Football in Crisis

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/english/2015/0223/682351-eamon-dunphy-id-rather-watch-the-rugby/

The article above by Eamon Dunphy, former pundit and Professional footballer brilliantly sums up where Football is at the moment - Cheats prosper.

It is difficult to really blame referees (in football), though. They do not get sufficient backing by the governing bodies.

Dissent/backchat should be met with an instant red (remember Dylan Hartley in the Rugby Premiership final?) just to ensure that such an offence is curbed almost instantaneously.

Video replays should be utilised more to give referees an extra level of support. Retrospective action should also be implemented where necessary.

Referees have the hardest job in football. The amount of abuse they get on sites like Twitter - from nobodies who would never dare to step up to the mark - is extreme.

They need greater support.

Never heard of Eamon Dunphy. If he wants to go egg-chasing, fine by me. Rugby was borne from cheating anyway. The entire sport has no moral high ground to take.

Azzy wrote:Never heard of Eamon Dunphy. If he wants to go egg-chasing, fine by me. Rugby was borne from cheating anyway. The entire sport has no moral high ground to take.

Football will never change, nobody really cares about it unless it happens against your team and if you try and make a stand for it a lot of people try and shout you down.

Azzy wrote:Never heard of Eamon Dunphy. If he wants to go egg-chasing, fine by me. Rugby was borne from cheating anyway. The entire sport has no moral high ground to take.

A famous Irish pundit - former Millwall player - had some famous run-ins with Jack Charlton & Mick McCarthy. Ghost writer of Roy Keane's original Autobiography. He's a football man, not a rugby man.

Have to agree with Duty that the officials have the hardest job, and that fans will always accuse them of cheating. It happened on here during the Liverpool game on Sunday for example, despite replays showing the referee made three very good decisions.

It's all well and good blaming UEFA, but Platini is Blatters lap dog and he does as he is told. If you are going to punish retrospectively then punishment has to be handed out for the players who role around on the floor to get players booked, for example Suarez against Norwich last year, or Ivanovic on Saturday.

Football's always "in crisis" and no-one does f**k all about it because it's too hard to deal with effectively and the "sticking plaster" method seems to be the best approach. Look at Chelsea and the "building bridges" logo on their shirts after the Paris incident.  You wanna make a statement, have the offenders brought to Stamford Bridge and at half time, march them to the centre circle and arrested in full view of everyone.

Re diving, shirt pulling, dissent etc, have referees send off so many players that matches have to be abandoned and clubs docked points for failing to control their players effectively.

Or be like Darren Gough on TalkSport and claim that referees have too many things to do nowadays what with carrying a can of spray around with them and a watch which tells them when a goal's been scored.

As folk have always said though, "today's news is tomorrow's chip papers"

Yup, those things wouldnt be mental

Thats the main reason i don't really watch much football anymore.
Only games I'm interested in watching are ones that involve Villa.
God that sounds sad

Diving is so annoying, players hardly getting touched in the face, going down as they have been punched. Ridiculous.

Refs do have difficult jobs though in fairness.

Dunphy is an attention seeking prat. Platini was a great player, sort of? If he thinks that then stick to egg throwing, Eamonn.

Video evidence is not for me.

Why not Stella? Players spend enough time surrounding the referee, if you had another official watching the replay it wouldn't take long and there'd be no arguments about it.

Derbymanc wrote:Why not Stella? Players spend enough time surrounding the referee, if you had another official watching the replay it wouldn't take long and there'd be no arguments about it.

Where does it end? Replays for throw ins, off sides? Let the ref and lino's do their jobs, and accept mistakes, like we used to.

The problem now is the technologys there to prevent it (hence goal line technology) BUT I can see your point.

I'd rather they brought in retro active punishment. Would allow the game to stay the same whilst letting the players know that they will be banned if caught.

How about a simple one video review per half, to be implemented by a team captain? If you lose your appeal, you lose your review

What can you review? Penalties/corners/red cards, perhaps, both for and against?

