
How Not to Fix Soccer - rglullis
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/how-not-fix-soccer
======
bukkake
The argument outlined in the article is absurd. Soccer is and has been by far
the most popular sport participation wise in the USA for decades. I played and
refereed it competitively for close to two decades until I started having
problems with my knees. Most Americans are very well versed in soccer and have
either played it themselves or have at least watched their kids play it.

Most Americans have no problems with soccer as a recreational sport. However,
from our perspective, there are major problems with it as it currently exists
as a spectator sport.

All American spectator sports are extremely fine tuned affairs. Every American
sport's officiating body does a complete post-mortem of every single call in
every single game and annotates them extensively. This information is used to
educate individual referees and to supply information to rules committees for
possible future fine tuning of the rules. At the minimum, the rules committees
issue an objective and annotated series of"points of emphasis" each year for
officials so they can call the game in a fairer manner.

In every American sport, unsportsmanlike conduct is dealt with in the harshest
manner possible. It is not uncommon for an unsportsmanlike foul to be
undetected during the game but later caught by the reviewing body during the
post-mortem analysis. You will often see $10,000, $50,000, or $100,000 fines
to the players and even suspensions if the infraction is deemed worthy enough.

As I see it, there are several particularly glaring problems with
international soccer:

1\. There is no post-mortem review process that has teeth. If the Ivory coast
player that was involved in that incredibly unsportsmanlike dive was
retroactively red-carded (i.e. suspended) and the team's country fined, then
it would provide a disincentive for this kind of behavior.

2\. Officiating standards are laughable. There is an unacceptably large amount
of variation between referees regarding what is and is not legal play. This
makes it very difficult for teams to plan matchups and it condemns every game
to a lengthy "feeling-out process" where, by trial and error, the sides
determine the refereeing standards. This is not to say that there is no room
for subjectivity; what I'm saying is that you have effective anarchy right now
and it's a turnoff for American viewers.

3\. Post-mortem review should also revert suspect yellows and reds. What good
does it do for the game to have Kaka out for the Brazil / Portugal match?
Nothing. In fact, it actively harms the game.

4\. Offsides should always be "tie goes to the offense". There is no
compelling reason to blow extremely close plays dead because the offensive
player just might have been offsides by 6 inches. FIFA should issue a "point
of emphasis" stating that "ties go to the offense".

5\. There needs to be more than one referee. The article makes bogus points
about "scaling down". You already have linesmen and a 4th ref that does
nothing but hold up a substitution sign and do paperwork. There should be at
least one and preferably two more referees so that the on-field officials have
multiple views. One referee should be a head referee (as is already done), and
the others subject to overrule.

6\. Referees should train as groups and speak a common language. This is even
more important for an international world championship event. This is just
common sense.

7\. Referees should be required to make distinguishing hand signals for each
call. This would greatly aid the players, the fans, and the commentators in
determining exactly what the ruling was.

8\. For minor fouls in the box on set pieces, there should be discretionary
power to the referee to retake or reverse the direction of the kick instead of
either calling a game altering PK or doing nothing (and thus providing an
incentive for questionable behavior in the box). There's simply insufficient
granularity there. Minor defensive holding should generate a warning and
another kick from the same spot for another scoring chance (but at a much
lower scoring percentage than PK).

