The two footed tackle debate

By Fernando

Being football fans every week there is always something new to debate but over the recent weeks it's been the same two issues and that's two footed challenges and refereeing inconsistency.

Most notably we've seen Vincent Kompany sent off for a two footed challenge against Manchester United despite their protestations that he won the ball which is something you would see most people over 25 claim because if you go back to the 80s and 90s it wouldn't even be a free kick let alone a red card but nowadays the rules have moved forward and are there to protect players from being hurt seriously due to the increased pace the game is played at.



Yet just a mere 3 days later Glen Johnson of Liverpool jumped in two footed in what was described by Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini as "a worse challenge then Kompany's" in which I'm inclined to agree with the Manchester City manager.



This leads to a debate about why referees are so inconsistent when it comes to any decision they make, most people nowadays watch games on their television where they're shown the replays of these challenges whilst the referees and linesmen/women make a one off judgment in a split second regardless of their angle of the challenges and what they're able to see of it in which it's impossible for referees to be right 100% of the time meaning at some point or other throughout the season you're going to have a decision against you which may be incorrect whether it being an offside decision costing you a goal like Emmanuel Adebayor vs Wolves over the weekend or whether it's a red card that shouldn't have been given like Jack Rodwell's tackle on Luis Suarez in the Merseyside derby.

This leads me to the Fifa rule book on two footed challenges which states that "A two footed tackle made from a short distance away, does not always pose a danger to an opponent, because the ball itself acts as a natural cushion between the players but when the 'two footed' tackle is made from some distance in an uncontrolled manner when attempting to make contact with the ball (or not) - certainly entails a large element of danger to the opponent and that players who use excessive force to make two footed tackles should be sent-off"

This leads many referees to be confused as to what action to take when the situation comes about leading to a difference in opinion over the rules between referees where one may send him off whilst another may take no action at all yet they will never truly know until they've gone home and flicked on Match of the day or Goals on Sunday and had a closer look at it from several angles which we would have already seen and can't understand why they wouldn't have seen it that way.

My personal view on this is that all two footed and raised stud challenges need to be abolished from football before more people like Eduardo Da Silva, Hatem Ben Arfa and several others get seriously hurt. Whilst referees and linesman/women will not always make a correct decision every time people need to start cutting them slack due to the complex rules they have to enforce.

Yet many of you will not agree with these views and go it's rather simple to be a referee all you do is whistle and point in the direction of the team the free kick is for and that when I say the rules are complex that I'm talking twaddle, and yet if you were asked to don the black shirt for a game 99% of you would shy away because you fear making the same mistakes they do.

It's time people realise that referees are never going be spot on 100% of the time and the quicker people cotton on to this the sooner we can move away from bringing technology into the game and go back to the game we know and love before it's too late and football becomes a non contact sport.

2 very different tackles mentioned there in passing:

Nigel de Jong breaking Ben Arfa's leg was a nasty, brutal tackle.
I think it's accepted by most reasonable people that Martyn Taylor did not even attempt to foul Eduardo.............................

to be honest, most of the time some of these challenges are blown out of proportion.....

Nigel Reo-coker said in a interview the other week, that the players were reluctant to tackle at all, in fear of being sent off

its ridiclous, one day in the future, it will end up being no tackling and how awful would that be!

Until all rules are written easily enough for all to understand and don't mention phrases like "in the opinion of", there will always be such inconsistency, FIFA just need to reword all rules to take any doubt from officials, ie. any attempted tackle where a player uses both feet to try and win the ball is a foul resulting in a red card.
I don't like the idea of red cards for mistimed challenges, but all officials need to follow laws that aren't disputable, they should be just as easy to understand for a novice to the game as they are to any internet 'expert'.

...and whilst they're at it, yellow cards should be able to be rescinded and any player should be charged with offences if caught on camera, whether refs claim to have seen the incident, or not.

A lot of defenders have come out recently and said if you're forced to slide tackle, it means you've made a mistake.

The main issue isn't that Kompany got sent off for his tackle, as if that's in the rules, then stick to them, it's the fact that some referees have a different way of dealing with things. For example, in the United/Liverpool game the referee was clearly a lenient one, the first booking coming midway through the second half. Maxi Rodriguez put in an awful tackle, had that been in the same game as the Manchester City one, then he'd have been sent off, the ref let it go because he was already about to be substituted.

I don't think it's that big of a deal, and the referee's being as susceptible to mistakes as the players makes it more entertaining in my opinion. Sure it can be frustrating when things go against your team, but it's just as frustrating when a player makes a mistake, or the manager uses stupid tactics. At the end of the game, football is there for entertainment, and to a certain degree the referees play a part in that.