Just think how different it could have been for Graham Taylor if he could have reviewed the hauling down of Platt in '93 which was only met with a yellow, when it was a certain red.

And so on, and so on.

I'm not sure it would work as well in football as rugby video refs through the game that is. However I do believe more should be done retrospective to ban divers, abuse language etc.

Make it severe, a five match ban or more for diving etc. You'd have no games in Italy or Spain for a few weeks mind cos they'd all be banned

When it comes to cheating in the game, nobody ever points their finger at the coaches, do they..?

It's the coaches who teach young players how to cheat.  It's the coaches who work out ways of bending, or downright breaking, the rules.  It's the coaches who whisper in players ears that they have to be more "streetwise".  It's the coaches to tell a player, during training sessions, to go down at the slightest touch or how to "hang out a leg" or how to feign injury or how to get an opponent carded.

It's the coaches who teach teams how to make synchronised offside appeals in the hope of influencing a weak linesman.  The coaches tell teams they must swarm around the referee to intimidate him.  The coaches help their players perfect orchestrated dissent, distraction techniques so that the referee might not be able to identify a culprit in the melee, or increasingly, take action against the wrong player.

All these things are worked on during training sessions.  The training ground is the crucible of cheating.  And the coaches are the gurus of it all.

Players are usually not the brightest lights on the Christmas tree. You won't find many MENSA members playing in the Premier League. They are mostly impressionable young men who look up to their coach as the fount of all knowledge and follow his word slavishly. That's ok as long as the advice is sound and is genuinely directed at developing a player's talent. But when that player is having the wrong playing ethic put into his head and is told that it's "The only way to be a winner, son," then that's wrong and it needs to be addressed.

Rather than introduce technology into the game, that will only bring delays into matches and worse still, increase the already insidious influence of television, it might help if the FA were to start suspending coaches from football activity when a team's players are found guilty of cheating. Where it is established (any suggestions for criteria from the group??) that a team has a disciplinary problem, or that their sporting standards are falling below a certain level, then hold the coach responsible.

Dishing out a few hefty bans to some prominent coaches might just make some of the others think twice.  

The rules are there to be obeyed, not systematically bent, gotten round or manipulated.  We need to get at the people who are the root cause of those very things.

The Fourth Lion wrote:Rather than introduce technology into the game, that will only bring delays into matches and worse still, increase the already insidious influence of television, it might help if the FA were to start suspending coaches from football activity when a team's players are found guilty of cheating.

Firstly, I really don't think coaches have as much influence as you suspect...

Secondly, a video assistant would add almost no time to the game. This idea that the game has to be stopped to go to the video replay is nonsense. If you have another assistant watching the game on tv with the aid of replays, he (or she) would just assist the referee as a linesman does. On average there are only 2-3 'big' decisions a game and those decisions will take 30 seconds if that to go over (5-20 seconds from trials in the Netherlands). No different from the referee going over to talk to the linesman. I wouldn't have any appeals for teams or managers. They should have no influence on the refereeing on a game. The refereeing should be left for the officials.

I would also like to see more retrospective refereeing. I have suggested before that the referee should go over games within 24 hours and before they have put there report in. Let referees and associations be able to add/ take yellow and red cards retrospectively. Also make sure all incidents get the same punishment regardless of whether it 'was seen or not'. Sterling slapped another player and got nothing whereas others got a three game ban. How does that work?

I would also bring in a 'code of conduct' for players like the NFL where anyone caught surrounding the referee, cheating etc get fined. I would also like to see the associations notify players about their behaviour such as "play a was caught diving/ simulating... Here is the video. Stop this behaviour in future games'. If players know they are going to get caught out/ booked/ fined retrospectively, they will be less likely to do it in a game.

I don't think cheating is a new thing in football either. I think it has always happened. It has just been more prevalent since Sky came in and started replaying every aspect of the game in slow motion. I also don't think fans/ some pundits realise that if you are running, twisting at speed slight touches can unbalance players and that a foul can still be a foul with no contact. Just because a player avoids getting hit doesn't make it a dive. Similarly not all contact is a foul. My criteria is always has there been a challenge.