10\. If a player leaves the field of play for an injury, or is down for more
than 1 minute, the player should not be able to return for 5 minutes. This
would provide a disincentive for players to fake injury.

~~~
ErrantX
I think this is just differing perspectives; a lot of what you highlight, for
me, makes US sports unwatchable (as i said elsewhere I can't watch all of a
baseball game simply through boredom - despite quite liking the game).

(though for the record post-mortems, referee training etc. are good ideas)

 _Referees should be required to make distinguishing hand signals for each
call. This would greatly aid the players, the fans, and the commentators in
determining exactly what the ruling was._

This is the case - hand signals are pretty conclusive in Football (and
relatively simple).

 _Offsides should always be "tie goes to the offense"._

Ouch, no. You'd see far too many goals scored like this; in fact from my
observation the way it comes out if "tie could go both ways" - which makes it
all the more fun/difficult to play. And more importantly keeps it relatively
fair. I dislike sports that are "binary" - i.e. if it's A it's A. In football
sometimes it is A but the ref calls B.

 _For minor fouls in the box on set pieces, there should be discretionary
power to the referee to retake or reverse the direction of the kick instead of
either calling a game altering PK or doing nothing (and thus providing an
incentive for questionable behavior in the box). There's simply insufficient
granularity there. Minor defensive holding should generate a warning and
another kick from the same spot for another scoring chance (but at a much
lower scoring percentage than PK)._

See this is what frustrates me about US sports... it starts to get
complicated. There is no need to introduce this complexity because the game is
already well defined and correctly played in this area.

 _If a player leaves the field of play for an injury, or is down for more than
1 minute, the player should not be able to return for 5 minutes._

This just demonstrates, IMO, a misunderstanding of the game. 5 minutes may be
no time in, say, American Football. In Football the game could be entirely
changed in 5 minutes.

I think the biggest problem is that compared to many US sports Football is an
extremely fast moving game that relies on being able to run smoothly and
cohesively. For example if the ball goes out of bounds it could easily be
thrown back in within just a few seconds and the momentum of the game
continues (for me this is what I enjoy most).

There is, obviously, a culture difference. I think that is why I find US
sports quite boring and unwatchable and some Americans want to
change/slow/formalise football. I think... each to our own thank you :)

In my mind football is a perfect spectator sport because of the "flaws"
introduced by human error. They make a game less predictable, more
excruciating, provide human emotion etc.

(although I do think the current crop of players are a bunch of spoiled brats
and need to be reminded of the _real_ game)

~~~
bukkake
I'm a former ref and longtime player. I understand the flow of the game very
well. Americans don't want to slow the game down in the slightest. What they
want is more justice, post-mortem oversight, and less preventable human error.

Anyone faking an injury on my pitch used to get a red card for conduct
detrimental to the game. So I consider 5 minutes to be very generous. I'm
aware that it's quite a long time. That's the point. Provide a disincentive.

You cite the example of quickly throwing the ball back in. Yet average high
school matches get a replacement ball to the thrower quicker than at the World
Cup. Worse, everyone seems to be OK with having the thrower creep down the
field for 10 yards until throwing it with all kinds of crazy side spin on it.

To most of us, you seem like the abused who now sympathizes with the abuser.
You want egregious human error unjustly changing match outcomes? You want to
continue to foster an ethic of diving and unsportsmanship?

To reduce this aspect of the game, you've got to provide disincentives. The
key is to pick disincentives that do not change the fundamental "flow" of the
sport. It's really very simple. I expect that at some point in the next 50
years, there will be some leagues that tinker with the rules, become immensely
popular, and people will forget the current dark ages of corruption,
incompetence, and unsportsmanlike, disgraceful on-pitch behavior.

~~~
ErrantX
_To most of us, you seem like the abused who now sympathizes with the abuser.
You want egregious human error unjustly changing match outcomes? You want to
continue to foster an ethic of diving and unsportsmanship?_

No; and in fairness this is the only legitimate criticism I can accept about
the game.

It's a new thing as well and entirely to do with the players and their ethos
rather than the rules of the game. It's a catch 22 - sacrifice the spirit of
the game to enforce fair play _or_ keep the spirit and try to mitigate the
diving etc.

Honestly; I don't think it is so bad as to warrant changes. Perhaps at the
highest level of the game (though the world cup hasn't been _too_ bad) but
below that (club level outside of the premiership) it is pretty ok.

 _throwing it with all kinds of crazy side spin on it._

What's wrong with that? (I dislike the creep... agreed).

 _Yet average high school matches get a replacement ball to the thrower
quicker than at the World Cup._

Citation? But also this proves the point somewhat - even the World Cup I
disapprove of this whole "chuck em a new ball" philosophy. That is taking away
from the game (where you should be running to grab the ball and get it back on
the pitch ASAP). Modern football is having the urgency sapped by new ideas and
rules like this. :P

I'm not saying the game is perfect; just that, well, Football is a game
designed for Europeans to enjoy and some of that is stuff Americans don't seem
to enjoy. Whilst I appreciate the suggestions we still enjoy the game very
much - and would prefer for it not be changed to suit the American market
(develop a break off game, certainly!). In the same way people would get
pretty annoyed if I started making suggestions about how much Baseball could
be improved :P

We each have our cultural games.

~~~
bukkake
The spin thing was changed in 2008 with a rules tweak. It used to be that
excessive spin on a ball signified that the player did not "use both hands" by
virtue of favoring one hand over the other (to create spin).

Now it's "holds the ball with both hands", which allows for spin, but it's
still seen as bad form in some circles.

