Should FIFA tinker with the rules of Football?

[Oberon]

I was reding on another thread that someone (forgot who, sorry) thought that todays refs have too much to cope with, argumentative players etc. and wondered what you all thought of rule changes to help more top level football be played and better value for money for the fans.

My two suggestions are direct rip offs from American Sport where their sport is run entirely around TV schedules.

1. The match will be 2X30 min halfs with the time keeping done by the 4th official. Only when the ball is in play will the clock will be running. This will also at a stroke get rid of time wasting when the ball is out of play as well as unburdening the refs.

2. Crowding the ref / assistant refs to be an foul offence, the Captain will be allowed to talk to the ref and any player failing to retreat will be booked.


What do you think? Perhaps you have better ideas or like it just the way it is?

I think we should stick to top flight footie for the sake of discussion.

[TheStig]

Absolutely they should.

I posted a long reason why on another (non-football) forum I visit. It's more of a general rant on the state of football as I see it today, the last bit is is a bit controversial. The MOTD I'm referring to is the weekend before last's.

Here it is.

My observations, that I remember:
-What an absolute tosser of a commentator regarding Rooney. It wasn't even his birthday yesterday but that didn't stop the commentator going on about it every 10 seconds. His birthday was on Tuesday. Seriously, can we PLEASE have an MOTD with the following: Gary Lineker, match highlights, no commentator. No over opinionated fat ******s telling me what I should think (more later), no over opinionated pundits either would be a bonus.

-Diving is a real problem. At least Hilario saved it but what a joke. Something needs to be done otherwise my interest in football will soon become zero. Video replays would be good, I don't buy the bollocks "but it would slow the game down" argument, more later. What would be even better is retrosepctive action. Certainly not the bollocks stuff we have to have at the moment, ie, no action. These days if you get a player booked/sent off by diving, you can expect NO action to be taken against yourself yet the illegally gotten cards still stand! Good thing UEFA and FIFA have got going there, really "stamps diving out the game" doesn't it.

More problems with the commentator, Pearce really doesn't have a clue, easily the worst commenator around. "and.....Chelsea......have.....scored......first.. ....again!" was a line yesterday (or just about). Yes I can see that Jon, please tell me something I couldn't! Oh you can't? Might as well go home! I know enough about football (and so does everyone here) to not need a commentator thanks.

-Time wasting is a real problem. According to Sky (well their analysis thing says this alot of the time) most halves of football only have about 20-25 mins of actual football in them. Amazing. Why can we not just stop this team time wasting and then manager gets angry when ref goes over the "minimum"-random-joke-of-a-"decision" that is the "time added on" thing? I mean honestly, this is the 21st Century now (more later).

First problem: Injury time is completely arbitary and is totally random. Second Problem: Teams wasting time.

Solution: American style "when ball goes out of play, clock stops". Then the referee wouldn't even have to toss his coin about how much time he'll add on. Oh and the fans will get their money's worth. Maybe 90 mins is a little long, try 70 mins of "play".

-Linesman haven't got a clue, they obviously need help. You have to feel for Watford.

-Mendes; WTF? I mean I know they scored from the next corner and they were already beaten but he should be banned for 3 games (straight red)! Ridiculous really.

So basically of the 8 games on yesterday, 4 (although I don't know if there was any decisions to moan about on Fulham v Wigan as my recording cut off) had sh*t decisions that MOTD showed. That's half. Of those, 3 of them (I took out Moyes' time related one, although that could affect a game's result) had decisions that could and did directly influence a game's result and final score. I'm sure it stays about the same throughout the season too, so something is clearly wrong. How can football really still have that?

So basically we need some video sh*t and a cool timing clock. "But it will slow the game down" I hear you say. Rubbish, at the moment we have players surrounding the ref for 1 minute and a half, with video we could have 1 minute and a half of waiting for someone to actually make a correct decision!

Besides, football isn't really a "fast moving" sport anymore anyway. The ball is often in play for only about 25 mins which says it all. If it was fast moving we wouldn't have the charade we currently do for the substitues anyway. Many "slower" games have roll on rollf off subs while the game is being played. In football, we wait 1 to 2 minutes for someone to get a standing ovation off the crowd/walk slowly to waste time.

As I said earlier, we're now in the 21st Century, unfortunately football hasn't actually moved forward. In fact, unlike just about every other mass-spectator sport I can think of, the rules haven't changed for 140 years. Except for the joke that is the offside "rule". Which believe it or not in that 140 years has actually gone backwards compared to how we started (again, more later!). The only other major rule changes I can think of (and I'm young) is the backpass rule (now redundant anyway, teams time waste just as much now as they did then I bet) and substitutions.

So back to the offside rule. What a mess; everyone agrees on this. But FIFA and the other "administrators" haven't done anything about it. Nothing.

And I don't think they'll do anything for the next 50 years either. (But that won't stop them making money, and large amounts of it)

(Controversy next!)