I'd hardly call it a crisis in football. Obviously the referee's have complete control of any match, but I'd hardly say its a crisis situation but it is very much something that needs improving for significant results in the future.

Although, referee's in rugby are very strict but they only ever stick to the rules. Although, it is quite poor how Fifa and the FA especially aren't even trying to change anything when the fans, the players, the clubs and even the referee's themselves are saying that they need help and that technology would help them a lot. So, why go against the obvious and why not just give them the help they need.

Eamon Dunphy was a very fine player - he certainly knows what he's talking about though I would say he's wrong to castigate the standard of refereeing, he should be going after the FA (as far as the English leagues are concerned). The strongest suspicion watching games and retroactive judgement that the bigger the club the more latitude is granted. Harrassment of referees during a match is shocking, yet several present-day pundits/critics were among the worst offenders.

The goalline technology showed that video has a place for some decisions, but certainly wouldn't be appropriate for all, and those advocates for video-for-every-decision should learn from the NFL that it can lead to interminable delays in play and still reach a debatable decision.

Are coaches to blame? No more than owners (who pay them, after all) and players - appropriate punishment would result in improved discipline, speed up the game and enhance the spectacle.

But it starts and ends with the authorities, whether FIFA, UEFA, FA, etc, etc.. Unfortunately, the old saying about power corrupting is never more true than in present-day sports.

Agree with that. Everyone has said that referee's would use the technology and the extra help. The only argument the FA have is that football is meant to be a fast paced game, but it always takes a good 30 seconds for a free kick and technology would only speed up the process and doesn't make human errors. It could do sooner rather than later, but not always.

The question is what and how do they fix the technology into the game? They've already added the vanishing spray and goal line technology, so what's next on the agenda?

There appears to be a lot of support for TV referees to assist the match official.  

As you could probably gather, I'm not in favour of it.  A TV replay may show instantaneously, for instance, that the ball struck a player's hand, but for a TMO (Television Match Official) to analyse whether there was intent, or if it was a case of 'ball to hand' might take several looks and that would take more than the few seconds that some suggest.

There is also the matter of fouls.  Again, the TV replay may quickly show whether or not contact took place, but was the contact sufficient to cause the player to fall down?   It may take several looks to see if the 'fouled' player was really brought down or could have stayed on his feet, or whether he deliberately allowed himself to run into the opponents leg, making it look like a foul.

I have, in the past, watched matches on TV and listened to commentators and pundits discussing an incident and, looking at the clock, noticed that two of them can be discussing an incident for several minutes, taking many looks from multiple camera angles and still can't agree on what happened.  

For any TMO to be effective, there would have to be a blanket rule, something like "All contact is a foul", therefore effectively eliminating tackling from the game.  "All handball is deliberate" therefore encouraging players to aim the ball at an opponents hand.  We could have the farcical situation of players running around with their hands behind their backs, waddling around the pitch like penguins for fear of having the ball kicked at their hand.

Calls for the introduction of TV technology are always well meant, but usually poorly thought out.  I again go back to the subject of coaches.  Once such an innovation is introduced they will inevitably try to find ways of taking advantage and then teaching players to do what is necessary to slant situations in their favour.

Football Light says that referees should have complete control of the game and I agree with that.  No allocation of "challenges" to decisions, even on a limited basis.  All this would lead to is frustration when a team has used up its challenge and the ref then makes a howler.  Managers would be foaming at the mouth in post match interviews and pundits would be drooling over the opportunity to call the situation a mess and demand that the number of challenges be increased.  

If challenges were not allowed and the decision to go to the TMO was the referees alone, imagine the amount of pressure players would subject the referee to, to go to the TMO.  If we thought that dissent was bad now, just wait until TV replays are available.  It would be anarchy out there.

