📅 October 14, 2026
Arbeloa Fined £25,000 for Saying Referees Wouldn’t Let Manchester United Lose
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The FA has fined Álvaro Arbeloa £25,000 and given him a warning for saying referees wouldn’t let Manchester United lose. The Fulham head coach said it after the 1-1 draw at Craven Cottage on Sunday 20 September, and he admitted the charge.
It’s the end of a story that started with Matheus Cunha’s late equaliser that afternoon. Arbeloa didn’t blame his defence. He blamed the officials, and he blamed the Manchester derby.
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What the FA said
The FA’s statement, carried by the BBC and the Evening Standard, says he “acted in an improper manner by making comments in a post-match interview that imply bias and/or question the integrity of a match official.” It ends: “Alvaro Arbeloa subsequently admitted the charge.”
He wasn’t banned from the touchline. Goal quotes the independent commission’s written reasons, which say his words suggested “not only that there was bias on the part of the match officials throughout the game on repeated occasions, but also that there may even have been an element of pre-meditation by them and/or others to try to make up for an error in a different match.” That’s the part that made it serious. Moaning about decisions is one thing. Saying they were planned is another.
What Arbeloa said
He was talking to Sky Sports straight after the game. “All fouls for them,” he said. “Every decision was for them. And I knew. I knew after the game against Man City that they [would not] let Manchester United lose here.”
The Man City game he meant was United’s home defeat the week before, when Erling Haaland’s goal was allowed to stand after a lot of argument. Arbeloa’s theory was that the officials owed United one. He also pointed to a foul given against Fulham on Harry Maguire just before Cunha scored, and the Standard has him saying Maguire is “a guy who is 100 kilos.”
The FA charged him on 30 September, per beIN Sports and ReadManUtd, and gave him until Thursday 1 October to respond. beIN also reports that he later said he may not have expressed himself correctly in English.
Why it matters to United
Not much on the pitch. The point from Craven Cottage stays a point, and nobody’s suggesting otherwise. But “the referees protect United” is a line that gets repeated every season by people who should know better, and this is the governing body saying, in writing, that a manager can’t say it without evidence.
It’s also a reminder of how that afternoon felt from our side. United fell behind to a Lisandro Martínez own goal and needed Cunha late on to get anything, which is all in our match report. If anyone had cause to feel hard done by, it wasn’t obviously the side that had to come from behind.
Arbeloa’s got bigger problems now. The BBC and the Standard both have Fulham bottom of the Premier League on two points after six games, still without a league win under him. A £25,000 fine is the least of it.
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Sources: The fine, the warning, the FA statement, the admission and the match date from the BBC via Yahoo Sports (14 Oct 2026, 10:58 UTC) and the Evening Standard via Yahoo Sports UK (Arthur Ferridge, 14 Oct 2026); Goal (Donny Afroni, 14 Oct 2026) reports the same fine and warning and is the only source we read for the commission’s written reasons. Arbeloa’s Sky Sports quotes from the BBC and the Standard; the Maguire line from the Standard. The charge and the 1 October deadline from beIN Sports and ReadManUtd (both 30 Sep 2026); the foul before the equaliser from the Standard and beIN; the “expressed himself” remark from beIN only. Fulham’s position from the BBC and the Standard (14 Oct). The Martínez own goal and Cunha’s late equaliser from ReadManUtd (30 Sep) and our match report of 20 Sep; the late equaliser also from the BBC. Not included: the referee’s name and the exact gap between the foul and the equaliser, which appear in one source each and which we couldn’t confirm elsewhere, and any response from Fulham, as none was reported.