area Next one off to the city ground this time Nico Williams the scorer this is our game Nottingham Forest against Spurs there's a lot in here again and we're talking again about hand and arm and t-shirt lines and all sorts of chat here Mark isn't there?

I think this is where VAR is at its lowest point.

I think people are not trusting the system.

They don't like the system.

And I think this is another clear example where football expect a goal.

I don't think, and I don't hear anybody that... doesn't see this as a goal or want to goal we know the law the law is if you scored even if it accidentally touches your hand and you immediately score the goal then the goal has to be disallowed what there has to be in this situation because the referee Craig Pawson gives the goal.

So the initial decision is goal.

Mark is that a case of then in Scotland you get what you pay for

Mark?

Yeah, what's happened here is Harry Maguire in the build-up to Manchester United's second goal, there was a suspicion of handball.

You can see by the up-switch defenders, there's an appeal.

And he does handle the ball with...

You could argue, and I think you could argue, if that happened in the middle of the field, would it be accidental or not? So I think you could argue it's accidental.

However, he does strike the ball towards the goal.

The ball was going wide and it takes a deflection off the Ipswich defender, Jacob Greaves.

But what Nico Williams was trying to do here, in my opinion, certainly I did in my day, what Nico Williams did here is he was trying to shoot and the shot gets off, it doesn't go, it's not on target, but we come back to a situation where pen or no pen.

West Bromwich Albion then marked last weekend, handball goal, two-game retrospective ban.

What's that all about? I think this is a dangerous situation and I understand.

We used to have, some years ago, when a player simulated and won a penalty, for example...

There was retrospective punishment where a player could be given a suspension afterwards.

And I was all for that.

But this was an instinct.

It was, do we expect the player to say, you know what, I'm sorry.

For those that watched the game at the weekend as well, just before I get your view on it, Michael Stewart was the co-commentator on this particular game and his words were, it was madness.

(instrumental music plays) All right, Mark, you left the Premier League in 2017, and last season, you returned to the Premier League in an advisory role with, uh, Nottingham Forest before stepping down at the start of May prior to the end of the season. Firstly, what- what was the experience like working with Nottingham Forest? And, and also, how did that come about?

Yeah, it was an interesting (laughs) challenge. Uh, and one that I actually enjoyed. It gave us a different perspective of football. One of the biggest things I learned was how much impact a refereeing decision can be. Players' moods, coaches' moods, the owners' moods, everybody within the football club. And I saw a different element of, you know, what goes on behind the scenes of a football club, um, certainly between the owner and the club. So, you know, it was a privilege, a short period of time to be there. And, and I certainly wasn't just there for refereeing. There was, you know, there were a lot of other things. I knew Mr. Marinakis, who owns Olympiakos in Greece, and while I was there, head of refereeing in Greece. We had many fights, of course, because he wanted his team to win, but in the end, he had a mutual respect for the work I was doing, and also, he wanted me to try and, A, help him understand, because what he could see, for example, in Greece or in Europe, the refereeing style and decisions weren't consistent with what was happening in the Premier League, and he was getting more- mo- more frustrated, because, at the end of the day, he wanted Nottingham Forest to stay in the Premier League, and they were suffering with results, and they were... you know, had the risk of being relegated. So, he just wanted, you know, somebody around the club that he could speak to personally, and I was more advising the board than I was getting involved in refereeing and I didn't have any influence because, you know, I'd been out of refereeing seven years, an- and it's a new group, and I didn't know any of the group, and I didn't really wanna know the referees, I don't speak to them, you know, they've got a difficult job without me speaking to them. I don't have any of the phone numbers. So, for people to suggest that I had a... I was trying to influence anything, that wasn't the case. I didn't even go and see the referees, I wasn't really interested at all. I wanted to know- to see that Nottingham Forest were getting fair decisions, or they were getting the same as- as other clubs in... At that time last season. I think everybody will accept, including their own KMI panel that the Premier League have, that Nottingham Forest were on the end of some raw decisions which were having a material impact on their performances and also their league position, so the owner felt it was good to have somebody around just to shout and scream at when things weren't going right. Before I arrived, they were sending a lot of letters. It was widely publicized that they were complaining a lot, and I was trying to, you know, help the pigeon well, but also the Premier League trying to dilute some of the- the complaints, because some of the complaints were not correct within, you know, refereeing, and I could try and help them put that right. But it ended because, you know, the pressure from the outside and the media and, you know, the sh- probably the stakeholders. Every week I was being under huge scrutiny for- for doing a job which I- I cannot half understand why, but I don't accept why a person who was a top referee, left refereeing seven years ago, couldn't go and work in a different job. It seemed to be that I'm labeled as a referee and therefore I can't do any other work.