I agree the refereeing of matches is flawed.  "Referees are only human" is an old cliché in the game, but it's a true one.  Always has been, always will be.  Referees make errors.  Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Ever was it thus so.    Put your big boy panties on and get on with the game.  It all evens out over the course of a season. I believe this.  Some may not, but I do.

I still suggest that disciplining coaches for the behaviour of the players that they train and teach would have a beneficial effect.  I disagree Spotform's assertion that they have little or no influence.  If they didn't, they wouldn't be needed.   If this behaviour wasn't taught to players, there wouldn't have been such an explosion of it in the game in recent years.  It's so prevalent.... so widespread.... so consistent in its style,  application and method of execution that it cannot be spontaneous.  Who else is in a position to influence, educate and teach players in the "dark arts", across the board to such a degree?

I would not be keen to see blanket rules introduced to cover all incidents regardless of human factors such as intent or body mechanics, or to deliberately ignore the possibility of the connivance of players to manufacture situations.

I think the FA are right to resist the blanket introduction of TMO's.  Things aren't perfect, but TV evidence wouldn't be any sort of panacea, all it would do is create a whole new set of problems to deal with.

I can understand your point about TMO. But why use the technology there and use watch like material to invent a device that will do something similar to goal line technology? Just a simple "foul watch" wouldn't be a bad idea would it? Just as easy because you can then programme it to the laws of game and then it can decide what is a foul and what isn't.

Then with a foul watch players will be taught how to tackle properly and then coaches can't say to them that you might get away with normally, with technology you won't and then clubs and coaches can start using them as well.

FootballLight wrote:I can understand your point about TMO. But why use the technology there and use watch like material to invent a device that will do something similar to goal line technology? Just a simple "foul watch" wouldn't be a bad idea would it? Just as easy because you can then programme it to the laws of game and then it can decide what is a foul and what isn't.

Then with a foul watch players will be taught how to tackle properly and then coaches can't say to them that you might get away with normally, with technology you won't and then clubs and coaches can start using them as well.

Goal line technology works because the goals are fixed points and several cameras can be set in static positions and can be linked to a computer that will quickly and accurately assess whether or not the whole ball crossed the line.

Footballers are not fixed objects. They move around (well, unless they play for Portsmouth, that is ). Perhaps the technology has not yet been invented that can accurately follow 22 players around and assess their every move.

The Fourth Lion wrote:

FootballLight wrote:I can understand your point about TMO. But why use the technology there and use watch like material to invent a device that will do something similar to goal line technology? Just a simple "foul watch" wouldn't be a bad idea would it? Just as easy because you can then programme it to the laws of game and then it can decide what is a foul and what isn't.

Then with a foul watch players will be taught how to tackle properly and then coaches can't say to them that you might get away with normally, with technology you won't and then clubs and coaches can start using them as well.

Goal line technology works because the goals are fixed points and several cameras can be set in static positions and can be linked to a computer that will quickly and accurately assess whether or not the whole ball crossed the line.

Footballers are not fixed objects.  They move around (well, unless they play for Portsmouth, that is ).  Perhaps the technology has not yet been invented that can accurately follow 22 players around and assess their every move.

Suppose that's a fair point.

All you need to review potential foul play or off the ball incidents is a camera at each end of the stadium that can see the whole pitch from behind the goal on top of the stand. Have a team in a room in London or Manchester or wherever watching every Premier League game and then they can look back at incidents the ref missed and inform the ref that in the next break in play that he should yellow or red card someone.

It might be 5 minutes after the event but it'll still be a deserved red card and a suspension. None of this BS that goes on now with the FA reviewing things on whether the ref saw it or not. The Aguero stamp on David Luiz and Rooney elbow vs Wigan come to mind as perfect events for this system. I wouldn't have refs awarding free kicks or penalties and resetting the clock. Just send off the guy who deserves sending off and carry on with the next throw in or corner or whatever the stoppage was for.

That's where I'd draw the line with technology in football. Goal line tech and this incident review system.

