[the phantom]

All right, all right… so you say you weren’t being paid last year to favor The Shire. Well that’s even worse! You should at least make some money if you’re going to turn the other way and allow a team to be crooked. But I guess you just do it for free. Wow. I could’ve at least respected an enterprising cheater, but it turns out you just have a soft spot for hobbits and allow it to show forth in your reffing. I have no respect for that.

And as far as this investigation business, why is the committee waiting for some kind of “formal complaint”? You know good and well there’s something fishy going on with those hobbits. It’s a simple matter of physics. Given the strength of their muscles and length of their appendages, hobbits should not be able to produce the necessary amount of kinetic energy to kick the ball with anywhere near the velocity of their opponents. And yet somehow they are able to pass effectively and score goals? Also, it is proven that they cannot run as quickly as dwarves, and yet they can somehow play defense against Elves? They aren’t tall enough to challenge any sort of head-shot, and their goalie isn’t tall enough to cover the upper half of the goal, so how are they not outscored 10-0 in every game? It makes no logical sense!

Either their opponents are drugged, or all the hobbits are on extreme performance enhancing meds (or both). It’s as simple as that. If you aren’t conducting an investigation, it’s because you don’t want to. There’s plenty enough reason to initiate one.

*sigh*

But I guess if you require an official complaint from a team, I'll see if I can get one to do it for me. If Mirkwood makes an early exit, perhaps I will be able to convince Necromancer and his cronies to lodge a complaint. I know he's not happy with that goal-line call in that last game versus Bree, and he has no love for hobbits.

Of course the complaint process (formal complaint, investigation, statements, appeals, etc) will likely not be over till after the tournament, which means that I have no choice but to put up with those little hooligan hobbits for a while yet.