Yes

by Krishnan Srinivasan

Created on: August 01, 2010

In the recently concluded World Cup in South Africa, we witnessed several cases of poor officiating. Case in point is the disallowed goal in the England-Germany game. In fact, there were so many bad calls that we could have a poll to decide the worst of them all. Was it the disallowed goal in the England-Germany game? Or was it the stupid decision by the referee in the US-Slovenia game? Impact wise, Puyol’s foul against Arjen Robben, which incidentally was not given, should rank pretty high. Others include the goal that was allowed in the Argentina-Mexico game when Tevez was clearly offside, the bad red card to Kaka in the game against Ivory coast, etc etc.

The attitude of the players has been despicable in general, and the players have to share the blame for bad refereeing decisions to a large extent. They dive at any given opportunity, handle the ball deliberately, indulge in irritating time wasting tactics-the list just goes on. At the end of the day, we want to watch good quality football. We can go to movie theaters to watch actors. The other day, someone commented that the New Zealand football team does not have a national league. This person surmised that the lack of a national league would affect the team’s chances in the ongoing World Cup. But what seems to be missing from the Kiwis’ preparation is a course on acting. It seems that unless you know how to dive, you really do not qualify for an international match. The very players whose genius has immortalized the game of football have contributed to its downfall with their actions. We all remember the great goals Maradona scored in World Cup 1986. But we remember the “hand of God” more. While Maradona seems to consider this an achievement, he should actually use the hand of God to hide his face. No matter how many goals Cristiano Ronaldo scores, I only remember those dives.

Football is one of the most difficult games to officiate. It is played on a large field and the referee is hardly ever in a good position to make a call. Most of the times, the referee sees something, and guesses the rest. Now add the fact that a single goal can often make a telling difference to the game. In such circumstances, what prevents the FIFA to have video analysis the way tennis and cricket have? It is quite simple: Each team gets to dispute three of referee’s calls. The team is not penalized if the dispute is upheld by the video footage. However, if the dispute is not upheld, the team loses that dispute. If three disputes are rejected, the team can no longer dispute the referee.

Apart from the ability to dispute the referee, we need stricter rules to deal with diving. If a player is guilty of diving, give him a red card right away. Repeat offenders should be banned for multiple matches. Finally, if FIFA is worried about breaking the continuity of the game due to the video interruptions, they only need to monitor the time spent on these fabricated fouls and the ensuing arguments with the umpire on the legitimacy of the call.

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