*Let’s get Serious: Why can’t people understand the rules anymore?
Posted by soccersnobs on March 25, 2008
The last seven days have produced plenty of talking points in the world of football. These have mainly centred around the three Rs: Referees, Respect and the Rules of the game.
First, there was the events at White Heart Lane on Wednesday evening. Then came a few home truths in the Sunday papers from ref supremo Keith Hackett. And finally, there was the ‘contentious’ sending off of Javier Mascherano in Sunday’s disappointing encounter at Old Trafford, and the debate that has ensued.
Let us begin with Chelsea vs Tottenham last week.
Ashley Cole certainly deserved a red card for his inexcusable behaviour. The challenge was poor, and though the actual contact appeared minimal, it warranted a caution from referee Mike Riley at the very least. Cole’s subsequent reaction to his yellow card should then have seen him walk.
Referees chief Keith Hackett said as much in his column in the Sunday Telegraph this week:
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/03/23/sfngue123.xml).
BBC Sport editor Mihir Bose then stuck his oar in:
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/mihirbose/2008/03/post_14.html)
In his blog, Bose suggests Steve Bennett, the referee for Sunday’s match between Manchester United and Liverpool, must have read Hackett’s criticism of him (Bennett was fourth official at White Heart Lane on Wednesday) and Riley while eating his corn flakes on Sunday morning, and then sent off Mascherano because he feared receiving another ticking off from his boss.
For those of you who do not know, Mihir Bose is a chartered accountant who then became a business journalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihir_Bose). He is essentially a cricket fan and knows next to nothing about football as evidenced by his recent report for Inside Sport from French Football Academy, Clairefontaine, where he claimed that Gerard Houllier’s was the greatest football mind of all time (or words to that effect).
What Bose does not realize, is that not everyone went to private school or votes tory in general elections, so there exists a remote possibility Bennett did not read the “Telegrawwwf” on Sunday morning.
Even more difficult to understand is how Bose could come to the conclusion that Bennett was frivolous in sending off Macherano given that the same newspaper’s website published an extensive list of every time Mascherano displayed dissent to Bennett during the “Super Sunday” clash:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/03/24/ufnferg224.xml
Mascherano berated Bennett the entire first half and absolutely deserved a second yellow for it, despite Rafa Benitez’s protestations.
It is therefore wrong of Benitez to suggest Mascherano was unfairly sent off for simply asking “what was going on” after the official booked Fernando Torres for dissent. If he was really so curious, why did he not just ask his fellow Spanish speaker rather than storming 20 yards, arms aloft, to indignantly confront the referee, who by then had lost all patience with the Argentinian? Rediculous.
As well as his column in The Telegraph, Hackett wrote an excellent piece for The Observer criticising the BBC’s Match of the Day pundits for their ignorance of amendments to the offside rule made in 2005.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,,2267601,00.html
On last Saturday’s show, Messrs Hansen and Shearer failed to comprehend why Jeremie Aliadiere’s goal against Arsenal was allowed to stand. Together they claimed, “If you put 10 referees in a room, you would get 10 different decisions”.
This ignorance of the rules of the game has long been a problem at the BBC. Even now, you can often hear commentators like John Motson complaining about a referee not blowing his whistle for hand ball when “the ball clearly struck the defender on the hand”, as well as other nonsense like there not being “daylight” between the attacker and the defender “so how can the striker be offside”? They also cannot seem to understand that a player is only offside if a part of his body that can legally play the ball is in an offside position. In other words, if your arm is stretching past the last second last defender but the rest of you is level then you are NOT OFFSIDE.
There is no excuse for this level of incompetence. The reason commentators and pundits are confused about the rules of the game is because they are too lazy to actually read them. There can be no other explanation. These days, any fool can look up the rules of football from the comfort of his or her own home:
The rules for offside (Rule 11) are quite clear and even come with illustrated examples. ILLUSTRATED! That means if you are too thick to read more than a few paragraphs, you don’t have to: Someone has been kind and patient enough to draw you not just one but several pictures by way of explanation.
As Hackett points out with the MOTD analysis of the Aliadiere goal, “They suggested the goal should not have stood, that the striker should have been flagged for ‘gaining an advantage’ after being in an offside position from the long ball. That is simply wrong… It is not an offence to be in an offside position… a player is only penalised when he becomes active… it is the definition of ‘active’ (that confuses pundits).”
The rest of his article very clearly explains what ‘active’ means, and Hackett does not magically dumb the complicated rules down into layman’s terms. He simply quotes what is stated in the rulebook.
But Match of the Day pundits like Shearer and Hansen are too arrogant to bother doing any research. Their attitude is “We played the game. We know how it is played. Any changes we will pick up as we go along.” Anything more complicated and requiring more than 30 seconds to digest is therefore dismissed as incomprehensible. Their defence is that players and managers are as confused about the rules as they arel.
Football players and ex-players might not be all that bright? Surely not.
When Portsmouth were playing their first pre-season match since the new directives for the offside rule were introduced in 2005, Harry Redknapp went ballistic that the assistant did not flag “until very late” when the opposition forward received a long pass while he was clearly in an offside position.
The rule had been in force during that summer’s Confederation’s Cup. It had also been widely reported in the media that amendments to the offside rule meant that assistants were no longer going to raise their flags until AFTER the attacking player standing in an offside position had played the ball or had otherwise become active.
You could understand a manger on holiday not being aware of some obscure Lithuanian player signing for a lower division Bosnian team – even managers need a break from football in the summer. However, to not be aware of a significant change in the offside rule?? This level of ignorance from a manager of a Premiership team is unforgivable.
On the whole, what is needed in football at the moment is a great deal more education. Most fans rely on their trusted media sources, like the BBC, for their information regarding obvious rule changes and what to make of refereeing decisions made on a Saturday afternoon. More importantly, for our youngsters in the early years of lacing up their boots and having a go themselves, stronger guidance is required at the top level to provide a model for what behaviour is, and is not acceptable on a football pitch.
SOCCERSNOBS
THAT’S WHAT WE THINK. BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK? PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW…
