officiating both during and after matches. Something that is seen by all 72 clubs each weekend.
The reality football fans all across the land must grasp is that there is no Bond villain sat in Football League headquarters below a stormy sky, stroking a hairless cat and cackling to his cronies whilst deciding how to ruin their club next.
They are merely a group of people who should be an awful lot better at the jobs they do.