Friday, February 23, 2007

3 things to change

Here is a non-extensive look into 3 things that should be changed in football.
1. Holding the ball in the corner with 5 minutes to play:
Nwanko Kanu was famous for doing this when he came to the premiership, and there have been many others since. I want to see the back of it. It is not Football. They created the pass back rule, they created the 6 second rule, and they should impose a rule here. Maybe a similar time-based rule, that you can only be in the 'zone' between the area and the touchline for 5 seconds, or leave it to the referee's descrection to give a foul the other way. It is unsporting, it is unentertaining, I don't like it, surely no one does.

2. Diving: but first lets do what we can

I think that there will probably always be the opportunity to cheat in football by persuading the referee, through act, that you have been fouled when you haven't been. But I think there are some things that can be done to stop it being so regular or so sickening.
Firstly, use injury sin-bins based on time on the floor. If a man is hurt whilst shopping androlls around for 2 minutes on the floor in anguish he cannot get back up and continue to walk down the high street. If a footballer does it, it should be assumed that they are in total pain and either a forced substitution should take place, or else they should 'require' 10 minutes recovery time on the side of the pitch. That would take care of the exagerrators.
Secondly, if a player is guilty of diving, he should be treated with as much contempt as if he had been caught paying the referee off before the game. Let us not foget that he has indeed cheated. The dives posted below, especially Thierry Henry's, and a whole host of others should warrant 4 match bans. That would be a deterrent for the Ronaldo's of the world.

3. No quick free kicks where a wall has been set up

This should never have been allowed in the first place. The keeper is obviously going to set up the wall by checking one of his posts.
A free kick was never supposed to be more valuable than a penalty.
The way it is working at the moment puts too much power in the hands of the referee as it is his decision whether they can or can't take the early free kick (and the subsequent goal)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with the first 2 (to some extent) but the last one can we entire up to the defending team - all the need to do is stand a man on the ball and the referee will have to pace him back 10 yards forcing the opposing team to wait for the whistle.