Enforcing the laws of the game

[beardsleymagic]

There's been a lot of talk recently about players tackling and referees performances.

 

You get ex-professionals saying that the physical side of the game should be protected, and others saying certain players should be hanged by the neck until they are dead (okay a slight exaggeration ).

 

Of course Fifa could solve a lot of problems by introducing video technology, but because they are arrogant money grabbing suits, this is at the moment a non starter.

 

The FA could though help by informing all referees that ANY tackle deemed excessively hard  or dangerous, should be shown a red card. This could also apply to ANY holding in the penalty area at corners or free kicks as a penalty kick.

 

I know a lot of people will be up in arms at this suggestion, saying "we'll end up with 7 aside and 8 penalties per match". Ok, maybe. But after a few weeks of ridiculous scorelines and player suspensions, managers will soon start clamping down on players behaviour on the pitch. Would the De Jongs of this world have their managers blessing (or indeed support after the game) if they still went out and flew into tackles, knowing fine well they would be sent off?

 

This might also force Fifa's hand on the video technology front (unlikely i know). But hey, you never know.

 

Just to set the record straight, i don't want the good honest hard tackle outlawed. Just the dangerous career threatening one. The problem is, a lot of professionals in today's game don't know the difference.

 

So what do you think, would a few weeks (maybe more) of madness be worth it.

[Dr.Spaceman]

The refs just need to stop bottling it at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge etc

[Skirge]

The FA need to take more responsibility, they are totally fkn spineless and back their idiots refs way to much. They need to be honest when an official makes a mistake and abolish the stupid rule of if the ref seen it was cannot overrule them.

 

This kind of thing is going on week after week and is making the game a farce and the FA a laughing stock.

[wormy]

But it's not the FA Skirge, it's FIFA'. I've ripped into the FA for years for that rule, but like others have said on here since, it's FIFA's rule that a referee's decision can't be overturned.

 

Which is why I agree with beardsleymagic.in one sense that  if our referees actually punished players for reckless challenges, and a good point about set piece 'jostling' that has become an absolute joke, it'd go some way to helping.

 

But also, it wouldn't have given De Jong a punishment on Sunday. Remember the referee saw it, he didn't deem it a reckless challenge. So it wouldn't have made a difference with this rule enforced, would it? So all in all, you'll still have twats risking it.

[Skirge]

My bad yeah FIFA it is but surely the FA need to be asking for more control.

[wormy]

They've managed to get dispensation to punish retroactively before, surely they can do it again? Surely that should set a precedent in itself that retroactive punishment should be allowed?

[Skirge]

What about the Referee performance review system ?

 

The FA control that they should be allowed to punish shit refs, but how can they say a ref got it wrong if they cannot act on what they say the ref was wrong about.

[Guest BooBoo]

Violent tackles that result in serious injuries should be at least 6 match ban. The current 3 match suspension isn't enough of a deterrent.

[NoU]

As much as I hate De Jong right now, I don't agree on several points. And the OP seems to follow a very populistic path that can IMO very well end up ruining a lot of the beaty of the game.

 

There's been a lot of talk recently about players tackling and referees performances.

 

You get ex-professionals saying that the physical side of the game should be protected, and others saying certain players should be hanged by the neck until they are dead (okay a slight exaggeration ).

 

Of course Fifa could solve a lot of problems by introducing video technology, but because they are arrogant money grabbing suits, this is at the moment a non starter.

 

The FA could though help by informing all referees that ANY tackle deemed excessively hard  or dangerous, should be shown a red card. This could also apply to ANY holding in the penalty area at corners or free kicks as a penalty kick.I know a lot of people will be up in arms at this suggestion, saying "we'll end up with 7 aside and 8 penalties per match". Ok, maybe. But after a few weeks of ridiculous scorelines and player suspensions, managers will soon start clamping down on players behaviour on the pitch. Would the De Jongs of this world have their managers blessing (or indeed support after the game) if they still went out and flew into tackles, knowing fine well they would be sent off?

 

This might also force Fifa's hand on the video technology front (unlikely i know). But hey, you never know.

Just to set the record straight, i don't want the good honest hard tackle outlawed. Just the dangerous career threatening one. The problem is, a lot of professionals in today's game don't know the difference.

 

So what do you think, would a few weeks (maybe more) of madness be worth it.