People who are against video reviews because "where will it end?" frustrate me. When video review is introduced into a sport they set out guidelines for exactly which situations it can be used in. You aren't gonna get managers calling for replays every two minutes like some people seem to think.

People thought goal line technology would slow the game down. It hasn't and isn't as long winded as it is in the NHL. In the NHL play can go on for a few minutes before the play stops and the ref gets a chance to review video of the goal or no goal. Then if it is a goal they have to reset the clock as if the last say 3 minutes 57 seconds never happened.

Why do the refs not even look at the replays on the big screen that are already installed in the stadium???

Whilst he's surrounded by both sets of players he could just look up????

CFCNick wrote:All you need to review potential foul play or off the ball incidents is a camera at each end of the stadium that can see the whole pitch from behind the goal on top of the stand. Have a team in a room in London or Manchester or wherever watching every Premier League game and then they can look back at incidents the ref missed and inform the ref that in the next break in play that he should yellow or red card someone.

It might be 5 minutes after the event but it'll still be a deserved red card and a suspension. None of this BS that goes on now with the FA reviewing things on whether the ref saw it or not. The Aguero stamp on David Luiz and Rooney elbow vs Wigan come to mind as perfect events for this system. I wouldn't have refs awarding free kicks or penalties and resetting the clock. Just send off the guy who deserves sending off and carry on with the next throw in or corner or whatever the stoppage was for.

That's where I'd draw the line with technology in football. Goal line tech and this incident review system.

People who are against video reviews because "where will it end?" frustrate me. When video review is introduced into a sport they set out guidelines for exactly which situations it can be used in. You aren't gonna get managers calling for replays every two minutes like some people seem to think.

People thought goal line technology would slow the game down. It hasn't and isn't as long winded as it is in the NHL. In the NHL play can go on for a few minutes before the play stops and the ref gets a chance to review video of the goal or no goal. Then if it is a goal they have to reset the clock as if the last say 3 minutes 57 seconds never happened.

What happens if a player scores a goal before the team in the TV studio get around to notifying the referee? It could be a second yellow card that is issued leading to the player being sent off, but the goal he scored when, technically at least, he shouldn't have been on the pitch, would still stand.

We are chasing Nirvana here, people. There seems to be some sort of vision of a footballing utopia where television solves everything and nobody will ever get anything wrong ever again.

Hey, how about this.... why not just do away with on pitch officials altogether..!! Have a team of officials in a studio, well away from the pitch. When they need to make a decision a klaxon sounds to stop the game and the decision could be flashed up on the big screen. There would be nobody for the players to surround or dissent to and everything would be absolutely right, 100% of the time.

Any player who refused to conform to an on-screen decision would be removed from the pitch by FA heavies and given a lengthy ban.

The referees could be completely anonymous because nobody would ever see them and their names could be kept confidential.

Wow..... what a great idea..!! I'll email the FA immediately. Refereeing problem solved..!!

The point of my idea is that the tv review team alert the referee within seconds and then he can wait for a stoppage to deal with it do we don't spoil the flow of the game.

I would suggest that they reset the clock to when the offence occured but you've been so positive about what I've already suggested.

I don't get why there's opposition to having a video ref sitting and watching the game whilst passing info to the ref. He spends 5 mins trying to get both teams to p!ss off and let the game restart after a big decision (penalty, sending off, dive, throw in against Man U

hampo171 wrote:Have to agree with Duty that the officials have the hardest job, and that fans will always accuse them of cheating. It happened on here during the Liverpool game on Sunday for example, despite replays showing the referee made three very good decisions.

It's all well and good blaming UEFA, but Platini is Blatters lap dog and he does as he is told. If you are going to punish retrospectively then punishment has to be handed out for the players who role around on the floor to get players booked, for example Suarez against Norwich last year, or Ivanovic on Saturday.

I think fans accuse them of being weak and incompetent............Thinking about reprisals of decisions instead of calling what they see....

