Comments on: Changing the rules of the Beautiful Game

By: Hugo

Hugo — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:31:33 +0000

Football is sort of unique though in that the interpretation of the rules is far more subjective than other sports. E.g. a penalty is awarded if “there was contact” and player “earns” it by contacting the defender. Some would say that this is a legitimate penalty within the laws of the game unlike, say, tennis – where the ball was or was not in or out. The gradual move towards more ethical football starts with the language we use, I agree.

By: jackdev

jackdev — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:44:51 +0000

Yeah the plan is to only allow captains talk to the ref.

re: diving, conning the ref etc. I really think something needs to be done, I find myself liking the sport less and less these days with all the ridiculous playacting that goes on.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:06:00 +0000

This is definitely a debate worth having. Do you know in the Norwegian rule if captains will be allowed to speak to referees? Surely you need some sort of return communication from players to officials. I like the way you’ve brought shirt-pulling and diving into a cost-benefit analysis where the low risk is usually with the party seeking to gain advantage – a good, unemotional way at looking at ethics in football. And I agree that a lot of problems with cheating come down to semantics and the way we talk about the game. Euphemisms like ‘earn a penalty’ need to go, a point I made recently in a similar article (http://thesportsarena.ie/wordpress/index.php/cheating-sport/sport).