------
Maro
I am familiar with the FIFA's reasoning, and I just don't think it holds up.
The best example is the NBA: advanced technical rules at NBA games aren't
stopping anyone from playing basketball on the courts or at the High School
level.

Also, the rules are different anyways. At the FIFA level, games are played on
large fields for 2x45 minutes, there are 4 refs, etc. AFAIR HS level games
were 2x30 minutes and we were lucky to have 1 ref, and so on. So the rules are
already different at different levels, and people can deal with it.

Would it really kill soccer if we had video replay? Match outcomes are
_routinely_ altered by erroneous ref. decisions, decisions which the whole
world except the ref. knows are erroneous because we see the 1000FPS close up
30 seconds later. It's become so nonsensical that at the recent Brazil game,
the brazilian players after a bad ref. decision to send off Kaka with a red
card were begging the ref. to look up on the stadion screen to see the replay
which clearly showed nothing happened, but he couldn't be bothered.

I think everybody would be able to accept that at High School level games
there's no video replay, and the ref. makes mistakes, while rejoicing that
World Cup level games are not influenced by bad decisions avoidable just by
having a 5th ref. look at the replays.

This would also move the game towards actual fair play in the sense that
players wouldn't be constantly diving, lying about who touched the ball last,
lying about what happened, _lying to convince the ref_.

~~~
ErrantX
_Would it really kill soccer if we had video replay?_

Yes. Alot. Injuries already interrupt the flow of the game - and one thing
Football is good at is flowing (one reason I personally enjoy it).

A good game is non-stop action (which is my only criticism of US sports - I
usually get bored waiting for baseball for example :))

 _Match outcomes are routinely altered by erroneous ref. decisions, decisions
which the whole world except the ref. knows are erroneous because we see the
1000FPS close up 30 seconds later. It's become so nonsensical that at the
recent Brazil game, the brazilian players after a bad ref. decision to send
off Kaka with a red card were begging the ref. to look up on the stadion
screen to see the replay which clearly showed nothing happened, but he
couldn't be bothered._

This is the point of the game :) bad decisions aren't all that prevalent - you
just notice them because people will yell (rightly) about them. Human error is
what makes the sport so much fun.

But more importantly stopping for 30s while replays are reviewed just delays
the game - a game which is designed to flow. That would kill it for me!

~~~
megablast
Simple way to avoid this, have a tribunal to review matches as they do in
Aussie Rules football. If a player is caught deliberately diving, ban them for
life.

If everyone is wondering why the USA does not get into soccer, it is because
the blatant cheating makes it a joke. It is not a real sport, and never will
be, when one dive can win a game for a side, and have a player sent off.
Americans have a sense of fair play, that will never accept this.

Of course, this would never get through. South American, Italian, Spanish and
Greek clubs have to much sway over FIFA.

~~~
lenni
These are the countries where football is most popular. Why shouldn't they
have the most influence?

I don't know if there is such thing as a World American Football Association,
but if there was, I'm sure Americans would call the shots.

~~~
megablast
There are other countries where soccer is also very popular, England, Germany,
France, rest of western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia.

~~~
lenni
I am German and have lived in England and in neither country I have seen a lot
of enthusiasm for video refs or more severe penalties. Generally, people enjoy
the unpredictability of the game.

~~~
megablast
In german and english leagues the cheating is not so prevalent.

However, what you say might still be true, they really do not care about the
cheating that affects the game so much.

I am just trying to help you understand why soccer will not be big in USA,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

------
avar
What football (I'm European) needs is much larger penalties for feigning
injuries and taking dives.

There's a good reason you see players rolling around on the pitch like bruised
4 year old girls, it's beneficial in the long run to the player feigning
injury. You're more likely to win a beneficial free kick from it than two
yellow cards in a row, so the practice continues.

Some national football associations (e.g. Italy) start training kids to do
this at a young age.

It would probably stop overnight if a player seen taking a dive were to
directly receive a red card, or a three game ban.

~~~
pierrefar
My favourite stat is from the 2006 Germany World Cup:
[http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/germany2006/statistics/...](http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/germany2006/statistics/teams/topfoulssuffered.html)

Calculate the fouls suffered per game played. Italy is number 1.

------
pierrefar
Three counter-points:

1\. FIFA makes a ton of money from the World Cup. The sponsorship and
protection efforts of the sponsorship are ridiculously elaborate.

2\. Even FIFA doesn't scale the game linearly. In the World Cup there are
always 3 refs on the field, even though really only 1 is needed. Further,
there are many different types of football balls (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_%28ball%29> ), so again, the game
played on the streets or school leagues is not necessarily exactly the same as
the World Cup.

3\. FIFA constantly innovates in the making of the actual ball. Every WC we
get a new ball that has different characteristics. This year's ball is the
most consistent in distance and trajectory in tests (i.e. hit it the same way
and you'll get the same volley).

With all that said, I don't think "maintaining consistency" is the reason FIFA
refuses to introduce replay refs. I think it's more about politics: they have
always supported the number 1 ref as the final arbiter of play and introducing
a replay ref would undermine this long-held traditional philosophy.

