A few improvements

Following my last post, these are a few ideas that I think football (or soccer, depending on where you are) could borrow from a few other sports. Hopefully they would make the game more dynamic, and decrease the annoying number of refereeing mistakes we've seen lately.

- Time (clock) should be shown to the public, and stopped every time the ball goes offside. A referee table (which doesn't need to be a table per se, but they could sit up in the stadium along with the commentators) would control that (like in basketball). That would get rid of players making time by simulating injuries, taking a long time to throw the ball in, etc. Goalies would also be timed to put the ball back in play. That would also stop discussions about how much stoppage time should be added to the clock.

- All refereeing power wouldn't be delegated to one man (or woman), as it is today. A couple more referees sitting on the table would have access to replays, from which they could have better calls on the different plays. Judgement calls (e.g. red cards, penalty kicks, etc) would need the majority vote, and would be aided by the different camera angles and replays.

- Offsides and other calls such as if the ball went out of the field or inside the goal could be aided by computational technology. That would certainly be less prone to error and faster than human decisions (e.g. when the puck goes in the net in hockey). People spend thousands of dollars to come up with a ball that the majority of players don't like, so I'm sure there's some money left to improve refereeing in the game.
A cheaper approach would be to do everything in software. Identifying the players in each team, where the ball is, etc is easily done by computer software. Then, the offside is a very simple if-then algorithm. If the ball crosses a line can also be easily be done by computer software using data from cameras centered in the goal (or field) lines.
One can get a bit more fancy by having chips in the player's shoes, and several on the ball, and offside could be determined that way too. Having sensors on the ball and goalposts (as well as corner flags) would also help identifying when the ball crosses the lines.
For now, while the technology is still being developed (and trust me, it wouldn't take long, it's not new technology, it's just old stuff being applied to soccer), the referee table could be in charge of such calls, using the replays and things like what have been done in this world cup, with the shaded field, etc.

- one could introduce something similar to (american) football, where the coaches get to ask for the re-call of a certain number of plays too.

- because the game clock would be stopped frequently, such stops to review plays (either by the ref table or by the coaches' request) wouldn't affect the game dynamic that much.

Of course it could be expensive to try these things, so starting it in a smaller tournament (e.g. confederations cup), or even MLS (because the US might have the technology and be adventurous enough to do it) would be a nice idea. Certainly many countries (or amateur leagues) won't have the money to make all these changes, but FIFA sponsored ones should. And there is always the current approach as a fallback, which seems to be good enough for many people.

So, fire away. Which ones do you like? Which ones should never be part of this sport we all love? What else would you do?

Best,

Gus

FIFA needs to change!

In this 2010 World Cup we are seeing great advances in TV coverage, with several cameras showing things we have never seen before in soccer, such as very slow motion and even interesting and not so interesting facts, such as heat maps, speed of players, etc. However, it's a shame that FIFA doesn't want to use this technology to help refereeing. I can't recall a World Cup (or any other FIFA tournament) with so many crucial mistakes by the referees that could have changed the outcome of the game. Just of the top of my head:

- The ball crossing the goal line in Germany vs England
- Argentina's offside first goal against Mexico
- Brazil's 2nd goal against Ivory Coast
- That call against USA in the game they almost came back for a victory

Before I keep on writing, let me make it clear that I want to complain about these calls despite the team I was cheering for. I'm Brazilian, so there's no question for which team I cheer. In the other games, I usually cheer for a good game, or for whatever result would make a next good game (e.g. Argentina so they would play against Germany, or cheering for England to tie the game against Germany to make it a bit harder for the good German team). I even talk about that Brazilian goal which was beautiful, but unfortunately also illegal.

Also, let me say that I don't suspect of foul play by any of the referees. These are mistakes that happen, but unfortunately they got to an unbearable point. I don't think there are more or bigger errors now compared to the past, but now we're more likely so see them with all the technology involved in the TV coverage (more than 30 cameras, instant replay, etc), that weren't available before. That begs the question: why doesn't FIFA want to use such technology to decrease the number of mistakes?

The only reason I've heard is that such mistakes (and following discussions) are part of the game. Sorry, I don't buy it. It's not part of the game that your team doesn't qualify for a world cup because of a clear hand ball. Or that you team doesn't go forward in the tournament because the referee (or his assistant) didn't see a ball kick 30cm inside the goal. These are mistakes that don't take all the technology to be seen, but I believe that are possible to happen when only one, maybe two, men have a split second to make a call.

I think that regardless of how many improvements there are to refereeing, there will always be mistakes. Didn't someone say "To err is human"? Let's just hope that with these improvements they won't affect the outcome of the match so much, as we have seen lately.

So what kind of improvements am I talking about? Well, I'll leave that to another post. But, at the very least, the 4th referee should have access to all the technology we have. This way he/she could warn the referee when such big mistakes occur, and the referee should be allowed (or not be afraid of, not sure what's the right thing here), to go back and fix his/her own mistakes.

So, why am I writing about this? First of all, to vent. I'm sick of watching this and not saying anything, and hopefully I'll find other people like me here. But I also hope to find people that think the opposite, and I'll love to hear and understand your arguments. But, the most important reason for me to post this, is that I hope to start a chain. In times of Twitter, Facebook, etc, it's easy to get people to agree or disagree with you. More importantly, it's easier to be heard. And I think this is the only way to make changes. FIFA doesn't own soccer, and I believe that if they see that a good number of people want change, maybe they will come.

Please post your comments. I really want to hear what you think about all of it. Even if you disagree. And, if you like it, spread the word. Let's see what we can get out of it.

In my next post, I'll share some of my ideas that might (in my point of view) greatly improve the game.

Best,

Gus