The whole argument of Fifa being money grabbing bastards for NOT introducing video technology is IMO entirely false. It seems the people at FIFA pushing the video technology, are the ones who see what a massive amount of money there is to be made on the commercial breaks, that would necessarily go along with refs consulting video footage (as in American football).

 

As for the red card for ANY holding in the penalty area it seems extremely harsh and in no way realistic, even with video footage. I don't know how much football you've played, but with corners there will always be a lot of fighting when you do the tight marking that is necessary in modern football, and this isn't usually where players get hurt anyway. It is of course the refs responsibility to make sure it doesn't get excessive, but I think they do a fine job of that today.

 

The whole goalpost system for automatically saying when the ball is in the net, is of course an entirely different discussion, but I don't think that is the one the OP tried to start.

[TheGuv]

Danny Murphy was correct in what he was saying.

 

I just find it more annoying that it was Man City who were the side to do this to Barfa. Potential PL winners, and they go around letting a tw** like that put in 'tackles'. Clough's sides played properly and with fantastic disciplinary records. Fair enough a team like Stoke resorting to tactics like this but a multi million pound team??? It shouldn't be. If they ever want to be champions they should at least be good champions. Not even a rant but..rant over.

 

And probably in the wrong thread too

[Ronaldo]

Danny Murphy said all the right things, like.

[beardsleymagic]

As much as I hate De Jong right now, I don't agree on several points. And the OP seems to follow a very populistic path that can IMO very well end up ruining a lot of the beaty of the game.

 

There's been a lot of talk recently about players tackling and referees performances.

 

You get ex-professionals saying that the physical side of the game should be protected, and others saying certain players should be hanged by the neck until they are dead (okay a slight exaggeration ).

 

Of course Fifa could solve a lot of problems by introducing video technology, but because they are arrogant money grabbing suits, this is at the moment a non starter.

 

The FA could though help by informing all referees that ANY tackle deemed excessively hard  or dangerous, should be shown a red card. This could also apply to ANY holding in the penalty area at corners or free kicks as a penalty kick.I know a lot of people will be up in arms at this suggestion, saying "we'll end up with 7 aside and 8 penalties per match". Ok, maybe. But after a few weeks of ridiculous scorelines and player suspensions, managers will soon start clamping down on players behaviour on the pitch. Would the De Jongs of this world have their managers blessing (or indeed support after the game) if they still went out and flew into tackles, knowing fine well they would be sent off?

 

This might also force Fifa's hand on the video technology front (unlikely i know). But hey, you never know.

Just to set the record straight, i don't want the good honest hard tackle outlawed. Just the dangerous career threatening one. The problem is, a lot of professionals in today's game don't know the difference.

 

So what do you think, would a few weeks (maybe more) of madness be worth it.

The whole argument of Fifa being money grabbing bastards for NOT introducing video technology is IMO entirely false. It seems the people at FIFA pushing the video technology, are the ones who see what a massive amount of money there is to be made on the commercial breaks, that would necessarily go along with refs consulting video footage (as in American football).

 

As for the red card for ANY holding in the penalty area it seems extremely harsh and in no way realistic, even with video footage. I don't know how much football you've played, but with corners there will always be a lot of fighting when you do the tight marking that is necessary in modern football, and this isn't usually where players get hurt anyway. It is of course the refs responsibility to make sure it doesn't get excessive, but I think they do a fine job of that today.

 

The whole goalpost system for automatically saying when the ball is in the net, is of course an entirely different discussion, but I don't think that is the one the OP tried to start.

 

Yeah maybe i wasn't totally clear. What i meant was just a penalty for the holding in the area, not a red card.

[Guest neesy111]

I think the FA have to be mainly blamed on this, they are the one's who train the refs and we are allowed to flex the rules to our own league within reason.

 

Though I think some top class referee's should be sacked/demoted, or docked pay on some of the decisions they make, because quite frankly some of them don't add up.  This is a league worth a billion pound, we can't have teams going down on a decision nowadays.

[madras]

I think the FA have to be mainly blamed on this, they are the one's who train the refs and we are allowed to flex the rules to our own league within reason.

 

Though I think some top class referee's should be sacked/demoted, or docked pay on some of the decisions they make, because quite frankly some of them don't add up.  This is a league worth a billion pound, we can't have teams going down on a decision nowadays.

yeah and no. i can understand refs getting huge decisions wrong but when they get three wrong in one game, giving the benefit to the same team on each decision then there should be some sort of investigation.