~~~
ErrantX
_In the World Cup there are always 3 refs on the field, even though really
only 1 is needed._

I don't get that; the extra "refs" simply reduce the chance of an error being
made. It is possible to play pretty effectively without them.

Actually there _is_ still only one ref - none of the others can make a
decision, only advise the referee and provide an alternative viewpoint if he
misses an event.

~~~
pierrefar
Which is exactly how a video ref would work: advise the main referee to reduce
mistakes. And the current world cup certainly could use that given the
horrible rate of horrible calls.

~~~
ErrantX
yes, but it is going too far. Waving a flag, or perhaps the occasional short
conversation does not delay a match very much. There is a net gain.

I can't see much of a net gain in video refs simply due to the unnecessary
delay. One of the delights of football is that 15-20 seconds after a goal they
are kicking off again.

(the calls in this world cup have been pretty good; I've watched, literally,
every game so far and there have been a couple of shockers - which obviously
we notice - but generally it has been good)

------
adw
Broadly speaking, European sports evolved before the spectator-sports industry
and, as a result, are primarily for playing; American sports evolved
afterwards and have been shaped (to a greater extent) by needing to be good to
watch.

~~~
edanm
Quick check on Wikipedia shows Baseball was gaining popularity around 1860,
and Basketball around 1900. Football was introduced around 1860.

What am I missing?

~~~
adw
That's the formal _codification_ of football - Association Football, Rugby
Football (both League and Union). The games themselves have been around for
hundreds of years.

Really, though, it's a cultural thing.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rugby_league> is pretty typical.

------
hugothefrog
I was trying to think of a good reason why FIFA continues to refuse to
introduce any form of video replay/video referee, and the reason Ed outlines
are just what I concluded.

The game is supposed to be exactly the same when played at World Cup level as
it is when played at Saturday morning club level, and even below that - the
streets of Brazil, etc.

Fifa has got its eye on the global market for playing football, which is what
(possibly) makes it the world's most popular sport. It doesn't have its eye on
the global market for watching football.

~~~
zalew
He forgets about one thing - pro football is not managed by a single referee
because it'd be impossible, he has 2 side referees to help. Also, in amateur
(edit: for fun, not non-pro leagues) football you usually play without
offsides or almost without them; while in pro there is a ridiculous situation
where a rule meant to prevent static play (standing in front of the goal
waiting for a pass) is often ripping the game of dynamic (halted actions
because the side referee saw that one player's foot was 10cm pass the line of
defence).

Football is scaled down mostly because you don't need expensive infrastructure
to play and train - 2 sticks in the ground or draw lines on a fence and you're
ready to kick - no equipment (baseball, hockey) besides the ball itself, no
need to build anything (basketball, hockey). I think that's a far more
important factor in football popularity than the rules set.

~~~
trin_
where? maybe for 7-10 year old kids but even low games that have only 1
referee will be played with offside (at least thats my experience playing
until the age of 16) i think the DFB (german football association) requires 3
referees starting from the 7th or 8th league. and below that they just dont
have the manpower.

~~~
zalew
you're right, by amateur I meant the first level of engaging with sport, not
amateur leagues. sorry for the confusion. made an edit.

------
lenni
Question for the Americans: Is soccer really on the brink of becoming a
popular sport in your country? I read that ESPN is investing lots of money
into the world cup coverage and reddit is full of related submissions.

~~~
lionhearted
> Question for the Americans: Is soccer really on the brink of becoming a
> popular sport in your country?

No, but it's slowly trending upwards. Without looking it up, the top American
spectator sports are American football, baseball, basketball, NASCAR racing,
hockey, golf, and tennis.

The problem is that the best American athletes look to one of top three
American sports - if you look at top NBA and NFL players, many of them seem
well-suited to futbol, but it's not where the money/popularity/culture is at
in the USA yet. As long as the fast and strong American athletes are looking
to become running backs, wide receivers, and point guards instead of
midfielders and strikers, the game won't reach the height of popularity. But
it'll slowly grow in popularity if the U.S. keeps making decent showings
internationally. Being a top 5 American sport by 2030 wouldn't surprise me.

