30-01-2019, 19:07
My only problem with that would be that it would remain very much a refereed game and the ref would remain very much the centre of attention. I think the game should be about playing it and watching it. And I think we should be making the ref's life easier, so people not only want to take refereeing up in the professional game, but also in their local public parks.
I agree actually applying current laws assiduously would seem the obvious first choice, but being the cynic I am, my answer is they don't and won't, because they probably can't. The game is too far gone. Players are too far gone. The media is too sold on questioning the ref'. And the fans have to interpret every result in terms of decisions made and not made, they're too perfectly trained.
I just think that the introduction of rules to ensure that if a player appeals by voice or gesture a free kick will always be awarded against him and his team, even if he's appealing for the most blatant penalty in the history of the game, would introduce such a level of good behaviour into the game that it would very quickly become natural.
We are currently heading down a road on which the ref' has to be super fit, has to be up with and anticipating play every moment, has to be criticised in public, is expected to explain his every pronouncement and can be denounced as a cheat the moment he makes the slightest error. A man of 50 who has learnt his job, become astute and is respected, has to retire because he can no longer achieve the iron-man fitness required to satisfy the desire across the game to whine and complain, because, however good and trustworthy he is, he can no longer be guaranteed to be within 10 yards of every incident. So ..... eventually either every incident will have to be replayed on some kinda mobile to decide what happened, because a human ref' is no longer able to satisfy moaning us, OR we decide to accept that football is ONLY a game, we aren't being deliberately and consistently cheated, and that the man with the slightly too skinny legs is doing his best.
Reality in the future is going to be only whatever was captured on some headset device. We aren't going to live life, we are only going to record it. We're all turning into those brat children at a birthday party who burst into tears because they see someone else with a slightly bigger piece of cake than them. We are making a brat game to reflect a brat society, when the whole point of sport is to show human beings at their best and most heroic.
I agree actually applying current laws assiduously would seem the obvious first choice, but being the cynic I am, my answer is they don't and won't, because they probably can't. The game is too far gone. Players are too far gone. The media is too sold on questioning the ref'. And the fans have to interpret every result in terms of decisions made and not made, they're too perfectly trained.
I just think that the introduction of rules to ensure that if a player appeals by voice or gesture a free kick will always be awarded against him and his team, even if he's appealing for the most blatant penalty in the history of the game, would introduce such a level of good behaviour into the game that it would very quickly become natural.
We are currently heading down a road on which the ref' has to be super fit, has to be up with and anticipating play every moment, has to be criticised in public, is expected to explain his every pronouncement and can be denounced as a cheat the moment he makes the slightest error. A man of 50 who has learnt his job, become astute and is respected, has to retire because he can no longer achieve the iron-man fitness required to satisfy the desire across the game to whine and complain, because, however good and trustworthy he is, he can no longer be guaranteed to be within 10 yards of every incident. So ..... eventually either every incident will have to be replayed on some kinda mobile to decide what happened, because a human ref' is no longer able to satisfy moaning us, OR we decide to accept that football is ONLY a game, we aren't being deliberately and consistently cheated, and that the man with the slightly too skinny legs is doing his best.
Reality in the future is going to be only whatever was captured on some headset device. We aren't going to live life, we are only going to record it. We're all turning into those brat children at a birthday party who burst into tears because they see someone else with a slightly bigger piece of cake than them. We are making a brat game to reflect a brat society, when the whole point of sport is to show human beings at their best and most heroic.