Premier League enters Trump post-truth era — led by Nottingham Forest social media tirades

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis appears to have emboldened his team on social media. Photo: AFP/PAUL ELLIS

During Brian Clough's famous meeting with John Motson in 1979, the great Nottingham Forest sage passionately defended officials and the difficulties they faced. “The standard you expect to come from the judges is incredible,” he chided. “I worked a little in your industry as an amateur. I looked at one of your screens 24 times and still couldn’t figure it out.”

How could he judge his club 45 years later? Today, Forest not only demands unrealistic perfection from officials, but also questions the integrity of VAR for allegedly supporting the opponent. This kind of behavior would make Old Big Ul's blood boil.

In their frantic bid to seek redress for «extremely poor» refereeing decisions against Everton last Sunday, Forest would do well to reflect on Clough's wisdom. It’s just that the depravity of online tribalism tends to drown out any reflection. Rather than retract their already infamous tweet — «we warned VAR was a Luton fan» — Forest redoubled their efforts, egged on by sycophants to mistake their pathetic persecution complex for some righteous crusade.

< p>This passionate climate dictates that facts no longer apply, only interpretations. So Forest's outrageous insult that Stuart Attwell denied them three penalties because of his supposed allegiance to Luton Town, their fellow relegation hopefuls, remains unchallenged. There is no mention of how referees are forced to declare their loyalty to the club before the start of each season, or how Attwell carried out VAR duties week after week without causing complaint. All that matters is that the club puts gullible fans into a state of collective victimhood.

Evangelos Marinakis, Forest's owner, is in good form in this area. In 2020, one of his other clubs, Olympiacos, criticized one of the «darkest days of Greek refereeing ever», saying they were withdrawing confidence in Mark Clattenburg as president of the country's central refereeing committee. The same Clattenburg has since been brought to Marinakis's tent, empowered in his prominent role as “arbiter-analyst” to preside over the showdown of his former colleagues. Unsurprisingly, the Football Association asked him to explain the club's appalling slander of Attwell on a public platform.