After that, it'd really only take one charismatic, transcendental American
player for the sport to really break through - if there was an American Pele,
Maradona, George Best type player, it'd go a long ways, just like Tiger Woods
did for golf, Joe Namath did for American football, Michael Jordan did for
basketball, etc, etc. So I could see the game trending up in the rankings, and
then it's all about if it gets the one dominant, charismatic force that people
fall in love with who kids want to follow in the player's footsteps.

~~~
Maro
NBA players and soccer? You must be joking. Unless you want 11 Peter Crouches
running around the field...

~~~
_delirium
If the USA qualified for a world cup with a team of NBA players, at the very
least, the TV ratings would be good...

------
patrickk
Who says soccer has to scale down well? And who says this is a good rationale
to base the rules on?

The whole point of playing a game as a child, IMO, is to learn the basic
skills of the game as well as possible and to have fun. Do you think the
street kids of Brazil and Argentina, some of whom grow up to be some of the
finest natural footballers in the world, worry about the pair of t-shirts they
use as goalposts isn't FIFA regulated, or the battered football they use isn't
either?

The whole point of playing the game at amateur level when you are older is to
play the game you have loved since you were a child. Do you think every
amateur game even has 2 linesmen to aid the ref?

This is a totally different proposition to watching the World Cup, Champions
League, English Premiership, La Liga or the Serie A. Millions of fans tune in
and watch these high-level games, and billions of euros are generated by the
sport. When Thierry Henry cheats by blatantly handling the ball, incorrectly
getting France into the World Cup, when Kaka, one of the greats of the modern
game, gets sent off by some diving, cheating pr*ck, when the ref disallows a
perfectly legit goal for the USA, millions of fans are turned off by this
crap. Diving is another huge area which is wrecking soccer too. Video
refereeing and being able to appeal obviously incorrect decisions like most
other modern sports is badly needed to bring the game into the 21st century.

The argument about video refereeing slowing the game down doesn't stand up
either. At least trial the system for a few months in major competitions where
the necessary equipment already is in place - if it doesn't work after that,
then I've got egg on my face. People who argue the reverse are mired in the
past, and don't have the balls and vision to at least experiment with
something that could bring on a new level of professionalism, and fairness to
the sport instead of rewarding cheaters and divers.

------
zazi
I play soccer and it seems like it doesnt need to be fixed. It is a beautiful
game in all its glorious simplicity.

or in hn style - soccer may be the the ultimate example of a MVP or 'minimal
viable professional game' that you can play with a ball and two teams =)

~~~
ubernostrum
Based on the events of the past year, the officiating most certainly does need
to be fixed.

~~~
zazi
yes i see where you are coming from, some officials have been making bad
calls. but some would argue that the refereeing is part of the game and
instituting video replays etc might unnecessarily complicate matters and ruin
the flow of the game.

i play soccer in an amatuer league every weekend and although the referees
generally are not of a high standard, I still enjoy it. its part of the game.

~~~
ubernostrum
Disparate levels of play do not require arbitrariness in officiating. I don't
do soccer at any level, but in my spare time I do work and hold a
certification as a tournament judge for Magic (the card game:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering>). The DCI -- sanctioning
body for organized Magic -- has formal standards for officiating which work at
and scale from the smallest local game shop tournaments all the way up to
massive events with large cash prizes and a pro tour. And one of the biggest
goals is to ensure consistency: enforcement shouldn't and can't vary from
judge to judge, because that would fundamentally damage the integrity of the
entire tournament system.

Given that as background, the lack of consistency I see in World Cup
officiating literally makes me shudder. And the worst part is that the usual
straw men brought up in response -- massive delays due to replay, etc., etc.,
-- are, well, just straw men. A few simple, non-game-disrupting, changes (a
highly-relevant example: let a team captain or a coach ask an official to
state the foul for which a penalty has been issued, something which, so far as
I'm aware, _practically every other organized sport in the world_ does) could
vastly improve both the actual and perceived consistency and fairness of
soccer, but FIFA doesn't seem to care enough to do anything.

~~~
GFischer
Hey, I'm also a former DCI Tournament Organizer AND sometimes unofficial
football judge (not FIFA approved or anything :) ), and I'd say that FIFA does
look for consistency.