[NoU]

I think the FA have to be mainly blamed on this, they are the one's who train the refs and we are allowed to flex the rules to our own league within reason.

 

Though I think some top class referee's should be sacked/demoted, or docked pay on some of the decisions they make, because quite frankly some of them don't add up.  This is a league worth a billion pound, we can't have teams going down on a decision nowadays.

yeah and no. i can understand refs getting huge decisions wrong but when they get three wrong in one game, giving the benefit to the same team on each decision then there should be some sort of investigation.

Come on. Does anyone here really believe that the ref was against us (as in bought)??

[Guest lebowski]

I think the FA have to be mainly blamed on this, they are the one's who train the refs and we are allowed to flex the rules to our own league within reason.

 

Though I think some top class referee's should be sacked/demoted, or docked pay on some of the decisions they make, because quite frankly some of them don't add up. This is a league worth a billion pound, we can't have teams going down on a decision nowadays.

yeah and no. i can understand refs getting huge decisions wrong but when they get three wrong in one game, giving the benefit to the same team on each decision then there should be some sort of investigation.

Come on. Does anyone here really believe that the ref was against us (as in bought)??

No Not bought, but it is hard to believe he wasn't swayed by the home crowd/ star players etc. Very easy to make decisions against visiting teams or teams from a lower echelon. Fergie has known this for years and rides referees blatantly accusing them of all sorts, as a consequence Man U get the 'rub of the green' when it comes to decisions.

 

Personally I am already sick of the poor referees' decisions that have gone against us this season. Not necessarily the Ben Arfa tackle either, I think the penalty decisions were more galling as even at first watch they seemed more obvious. Sadly it is likely to continue as Hughton sticks to the rules and doesn't criticise referee's (man city game rightly excepted) and where we are in the pecking order of the Premiership these days.

[morpeth mag]

Crime and punishment. Part of the problem in the game is that the punishments are minor compared to the penalty if caught cheating/fouling. I have been advocating a 20m 'penalty' for any yellow card to stop technical offences. I also think that there should be a severe sliding scale for teams relating to dangerous play but the penalty should quickly become a points loss. This would force the clubs to manage the problem themselves. I also think they should use video playback for retrospective punishments with one game bans for offences. For example they could stop holdiong in the box overnight if they reviewed every game and gave a one match ban to any player caught holding another player on two or more occasions.

[Begbie]

Crime and punishment. Part of the problem in the game is that the punishments are minor compared to the penalty if caught cheating/fouling. I have been advocating a 20m 'penalty' for any yellow card to stop technical offences. I also think that there should be a severe sliding scale for teams relating to dangerous play but the penalty should quickly become a points loss. This would force the clubs to manage the problem themselves. I also think they should use video playback for retrospective punishments with one game bans for offences. For example they could stop holdiong in the box overnight if they reviewed every game and gave a one match ban to any player caught holding another player on two or more occasions.

 

If they reviewed every game and gave a one match ban to the player caught holding another player on two or more occasions then it wouldnt be any players left to play the game. Both defenders and attackers are holding each other, so who is to blame then?

 

Ive never been a fan of video technolog but now i want it, this is mainly because it feels like referees are bought nowadays..

[Skirge]

I like what was said on Goals on Sunday today about managers telling players to stay on their feet.. go to ground and get booked you get fined, get sent off lose a weeks wages

 

Maybe we have it wrong.. let the club punish the player let the FA punish the club.

 

Yes there still needs to be FA bans in place for red cards and constant yellows but clubs need to take responsibility for their players.

[Colocho]

Post-match punishments. Simple as.

[JH]

Post-match punishments. Simple as.

 

 

They need to get rid of this "If the referee sees it and does nothing, there's nothing we can do" rule.

[Exiled in Texas]

They need to get rid of this "If the referee sees it and does nothing, there's nothing we can do" rule.

 

Agreed because that argument is technically flawed. 

 

It works on the assumption that the referee saw everything, and therefore made all their decisions based on total knowedge of each and every event. 

 

However, we know that referees either only see part of the incident, or at times don't see anything at all.  Howard Webb said after the WC Final that had he seen what De Jong really did he would have used Red not Yellow card, but the alignment of the player meant that he only had a partial view, and could only summise what might really have happened.

 

There is a huge difference between a situation where the referee waives off a call because he saw it and said "no foul" and one where he didn't see enough to call a foul.

