Nottingham Forest cries foul play in inflammatory social
It’s 39 million views and counting for an inflammatory social-media post that might be unlike anything ever seen in English soccer.
The final whistle had just been blown on Nottingham Forest’s 2-0 defeat at Everton in the Premier League on Sunday when a post on X, formerly Twitter, was published by the frustrated losing club.
It went beyond criticizing match officials for perceived incompetence for the failure to award penalties for what Forest said were a trio of clear fouls during the game.
It pointed to potential foul play by questioning the integrity of the Video Assistant Referee — Stuart Attwell — who, the club said, is a fan of a team, Luton, that is battling with Forest to avoid relegation.
Signing off, the post said Forest will “consider its options” about how to proceed.
On Monday, the club released another statement, saying it has submitted a formal request for English soccer’s referees’ body to release the audio recordings between Attwell and the on-field referee, Anthony Taylor, for the incidents in question in order to gain “full transparency” and ensure “the integrity of our sport is upheld.”