DCI actually "gets" the fact that punishments should vary according to level
of play (look for Rules Enforcement Levels or REL for short), and so do the
local football judge federations - when I played a small football tournament,
the judge routinely overlooked some small infractions that would warrant a
call in a high-level match (not throwing correctly the ball from the sideline,
ball position for free throws, etc).

FIFA officiating was pretty bad, true, and I personally think that instant
replay (sparingly used) could improve it a bit as well.

I also like the harsher leagues (someone mentioned the English Premier) over
the more foul-prone ones (Italy and my own country Uruguay are egregious
examples)

~~~
ubernostrum
_DCI actually "gets" the fact that punishments should vary according to level
of play_

Indeed, which is one of the things that makes it scale so well. Felten's
insistence on uniformity doesn't address that at all, really, and I think it
exposes one of the big weaknesses of his argument: a Magic pro tour event
doesn't just have stricter enforcement, for example. It also has a huge staff
of officials, additional supplies and equipment, and all sorts of other stuff.
From that point of view, insisting on having no "official" clock at the World
Cup because your local neighborhood game doesn't have one just seems silly;
when you get to a certain level you can and should introduce those things.

 _FIFA officiating was pretty bad, true, and I personally think that instant
replay (sparingly used) could improve it a bit as well._

I don't personally care one way or another about replay. I would require
referees to explain their calls on request (as a Magic judge I don't even have
a choice -- I _have_ to explain my rulings even if no-one asks me to), and
look for a way to deal with fouls which occur but aren't immediately witnessed
by the referee (golf, where you're expected to call an official on yourself if
you do something wrong, is a good example; soccer could have a similar system
and it would help with things like Thierry Henry's handball).

------
mirkules
I think the game could engulf America, if the Television networks are willing
to air two 45+ minute halves without showing a single commercial.

Note that every popular American sport has enough stoppage time during each
break to show at least 4-5 highly-targeted ads. In my opinion, this is why the
networks aren't really pushing soccer. On-pitch ads (i.e. sideline or
sideboard ads) wouldn't really cut it because every network needs to have
regional advertisements, and lots of them. Just my $0.02.

~~~
GFischer
Regional networks' needs could be served by digitally replacing in-game ads
with customized ads for the region, or adding small ads at the bottom of the
screen (that's the usual way)

This is already done in some countries for football (soccer). The thing is,
it's probably harder and a more difficult sell than just airing the same old
commercials during a break. It helps that football(soccer) is wildly popular
so advertisers are willing to jump that hurdle in exchange for guaranteed
audience in the football-mad countries.

~~~
mirkules
Good point. It would require a different format of advertising than what
America is used to, and that could be hard to sell.

Interesting chicken-and-egg problem, it would really take a combination of a
brave network and brave advertisers to change the whole thing -- and so, the
future looks bleak...

------
ugh
I think something is off this World Cup. Quite a few referees seem to be
overly pedantic. Not every small jostle should stop the game, not every foul
warrants a yellow card. Whistle and card happy referees seem to me to be the
overarching problem, not dives, clocks or missing video replay.

That, to me, seems to be a problem of referee training and briefing. FIFA
apparently wants the referees to be as pedantic as they are. That should be
addressed first and foremost, not exotic rule changes.

I’m all for extensively and carefully testing everything that was proposed –
exact time keeping, two referees on the field, video replay, no more offside,
you name it – and I really think FIFA should get more aggressive about it, but
they should also be very careful about not changing the game. That has to be a
long and careful process, not some ad-hoc decision.

------
sev
I agree with the article, and the scaling down reasons for not changing the
rules for the most part. However, when players are being paid millions, and
countries reputations are on the line, there is no scaled down version of that
anyhow. And therefore...

There is only one thing I would change: if a violation is noted by one of the
refs (such as an offsides), and a goal is scored during that same time the
violation flag went up...let the coach have the ability to call for a review
of the violation call.

~~~
ErrantX
Please no! One of the best parts of Football (IMO) is that the ref rules; it
introduces that element of risk that can lead to the excruciating moments that
define the sport. "we was robbed".