... because there's almo- I don't know what Mark thinks about this, but it feels like increasingly there is a kind of state of conflict in which PJMOL are kind of trying to fight their own corner a little bit and push back on a lot of stuff that is probably unfair criticism, but the more they kind of dig their heels in, the more you wonder if their response is not as helpful as it should be. That would be maybe my- my- my kind of assessment of it.

Listen, it was simple what happened and, you know, on the Friday before Nuno's press conference, the journalists were gonna raise it and the club were made aware. There was some research done and it was realized that it was clear from some social media, some... A lot of things that Stuart was a Luton Town fan, making people aware that it was Everton, not Nottingham Forest and Luton were in this relegation. But there was also the points deduction as well hadn't been announced yet. So there was all of this in the, in the pot and I tried in my capacity within Nottingham Forest was to call PJMOL to say, "Look, are you aware of this issue?" And PJMOL's stance was they weren't aware of it, but they wouldn't remove Stuart from the appointment. I said, "No problems. Um, the wish of the football club is that he's removed and changed, of course, but it's your decision. You know, we can't force you to change. However, we just want you to be aware that this situation is going to be raised by journalists. Nuno will not speak about it, but to be aware." And I think what PJMOL had let themselves down was they'd lost Jon Moss weeks before to take up a role within Scotland and I feel that whoever was doing the appointments weren't aware of this conflict of interest. And Howard, who's the manager of the PJMOL, Howard Webb, he would have just overseen it. He has people to do his job, of course, but he's not going to scrutinize every appointment. He's hoping that somebody has done that and it was somebody failed in the system because Jon Moss had left. I understand why PJMOL didn't want to change because it makes them weak by doing something. But we did all this behind the scenes to try and help PJMOL because we know it's a difficult job, but I knew that it was a difficult situation because whatever happened in this match, Stuart was always going to get criticized and I felt for Stuart because I'm a human being, also an ex-referee, I understand what's going to happen and- and I felt it was a decision and I accept what PJMOL did, but in my opinion, it should have been changed when the draft appointments were done on the Monday and they agreed them within the management team and nobody would have known anything different. But in the end, it's the tweet. I had nothing to do with the tweet, by the way, so just put that on record. I wasn't involved in it. The lawyers, the owner and everything else within the football club, even the players, the coaching staff didn't have anything to do with this tweet. The tweet itself was probably... You're right, it was... The way it was brought out after the match was unusual for English football. I think some... This had never happened before where a club had made this- this step. I can guarantee that as many letters go in to the Premier League and PJMOL and also the lawyers are dealing with stuff on a week-to-week basis about refereeing. For a club to come out publicly, it's probably that was the first step which was an unprecedented step, which was unusual, um, and probably didn't help the situation because at the end of the day, Nottingham Forest still had many matches left to try and secure their status within the Premier League. So, what you didn't want to create was a fight between PJMOL, Premier League and Nottingham Forest because at the end of the day, the ultimate goal isn't that decision or Stuart Attwell's decisions. The ultimate goal was to stay in the Premier League. In the end, they did secure their status and in the end, that's probably all forgotten about. Unfortunately, it's probably cost the- the club a lot of money because the FA did charge. But the process, everything that went on that day was a unique situation, but certainly one that... It left me in a difficult position and certainly left us difficult with... Not with the club because I'm... You know, I've still- still got a relationship with Mr. Marinakis in- in his sporting empires. But at the end, a lot of it's desperation because they wanted to stay in the Premier League and do I agree with it all? For me, I can understand it, but it could have been done in a different way which would have had a different output and probably had a different result. But I think knowing what I knew in that short period of time, there was a lot of letters going back and forth and nothing seemed to be working, (laughs) you know?