The beautiful game is no more. RIP. A strange comment I must admit ahead of what should be a couple of lip smackingly, mouth watering Champions League quarter finals. But give me a second to explain my irreverent comment to you purists and any other poor soul that has stumbled upon my words of wisdom today. Like a once beautiful girl that has let herself go, the beautiful game has gotten to stage where a stand needs to be taken, hard work put in and perhaps she can emerge from these dark times better than ever. The saying goes that beauty is truth and truth, beauty. Well I’m struggling to see the beauty in football through the pack of liars, divers, drunk drivers and gun toting maniacs that are calling themselves professionals in this day and age. Trust, loyalty and accountability are not words associated with much in football nowadays. The leaders of the game are like a bunch of paranoid junkies who have been locked in a room together for a couple days and things are about to get ugly. No one trusts Sepp Blatter or his cronies at FIFA. The FA are at constant loggerheads with everyone, including their former chairman and UEFA has been likened to a dictatorship by Arsene Wenger, amongst others. We need not mention SAFA. I can see now why the long lost cousin of football, William Webb Ellis picked up that ball and ran. He was on to something.
Say what you will about Rugby Union and the “thugs” and “boytjies” that play the game but they seem to have their heads screwed on straight. I can’t ever remember a player verbally abusing a ref or the whole Blue Bulls pack surrounding him for giving a penalty to the opposition. I’ve never heard John Plumtree calling a ref unfit or too weak to make the right decisions. Yes the system has it’s flaws, but those are far outweighed by the pro’s. I have a couple of proposals for those high up and supposedly knowledgeable suits. A couple words of wisdom that will perhaps bring the sparkle back into this game we know and love. Let’s me not ramble, let me get to it. Let’s change up some rules and ruffle some feathers. Starting at square one.
Ask any rube their biggest problem with modern football and diving that is bound to be the first word out of their mouth. It makes the rest of us real footballers look like a bunch of injury prone pampered swine that can’t run 5 yards without snapping our tibia in 2 places. So what’s a fella to do? I propose that for any injury that requires treatment on the field, barring head injuries, the player in question is required to stay off the field for 3 minutes to “recover” from their shattered metatarsal. Players will think twice before rolling on the floor writhing in agony if they knew their team would have to make do with 10 men for a couple minutes. They will however fear the boot that might be lodged in their skull should their team concede while faking an injury to get someone booked. The second aspect I would like to bring in is the citing commissioner. With the numerous television angles available to them, they can tell whether there has been contact in a tackle situation or whether a player hit the deck to win himself a free kick or penalty. If a player is found guilty of a 100% conclusive dive he will be banned for 2 matches without appeal. Simple. Effective. Stop faking and get on with the game.
On the issue of accountability, the FA and any other association for that matter, need to be able to criticise their referees and even demote them for bad performances. I can understand the frustrations of managers and players when the FA refuse to admit that a referee has failed to do his job properly and should be duly punished. Referees are accountable in rugby and cricket, but why not football? These are professionals and if there is a blatant mistake the FA should issue an apology and the referee should be punished accordingly. This will help to ease the tension they currently have with the managers and help to eradicate verbal attacks on the referee’s after matches. Respect works both ways, they need to understand that.
When it comes to citing, although there are inaccuracies in their system, Rugby Union have got it right. I don’t agree with this bullshit of “If the referee sees an incident and writes something in the match report, nothing can be done about it after the match.” If there is proof, nail them. It is another instance of never second guessing the referee. A case and point being both Rafael and Jamie Carragher’s tackles in the derby a couple weeks back. Both got a yellow card in the match for blatant red card offences. They should have been punished after the match and both should have received bans. You cannot expect to rid the game of horror tackles altogether but they cannot remain unpunished just because a referee wrote a side note in a match report.
There is plenty more that can be mentioned, like Didier Drogba’s habit of getting in the referees face over every decision or the every full-back has of throwing in a ball 20 yards away from where it went out but lets start with on major issues and iron out the minor details later. That is all ye know and all ye need to know. Let’s get back to football...
Enjoy the Champions League tonight, let’s hope Tottenham put on a spectacle because we know Jose Mourinho with his negative tactics and multimillion pound team will try grind out a boring 1-0 victory. Long live the beautiful game.
Commodore Vegas
No comments:
Post a Comment