Skinning the scapegoats they call referees
Another great weekend of football another weekend where referees are used as scapegoats.
Spurs didn’t play well enough to beat Stoke; the goal that Spurs scored was through a penalty given to them by the referee. Spurs didn’t turn up for the first 30 minutes when they did they finally got themselves into the game they were caught on the break and went into the second half 2-0 down.
Sometimes you get decisions, sometimes you don’t, that’s football.
Whenever a referee makes a decision that affects the game for either a goal or a sending off, it affects the game yes but the laws are can be interpreted differently which is why football is such a great game because it divides opinions. It’s a great conversation starter with people you don’t really know. You could go up to any bloke in the pub and say ‘did you see that dodgy penalty decision at the weekend?’ and depending on his loyalties he would have his own opinion and you would have yours and you would have a conversation about that.
So why would anyone want video replays?
A few decisions may be reversed, but then if you have video replays what are you using them for? A foul in the middle of the pitch? An offside decision? A goal kick that should have been a corner? In a game like football it’s doesn’t make logical sense to stop the game to look at a 5 second replay 3 times at different angles to get the right decision. Football is played at a much quicker tempo in comparison to other sports such as cricket, tennis or rugby. The controversy of football is what makes it such a dramatic sport and that is why we love it.
The referee and the 4th official watching the replay may disagree with each other over whether it is or isn’t a penalty. Because the laws of the game have so many grey areas and are left to interpretation, many incidents in football get watched over and over and over again and are drastically slowed down and can still divide opinion between football fans.
Goal line technology is a different issue. Whether something is a goal or not is matter of fact, it either is or it isn’t. If there is a clear and simple method of deciding whether the ball has crossed the line and can be determined instantaneously then it would be a great implementation in football.
No one can make a conversation out of ‘did you see that sending off which was queried by the captain and then reversed by the 4th official they then had a drop ball and they got on with the game’.
Calum Steel @CalumSteel
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