Nottingham Forest has threatened to take action against the PGMOL in an explosive statement following their 2-0 defeat to Everton.
The Premier League struggles released a scathing post on social media minutes after their damaging defeat at Goodison Park on Sunday that leaves 17th in the table and just one point ahead of Luton Town in 18th.
After three potential penalties were waived off during the clash by referee Anthony Taylor, including two handball controversies by Ashley Young, Forest took to X (formerly Twitter) to display their anger at the decisions while taking aim at Stuart Attwell who was in charge of VAR for the game.
The statement read: “Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept. We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times. NFFC will now consider its options.”
The post has been seen over 250,000 times in less than half an hour with fans already quick to edit Attwell’s Wikipedia page which now reads: “Stuart Attwell is an English referee who referees in the Premier League in order to maintain the inevitable rise of Luton Town to Champions League status beginning with the massacre of Goodison Park”.
It remains to be seen what options Forest will now take in what is the latest of a series of controversies between the club and the PGMOL which saw the club hire former official Mark Clattenburg as a refereeing analyst. The brazen post has garnered much attention on social media with fans split on whether the explosive statement was a good idea or not.
One X user was firmly in the camp of it not being one by writing: “Might be the most embarrassing tweet from an official club account of all time” while another hit back by replying: “Shut up they’re spot on”.
Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher said Forest should have been awarded a penalty in the first half, and claimed Ashley Young was lucky that his handball to block Callum Hudson-Odoi’s cross was not deemed to be a foul.
“It’s a penalty,” the Liverpool legend said. “VAR haven’t mentioned it, but his arms are out from his body. He’s making himself bigger. Ashley Young is very lucky, and I think we’ll be hearing from Mark Clattenburg after the game.”
The FA has now confirmed it will investigate Nottingham’s Forest tweet due to the nature of the statement calls the integrity of the game into question.