01-02-2019, 14:50
And you hit the nail on the head SGB - commercial values and Corinthian values are pretty much opposites. I would simply say that a one-word definition of commercial values would be cheating. Sport should be there to make the world better, not to be deformed by world's worst exigencies.
Unfortunately I think the no back pass rule was a monster failure. It created every annoying way used now to waste time and gave us this whole pathetic language of game-management to cope with. Time-wasting is unsportsmanlike behaviour. If players are indulging in it, the captains should be called together and warned that next time a free-kick will be awarded to the opposition (which I think remains in the rules for unsportsmanlike behaviour). The no-back-pass rule has turned keepers into outfield players who even at high levels of the professional game lack goalkeeping skills I, as an amateur, regarded as routine. Keepers are bigger, faster and more athletic than ever before, yet you are hard-pressed to find one you'd class as reliable ......... but almost all of them know how to do a Cruyff-turn. And we still get loads of back passes hoofed clear by the keeper.
The only reasons not to scrap VAR is that the technology can work and games are recorded anyway. At the top level it is inevitable that it will become like Hawkeye in tennis. But do I think that is a good thing? NO! It brings out the worst in all of us, makes us mean-spirited, mardy and bad, bad losers.
But you see I used to walk when I was out at cricket, whether or not the umpire had raised or was ever going to raise his pinkie. No one does that now. Is the game better for it? It's populated by cheats and mard-arses who, when their back is to the wall in the game, their first instinct is to surrender.
Unfortunately I think the no back pass rule was a monster failure. It created every annoying way used now to waste time and gave us this whole pathetic language of game-management to cope with. Time-wasting is unsportsmanlike behaviour. If players are indulging in it, the captains should be called together and warned that next time a free-kick will be awarded to the opposition (which I think remains in the rules for unsportsmanlike behaviour). The no-back-pass rule has turned keepers into outfield players who even at high levels of the professional game lack goalkeeping skills I, as an amateur, regarded as routine. Keepers are bigger, faster and more athletic than ever before, yet you are hard-pressed to find one you'd class as reliable ......... but almost all of them know how to do a Cruyff-turn. And we still get loads of back passes hoofed clear by the keeper.
The only reasons not to scrap VAR is that the technology can work and games are recorded anyway. At the top level it is inevitable that it will become like Hawkeye in tennis. But do I think that is a good thing? NO! It brings out the worst in all of us, makes us mean-spirited, mardy and bad, bad losers.
But you see I used to walk when I was out at cricket, whether or not the umpire had raised or was ever going to raise his pinkie. No one does that now. Is the game better for it? It's populated by cheats and mard-arses who, when their back is to the wall in the game, their first instinct is to surrender.