- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
There are three aspects of football that I find more demeaning to the game than anything else.
The first has been touched on countless times and it is also the reason why on a Saturday I’d be more drawn to watch another sport than a top-flight football match.
Diving is the scourge of the game and it is something that football administrators are looking at eradicating.
Unfortunately, too many times I have sat and watched a game turn for one team over another simply because a player will take a dive, act up, and win his team a penalty or a free kick.
There is superb football on offer in the world’s best leagues, so why do players paid a fortune resort to such lows?
I’m sure the most likely response is the need to win, but that argument holds no water because diving holds no place in the sport to begin with.
Surely whatever the administrators are doing now is not working because the message is not sent home.
Football needs to consider harsher penalties. A yellow card says nothing, putting diving into the same category as an ill-thought challenge, but allows the game to continue without consequence to the offending player and his team.
A straight red, for example, would get players thinking twice about doing it. Off-field sanctions or bans would allow for players to take the rap in the event that an offence is missed mid-game.
Imagine someone in the spotlight like Cristiano Ronaldo being given a red card? I have many times watched the world’s most expensive player flail around in agony, only for him to step up and take one of his trademark rocket-propelled free kicks.
Someone of Ronaldo’s standard being sent off consistently would definitely have an effect among those players who emulate him.
The second aspect that bothers me is that while football is the world’s most popular sport, it is the most archaic in terms of forward thinking.
Most sports have already embraced technology like it was a long-lost brother. Football avoids it as if it were the bubonic plague.
Technology could easily be used to make the right decision. Football doesn’t stop play time, but there is added time at the end of regulation play to compensate for time lost during a match for things such as injuries and substitutions.
This could easily allow for a referral system. Much the same as in cricket and tennis, a team or captain should be allowed one or two referrals per match in the case of a missed incident.
In a sport where a single scoring opportunity is the difference between becoming World Champions or runners up, surely more should be done to make sure that when that goal is awarded that it is being done under the right circumstances?
So what if the game stops for a few seconds or a minute to adjudicate an offence?
What would have happened in the second half of the World Cup match between Germany and England had Frank Lampard’s goal been awarded? The second half would have started level at 2-2.
It would have made for exciting football with both teams attacking as opposed to the English playing catch up and leaking two more goals in the process. The end result was England succumbing to their rivals 4-1.
Cricket, tennis and rugby are case examples where the introduction of technology has seen the overall quality of the respective sports increase. Rugby has taken it one step further by empowering officials to rule on indiscretions that the match referee may have missed altogether, such as forward passes which result in an illegal scoring play.
The third aspect that I find to be disconcerting doesn’t directly influence my decision to watch football, but it does confuse me.
The propensity to make football coaches the scapegoats for a team’s failings is ridiculous. Case in point is the recent axing of Roberto di Matteo by Chelsea’s megalomaniac owner Roman Abramovich.
I know I shouldn’t be surprised but I was. Here’s a guy who did something that not even the ‘Special One’ Jose Mourinho could do. He delivered Abramovich his most sought-after prize since buying the club, the Champions League Trophy.
Yet next season, eight matches without a win was enough to send him packing.
Is it any surprise then that the most successful teams are always the teams with stable management? Manchester United have it right in this regard. Fergie is a football genius.
Playing for him is more than just a job, it is more than playing for yourself, it is about playing for the jersey and the guy next to you.
The same goes for Arsene Wenger. Arsenal have been around the top echelons of English football ever since I can remember.
Wenger’s lack of success recently has more to do with the simple fact that Fergie just happens to be a better coach with a very keen eye for young talent. Wenger has the same gift, but he tends to leak quality players which speaks more about team ethic.
Wenger has perfected the art of making the best of what he has got, whereas Fergie knows when to bolster a squad with a unique talent. This has resulted in these managers keeping their jobs for 16 and 26 years respectively.
At the end of the day, team owners are far to quick to pull the trigger on their coaches. This makes for a shaky franchise and breeds insecurity among players.
Players get paid a fortune but don’t take the blame when the team is losing. But they have no trouble taking credit for wins.
Sadly, the world of sport is one that is very results driven. I won’t kid myself on this point, the fact is that someone will always be caught in the crossfire and most of the time the coach pays the price.
So where a coach may have had resounding success with a team, the shortsighted need for immediate success will always outweigh the logic of more time to make a team a stronger success. Football is the only sport where changing your team manager once or twice in a single season is considered normal.
The illusion that success can be bought is not sustainable.
These three factors need to be addressed if football is to really claim its place as the number one sport in the world.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.