If Clattenburg doesn't give a second yellow for Suarez awful dive in the huge City match last year when he obviously saw it.....

What chance have we got of a performance from so called lesser referees...and this year the problem is worse...

No sympathy for them..............They are regular offenders..

You can't forgive constant mistakes just because a job is difficult....................Clubs can lose millions...

No referee ever goes out to cheat no way. However the standard in officiating this season has just been laughable. I think it's the idiots in the FA and the people who train the officials up that deserve a lot of the Blame. I respect its a hard job but some of the major decisions we have seen this season quite frankly I'd be appuled to see at pub football standard.

It is near-enough impossible to blame referees. Split-second decision making (whilst the man in the armchair has all the time in the world with a multitude of different angles and slow-motion), huge amounts of pressure, the utmost concentration required for an hour and a half, and no backing from higher authorities.

With the game getting faster, and the morals of the game descending further still, it is a near-enough miracle that accuracy on major refereeing decisions is at its highest ever recorded level.

Miracle workers the lot of them.

Duty281 wrote:It is near-enough impossible to blame referees. Split-second decision making (whilst the man in the armchair has all the time in the world with a multitude of different angles and slow-motion), huge amounts of pressure, the utmost concentration required for an hour and a half, and no backing from higher authorities.

With the game getting faster, and the morals of the game descending further still, it is a near-enough miracle that accuracy on major refereeing decisions is at its highest ever recorded level.

Miracle workers the lot of them.

You wumming are you Mate..

Duty281 wrote:It is near-enough impossible to blame referees. Split-second decision making (whilst the man in the armchair has all the time in the world with a multitude of different angles and slow-motion), huge amounts of pressure, the utmost concentration required for an hour and a half, and no backing from higher authorities.

With the game getting faster, and the morals of the game descending further still, it is a near-enough miracle that accuracy on major refereeing decisions is at its highest ever recorded level.

Miracle workers the lot of them.

I'm not blaming the referee's because I know I wouldn't want to be in that position. Obviously it is a very difficult job but you've got to help them when they have said themselves that they need help themselves so just help them when they need it using a video ref. It could slow the game down, but would that be a problem?

FootballLight wrote:

Duty281 wrote:It is near-enough impossible to blame referees. Split-second decision making (whilst the man in the armchair has all the time in the world with a multitude of different angles and slow-motion), huge amounts of pressure, the utmost concentration required for an hour and a half, and no backing from higher authorities.

With the game getting faster, and the morals of the game descending further still, it is a near-enough miracle that accuracy on major refereeing decisions is at its highest ever recorded level.

Miracle workers the lot of them.

I'm not blaming the referee's because I know I wouldn't want to be in that position. Obviously it is a very difficult job but you've got to help them when they have said themselves that they need help themselves so just help them when they need it using a video ref. It could slow the game down, but would that be a problem?

I would be very supportive of video technology to help officials, as well as heavier retrospective punishments to deter on the field cheating.

Slowing down of the game would be a worthwhile price to pay.

Duty281 wrote:

FootballLight wrote:

Duty281 wrote:It is near-enough impossible to blame referees. Split-second decision making (whilst the man in the armchair has all the time in the world with a multitude of different angles and slow-motion), huge amounts of pressure, the utmost concentration required for an hour and a half, and no backing from higher authorities.

With the game getting faster, and the morals of the game descending further still, it is a near-enough miracle that accuracy on major refereeing decisions is at its highest ever recorded level.

Miracle workers the lot of them.

I'm not blaming the referee's because I know I wouldn't want to be in that position. Obviously it is a very difficult job but you've got to help them when they have said themselves that they need help themselves so just help them when they need it using a video ref. It could slow the game down, but would that be a problem?

I would be very supportive of video technology to help officials, as well as heavier retrospective punishments to deter on the field cheating.

Slowing down of the game would be a worthwhile price to pay.

Is there not a tournament this year to test it? Is there an U21's Championship of some sort this summer? Why not try it out there just like they did with goal line technology in the World Cup last year?