Besides; in the example you cite in the vast majority of cases it will be
ruled as a no-goal (I've seen it happen quite a few times this world cup).

~~~
lenni
I agree. Referee decisions are a neverending source of outrage and drama and
exactly the reason people love football. It makes it a human thing.

The cynic would say that it provides emotionally crippled men with an outlet
for showing their emotions.

------
edanm
One of the reasons Poker is so popular is that even a terrible player can beat
a pro by chance, some of the time. I've always suspected the same is true of
Football.

Any attempt to "fix" the game by making refereeing better makes the game more
fair. While that might seem like a good thing, I don't think anyone is
qualified to decide whether that will make the game more or less popular. And
considering it's the world's most popular sport, tinkering with the games in
unpredictable ways is stupid.

~~~
yardie
I have only ever seen this true in movies. A newbie doesn't know how to count
cards, feel out bluffs, or develop a strategy. Given enough money and time
they'll feel their way around the unspoken rules. But no one I know rolls up
to a table pulls a royal flush and walks out away the winner.

~~~
edanm
Not true. Lots of people with very little skill have beaten superior players.
They can't last against them for long, but they _can_ get lucky. This is a
known phenomenon around the poker world, and greatly works to pro's advantage
(you would never wager money against a professional in other fields, since
there is no way you could win. In poker, though, because bad players win once
in a while, they can delude themselves into not realizing how bad they are).

~~~
yardie
People win the lottery everyday, it doesn't change the fact that the odds are
stacked incredibly high against you.

------
lazyant
This is a good argument; that everybody can play because you just need a
referee and not a lot of extra judging help or technical stuff. This is a good
explanation of why soccer is so popular. The other one is that unless other
sports you just need some sort of ball to start playing.

Actually we played 5 to a side (smaller field) football/soccer in college
without referee and without the offside rule (which would make it hard to
call). The only point of friction between teams were the faults (only obvious
ones were called) so it could get a little rough but other than that the
situations are mostly obvious and you can do without a ref in friendly games.

For critical decisions in a World Cup soccer could use video replay though,
especially since the scoring is usually so low (average is about 1.5 goals per
game so far I think) that a goal changes everything. Perhaps it could be used
after the games just to punish "divers".

------
hcho
The reason FIFA does not want video reffing is not keeping the spirit of the
footbal or what so ever.

FIFA (and UEFA for that matter) for that matter is a highly political
organization which handles a lot of money with a somewhat obscure agenda.
Fairness is a little bit less important when compared to leaving out big money
nations(or clubs) from a tournement.

Error-prone refereeing is a vital tool for keeping as many big money nations
in the tournements. Had there been video refereeing it would be harder to
provide the extra push to the teams that need it.

Sounds too much like a conspiracy theory? Then tell me why it's almost always
the smaller teams at the wrong end of the stick.

~~~
philwelch
USA is a smaller team than Slovenia? Brazil is a smaller team than Ivory
Coast?

Your conspiracy theory, actually, is much better suited to the NBA, which has
always seemed fixed in favor of large-market teams.

------
robryan
Can't remember which match it was I was watching but 2 minutes into a 3 minute
additional time at the end of the match someone had a cut on their head or
similar, at least a minute of play was lost but the ref added about 20 seconds
additional time. Seems really unprofessional not knowing much much time is
actually going to be played, especially at such an important tournament. Seems
to be abused to, after the 90 minutes there seems to be a lot of pointless
substitutes where the player walks off nice and slow to eat up time.

------
johnyzee
Here's a simple solution. The referee has the option to, if in doubt, consult
someone with a video replay to determine a situation. He already has, and
uses, the option to consult the line men, so it is not obvious to me why he
shouldn't be able to consult someone who can watch a replay.

Another thing that for the life of me I cannot understand hasn't been
implemented: A chip in the ball to determine off sides and whether the ball
has crossed the goal or side lines.

------
throwaway321
I'm not a particularly big fan of football, but even so it's glaringly obvious
to me when I read articles by certain people (let's just say it's those who
call it soccer) that they.. just don't get it. This isn't just random
bloggers, I've read articles in big papers like the NY Times, and as much as
they want and try to, they don't really understand it. It's not "inside" them
like it is for me (involuntarily) and billions of others.

~~~
megablast
So you don't care about the blatant cheating that can completely change the
course of a game?

Well, lots of people do not like cheating, do not like deliberate diving. For
me, this completely ruins the game of soccer, and I will never take it
seriously as a sport. I don't tune in to see which side can game the system
the best.

~~~
lutorm
Would you be happier if the rules said "the player who most convincingly acts
will win the call"? Then it wouldn't be cheating, but part of the game...

I don't think it's nearly as bad as the American incarnation of hockey, where
fistfights are tolerated with a slap on the wrist. Talk about encouraging
unsportsmanlike behavior. If you tried that in soccer, you'd at the very least
get a red card, if not more.

