I disagree. I think his comments are well-researched, insightful, and logically driven. That his conclusion does not jibe with your particular worldview does not make him a bigot.
I'll take it you meant "overblown" instead of "overrated". And no, that's not the case. We actually are incredibly offended by it. We see dives as part and parcel of corruption and as a "more serious situation".
I love soccer and I'd love to see more of it in North America. All the diving to the ground and "oooh my ankle" crap makes it look to people here like a sport full of unnecessary drama. If disincentives were added so diving didn't pay, the game's reputation would be much better imho.
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.
It seems you are not very familiar with soccer rules. Just a few comments:
1,3. is already true. There is post-morten review, we do see red-cards being cancelled and players being suspended all the time.
4. It is like this already. FIFA rules says that "when in doubt, favor the offense".
5. There has been some national championships with 2 field referees, it didn't noticeably improve the quality of the calls. FIFA allows rule experimentation from time to time on national fields. We've seen "blue cards" (where players must be replaced by others) for instance, two referees, etc... sometimes those rules end up in the official set: referees telling how many extra minutes of play was one of those experiments.
6. They do. English is spoken among all referees in a world cup game, except when all referees share the same nationality.
7. There are recognizable hand signals for all calls, but not for all rationales which would be impossible.
8. I have no clue what you mean by this suggestion. Just wanted to point out that it includes "discretionary power to the referee" while rule 2 suggested that this is "anarchy".
9. What happened to rule 9? Well, I want to use this opportunity to make a point that your comment (as most of comments suggesting new rules) seems to be sincerely trying to create a better game. But this game is just not soccer.
10. Players are not allowed to return immediately and they do must wait for the referees approval.
Simply put, there is insufficient and non-timely post-mortem review. Kaka's red card should have already been canceled and the CIV player suspended. Italy's dive against NZ for the PK should have already generated a post-mortem yellow.
As far as multiple referees goes, it's simply a matter of having greater field coverage in the area of view. It also reduces referee fatigue. It's a no-brainer and is the norm for just about every other sport on Earth.
Let me ask: what was the call in the US / Slovenia game? Nobody knows except for one guy. I was stumped. The commentators were stumped. The players didn't even know. There was no signal whatsoever, and it's not even required.
In fact, you actually can signal just about everything: pushing, holding, dangerous challenge, tripping, elbowing, and unsportsmanlike. Pretty much everything can be summed up as one of these with a simple hand signal.
Your point about the difference between "discretionary power" and "anarchy" is disingenuous. One would expect an officiating body for the world championship for a sport to have at least a reasonable consensus on what constitutes fouls and caution-worthy offenses. Do you think that the German team deserved 5 or 6 yellows and a red from that Spanish ref? I don't think so, and most people did not.
Sports evolve. You can either embrace it or fear it.
I didn't mean to be disingenuous on my comment. I was trying to point out that suggesting more fine grained subjective rules conflicts with saying everything is anarchic because it may be subjective.
It's obvious that sports evolve. I think my overall feeling about this is that soccer IS evolving. Just not in that particular direction you and many others seem to want (i.e., more clear less-subjective rules, cameras, etc...).
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.
The reasons some people hate certain aspects are the same reasons why most love it. Football has it's faults but many of them are the reasons why it's so exciting. Referees can ruin the game and we all know it, but standarizing every aspect of the game (the American way) it's not the method the current majority of fans would like to see.
Football evolves. Remember the golden goal? The silver goal? FIFA takes actions and football constantly changes. If it doesn't change in favor of your way, it doesn't mean it went wrong. Football is very unpredictable and I think FIFA takes care to leave it that way. F.ex. the golden goal was also meant to make the extra time even more unpredictable, but resulted a very defensive game, so they cancelled it.
Every American spectator sport spends more time in stoppages than in actual play. The main business reason for this is for television advertising. And this is also the main reason soccer isn't a successful spectator sport in America.
"All American spectator sports are extremely fine tuned affairs."
Christ, I know. Have you seen the NFL rulebook that changes every year on substantive matters (like the definition of a "completed pass" whether or not you're pushed out of bounds)? It's horribly overcomplicated. The NBA's rules change nearly as much. At some point during the 90's, zone defenses were illegal. And even now, fouls under the basket are ruled based upon what side of a line you're standing on.
"Officiating standards are laughable. There is an unacceptably large amount of variation between referees regarding what is and is not legal play."
Oh, you mean like the strike zone in baseball?
"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"."
"Ties go to the runner" isn't even a rule in baseball. The offsides rule is one of the better governed parts of the game, there being a dedicated linesman and all. It's extremely rare to see an offsides call be wrong.
"There needs to be more than one referee."
I would not be opposed to having a fifth video referee.
"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."
As I recall, World Cup referees are all required to speak English.
"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."
I've seen a lot of soccer, and this generally isn't a problem at all.
Football is a gentlemans sport, played by hooligans. I suspect thats why the refs don't take a very central place in the sports administrative structure.
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)
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.
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
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.
> Anyone faking an injury on my pitch used to get a red card for conduct detrimental to the game.
Sorry, this is flat-out dangerous.
You are not 100% certain who is really injured and who is not faking, and you are incentivising players who may not be sure whether or not they are injured to play on.
You are correct. I was incentivising players who may not be sure whether or not they are injured to play on. Serious injuries (i.e. more than a sprain) at the amateur level are vanishingly rare.
If you want to overcome the "sport for pussies" stigma that American Football players love to attach to soccer, there's got to be some tough love, at least in the USA.
Re "sport for pussies", my impression of watching American sports is "sport for lawyers". The rules and play of the game reflect the litigiousness of American society in general, with the rules (I'm thinking football here) being really complicated, having all kinds of weird exceptions, and then challenges that are like little "trials" where you have to review evidence etc. It makes it totally unenjoyable for me.
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.
Being a man down for 5 minutes in American Football is a far far bigger disadvantage than being a man down for 5 minutes in soccer. In football it is not uncommon for a team to be a man down for half the game or more and still manage to win or at least hold on for a draw, I seriously doubt that could happen in American Football.
I agree with you on the above points except for the five minutes rule. The point is to provide a disincentive to get on the stretcher. If you can get your butt up and recover on the side, you should do it. If you can't, there's no shame, but if you can get right back up and back in, then obviously it wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.
