The Red Cartel claim meets the card and penalty tables

Manchester City supporters have a name for what they believe is happening to their club: the Red Cartel, a reference to Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United, who all wear red at home. The idea is that the three work together against City. If that were visible on the pitch, it would show up in the cards and the penalty column. After 8 games, it does not.

The card table

City have collected 13 yellow cards and 1 red. Arsenal have 10 yellows and no reds. Liverpool have 17 yellows and 1 red. United have 16 yellows and no reds. City sit in the middle of that group, well below Liverpool and United on yellows and level with Liverpool on reds. A referee pool leaning on City would push the 13 up, not leave it below two of the three clubs in the accusation.

Arsenal are the one outlier, and they are the lowest. That is a point for Mikel Arteta's side and a tidy discipline record, not evidence of anything done to City.

The penalty column

Here City have the one number a fan can point to. They have won 0 penalties this season. Arsenal, Liverpool and United have won 1 each. Set that beside the card counts and the picture is thin. A single penalty separates City from three rivals across 8 games. One awarded spot kick would erase the gap, and no pattern can rest on a difference that small.

Penalties also depend on how a team plays. A side that keeps the ball and attacks in open space gets fouled in different places than one that counters. Without conceded penalties and foul counts side by side, a zero tells you little about intent.

What the grievance is really about

The Red Cartel line did not start as a complaint about referees. ESPN, in its piece published on 30 October, ties the phrase to City's long fight with their rivals over money and rules, and Soriano, the City chief executive, answered by calling the league's case against the club a conspiracy theory. That fight is now in the hands of an independent panel, which found against City in a verdict reported in September. City have said they will appeal, and Al Jazeera reports the appeal is due to be heard by January.

That is the arena where the argument can be won or lost, and it runs on documents and rulings, not on yellow cards. The pitch is a poor place to look for a plot when the same club is sitting joint-top of the league with Arsenal, as ESPN has it.

The verdict on the claim

The numbers do not support a refereeing conspiracy. City are booked less than Liverpool and United, sent off no more than Liverpool, and a single penalty from level with everyone. The data is mundane, and mundane is the honest word. Supporters who want to argue the cartel case have to do it in the boardroom and the appeals process, where the evidence is different and the stakes are far bigger than one spot kick.