~~~
starkfist
Fistfights aren't just tolerated in hockey, they are half the reason anyone
watches the game...

~~~
lutorm
That's my point. So who are Americans to come and complain about
unsportsmanlike behavior in soccer??

~~~
mkramlich
We complain because the NHL is the extreme exception among US sports, rather
than the rule. A lot of Americans don't like the fighting in the NHL either.

------
daleharvey
this is fairly obviously wrong? children dont play to a clock in their
backyard, they very very rarely play offside and they certainly dont give any
yellow or red cards.

I agree part of the beauty of the game is that you can play the same game in
the park with friends, but most of the arguments were against details of the
same game, not changing it (stopping clock, replays etc).

~~~
pbhjpbhj
They should play the proper game without a referee and then bar anyone
afterwards who lied or cheated from ever playing again.

------
anamax
The way to stop "dives" is take every "he hit me" claim seriously by mandating
a free substitution whenever a player makes that claim. Yes, the player can
return with another free substitution after s\he's been checked out by an
independent MD.

------
mkramlich
Being a namespace/terminology nut, one of the things that bothers me the most
is that they still haven't solved the name collision/ambiguity between
'soccer' and 'football'.

------
JacobAldridge
What a brilliant example of scalability in a real world sense.

~~~
ubernostrum
Not really. This concept of "scalability", while alluring at first glance,
falls flat on multiple counts.

First and foremost, it verges on a straw man; Felten argues against
unspecified "Americans" with largely-unspecified views, when in fact criticism
has been quite specific and has come from practically every part of the globe.
The things people are asking to have "fixed" are not the lack of an official
clock or any of his other examples; the things people are asking to have fixed
seem mostly to be abysmally inconsistent officiating standards. Which, in an
article praising the uniformity of the game at nearly all levels, is a glaring
oversight.

Second, Felten's concept of "scalability" is deeply flawed; we might as well
argue for the World Cup final to be played on a parking lot with piled-up
sticks for goals -- after all, your neighborhood game doesn't have those big
fancy stadiums, does it? Privileging some aspects of the game by allowing them
to be radically different at higher levels of play, while arbitrarily
requiring other aspects to be uniform at all levels, is frankly irrational.

Worst of all, he touches on baseball as a game which "scales", but fails to
note that while the basic rules of the game are the same at practically every
level, the implementation varies considerably _and the game is better for
that_. For example, a local sandlot game doesn't need six professional
umpires, instant replay and a strike-zone-tracking pitch-plotting camera
system, but a major-league championship game does. This allows each game to
have the level of officiating it actually needs, rather than forcing
impossible burdens on the local game or false austerity on the professional
game.

------
bialecki
Get rid of ties and soccer is 10x better. Nothing more frustrating than
watching a game for 90 minutes that ends in a tie. This is one of the big
reasons playoff hockey is much better than during the regular season -- ever
watched a game go into 5 OTs?

~~~
philwelch
This is a pretty common American cultural expectation, but it would really
hurt soccer to have matches go into extra time unnecessarily. The fatigue and
injury rate is already too high--look at how many great players are sitting
out this World Cup, for instance.

~~~
bialecki
So injuries are the reason they don't play golden goal? If so, that's
ridiculous. All sports deal with injuries and sometimes that means star
players don't play.

What really bothers me is when teams "play for the tie" in certain situations
and that's a viable option. Sports are not about playing not to lose, they're
about playing to win. That's why the old Brazil teams and the current
Argentina team are so fun to watch -- they're not worried about losing,
they're playing to win. That's why the last US game was so entertaining --
they had to go for it in the second half so at least salvage a tie. Soccer
should encourage more play like that.

~~~
philwelch
They don't play golden goal because in practice, golden goal leads to more
defensive play. The current overtime procedure of extra time + penalties is
the best of many mediocre options, and I suspect future innovations will lead
to better procedures.

When you look at the reality of match congestion in top level clubs, you have
situations where you may have to play 3-4 matches a week at times, when 1-2
matches a week is the most a player can reasonably recover from. As a result
of that, clubs already have to prioritize which competitions they care about--
a club simultaneously competes for a league, more than one domestic cup, and
maybe even an international cup or two, so "less important" competitions like
the English League Cup and even, in recent years, the English FA Cup aren't
taken seriously by some top clubs. You start adding extra time to a
significant proportion of a club's league matches and you exacerbate that
problem and lower the quality of play.