 

So, the FA and FIFA need to accept that the referee sees one view, in real time only and does not have the luxury of mutiple replays from all angles, and that they need to assist the referees in cleaning up the game and not rely on the referees to do all the work for them.

 

And I would also only limit this to acts of misconduct (dangerous play, Unsporting behavious etc) and not attempt to get into reviews of Penalty claims or missed offside calls as there can be no post-game revision of the scores etc.

[madras]

They need to get rid of this "If the referee sees it and does nothing, there's nothing we can do" rule.

 

Agreed because that argument is technically flawed. 

 

It works on the assumption that the referee saw everything, and therefore made all their decisions based on total knowedge of each and every event. 

 

However, we know that referees either only see part of the incident, or at times don't see anything at all.  Howard Webb said after the WC Final that had he seen what De Jong really did he would have used Red not Yellow card, but the alignment of the player meant that he only had a partial view, and could only summise what might really have happened.

 

There is a huge difference between a situation where the referee waives off a call because he saw it and said "no foul" and one where he didn't see enough to call a foul.

 

So, the FA and FIFA need to accept that the referee sees one view, in real time only and does not have the luxury of mutiple replays from all angles, and that they need to assist the referees in cleaning up the game and not rely on the referees to do all the work for them.

 

And I would also only limit this to acts of misconduct (dangerous play, Unsporting behavious etc) and not attempt to get into reviews of Penalty claims or missed offside calls as there can be no post-game revision of the scores etc.

nope, what it does is sticks to the idea that the outcome is decided as far as possible by the ref within the game time. it could (in the eyes of fifa, and i have a bit of sympathy with it) open up all sorts of trouble should decisions be enacted after the game ie a player is given a red card retrospectivly, we'd see court cases from teams saying that it altered the game etc so they shouldn't have been relegated and lost all that cash and bankrupted.

[Montey]

The solution to tackles like De Jong's, shirt pulling, diving, and other stains on the game is actually quite simple.

 

If FIFA allowed FA's to operate post-match review committees that have the right to charge players with bringing the game in to disrepute then all of these problems will be got rid of.

 

In a case like De Jong v. Ben Arfa the post-match review committee would be asked to review certain incidents by NUFC, they would review the available footage, would charge De Jong with bringing the game in to disrepute and would suspend him for a number of matches.

 

If a player is alleged to have dived and been awarded a penalty, the victim club could request the incident be reviewed and the offending player (diver) could be charged with bringing the game in to disrepute and suspended for a number of matches.

 

This approach does not affect the run of play, does not slow the game down, does not require new technology to be introduced, it doesn't change anything that affects the outcome of a game.  It just allows the FA to weed out behaviors that it does not want in its league by suspending offending players.  If individual players become repeat offenders then the FA could ratchet up the suspensions for repeat offences... i.e. a first bad tackle would be a 3 match ban, if they end up being charged again the panel awards a 6 match ban, etc...  The repeat offender would get the message pretty quickly.

[wormy]

They need to get rid of this "If the referee sees it and does nothing, there's nothing we can do" rule.

 

Agreed because that argument is technically flawed. 

 

It works on the assumption that the referee saw everything, and therefore made all their decisions based on total knowedge of each and every event. 

 

However, we know that referees either only see part of the incident, or at times don't see anything at all.  Howard Webb said after the WC Final that had he seen what De Jong really did he would have used Red not Yellow card, but the alignment of the player meant that he only had a partial view, and could only summise what might really have happened.

 

There is a huge difference between a situation where the referee waives off a call because he saw it and said "no foul" and one where he didn't see enough to call a foul.

 

So, the FA and FIFA need to accept that the referee sees one view, in real time only and does not have the luxury of mutiple replays from all angles, and that they need to assist the referees in cleaning up the game and not rely on the referees to do all the work for them.

 

And I would also only limit this to acts of misconduct (dangerous play, Unsporting behavious etc) and not attempt to get into reviews of Penalty claims or missed offside calls as there can be no post-game revision of the scores etc.

nope, what it does is sticks to the idea that the outcome is decided as far as possible by the ref within the game time. it could (in the eyes of fifa, and i have a bit of sympathy with it) open up all sorts of trouble should decisions be enacted after the game ie a player is given a red card retrospectivly, we'd see court cases from teams saying that it altered the game etc so they shouldn't have been relegated and lost all that cash and bankrupted.

Very good point madras, most solutions we are thinking of would cause massive problems in that respect. Hadn't thought of that at all.