So that leaves me with the only option but to hope for a breakway league. It's a shame, I love the current league system, the Champions League (The UEFA Cup is rubbish though, you can get a place in it for "fair play" WTF!) is healthy IMO. But I can't see anything happening in football with 70 year old fatties running it as they do at the moment. So basically I hope there's a breakaway league because I think that they will make football more "honest" in it's actual game. The business side of it will be shadier I'm sure but that's not what makes the game, and besides the business side of football is very suspicious at the moment anyway.

I expect I'll be told I'm wrong .

Also I wrote this up and posted it after a few people had expressed opinions.

think there'd also need to be a time limit to how long people can spend with the clock stopped or we'll have people waiting ages to catch their breaths.

Also, the video replay thing is tough, you'd be bound to have it in the Cup Final but would you have it in the FA Cup qualifying rounds? How far down the leagues would you go before we go back to just the ref? That's been FIFA's main arguement so far, they want football to be the same at all levels but in this day and age I can't see it staying that way.

I'm sure you could go down to League Two, although this would mean the FA spending a bit of money for cameras and the like, if they can afford to pay Sven and Steve about £5million a year for doing a part time job then I'm sure they could afford this too. Sky already have at least 1 camera at those games anyway.

The other stuff could be done everywhere with minimum fuss. Plus I also think it would lead to better refereeing, the referee would be there solely to referee, the 4th official would do the time and would do the subs and count the players on the pitch. So less things for referee to do equals more time for them to think about refereeing.

Wenger actually said something similar (about football needing to move with the times) last week. I said this before him, and I think he's absolutely right.

[mick the click]

1. No way - this is footy - not saccaarh. Crap idea, utter crap.
2. Absolutely.

I wouldn't trust FIFA to tinker with their own willies, never mind this sort of malarkey.

[TheStig]

1. No way - this is footy - not saccaarh. Crap idea, utter crap.

I wouldn't trust FIFA to tinker with their own willies, never mind this sort of malarkey.

How is it?

I don't understand what is wrong with this idea at all, it stops time wasting (big problem), stops the lottery that is injury time, would stop managers moaning about time added on, would stop fans moaning about time added on. I honestly can't see anything negative about it.

Agree with your last point .

[Oberon]

1. No way - this is footy - not saccaarh. Crap idea, utter crap.
I wouldn't trust FIFA to tinker with their own willies, never mind this sort of malarkey.

You would get 1 hour of football which is more than you see currently.

I must admit I thought my second point would be more contentious (sp?) as arguments about passion/it's a man's game etc were put forward!

I kind of agree about FIFA (Self serving gits :whatever: mostly IMHO) but unfortunatley it has to be them if we wish to retain the worlds game.

[mick the click]

...basically it's because a game of footy lasts around 90-odd minutes and there is a horrible randomness to injury time and offside is, and always has been, a delicious pig of a rule.

That's football!

Marvellously unintelligible rules like offside and lack of supervision helps the atmosphere and stimulates post- match debate. And/or moaning/celebration,

Hands off.....!

4th official? Possibly...

[Red_Polo]

Stig, a couple of points...

Sometimes when the ball is out of play, there is still action going on - when throw-ins, corners, free-kicks are about to be taken we're looking at the movement of players and watching in anticipation. That's not time-wasting that's part of football. So is applauding departing players and oncoming subs, I don't think we should be losing that it's part of the game. I'd be interested to know how long the ball was in play for in games played in the days before diving and time-wasting were rife. That would give us more of an idea of how big an impact time-wasting is actually having.

As much as FIFA and UEFA can be incompetant, I think it's a bit unfair to say the rules haven't changed in the last 140 years. The introduction of the backpass rule and the yellow card for the tackle from behind have improved the game a fari bit IMO. I think there is scope for things like goal-line technology, and that should be looked into, but as for rules I think it's by and large their implementation rather than their actual substance that is the problem.

[kopdan]

slowly but surely football in the modern era is dying. It will self implode.

[TheStig]

Stig, a couple of points...

Sometimes when the ball is out of play, there is still action going on - when throw-ins, corners, free-kicks are about to be taken we're looking at the movement of players and watching in anticipation. That's not time-wasting that's part of football. So is applauding departing players and oncoming subs, I don't think we should be losing that it's part of the game. I'd be interested to know how long the ball was in play for in games played in the days before diving and time-wasting were rife. That would give us more of an idea of how big an impact time-wasting is actually having.

As much as FIFA and UEFA can be incompetant, I think it's a bit unfair to say the rules haven't changed in the last 140 years. The introduction of the backpass rule and the yellow card for the tackle from behind have improved the game a fari bit IMO. I think there is scope for things like goal-line technology, and that should be looked into, but as for rules I think it's by and large their implementation rather than their actual substance that is the problem.

Indeed, your first point has actually been raised by most people I have given this idea to! How about the clock starts again when the ball is in the player who's about to take the throw in hand's? Or you could start the clock again when the corner or freekick is actually ready to be taken (say when the ball is in position and the player(s) around the ball are walking back) rather than the minute plus that is wasted sometimes in preperation for a freekick.