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[The Pupi]

"West Ham's victory over Millwall was marred by trouble..." Couldn't see that one coming!!!

[canadablue]

Bloody disgusting scenes. I had hoped they had grown up a bit these tossers.

[Paul]

Bloody disgusting scenes. I had hoped they had grown up a bit these tossers.

Canada, the trouble is they have grown up, they're now mid 40's instead of late teens, same blokes, just a bit fatter (and not fitter).

[Tragic]

Well at least we can save the money and stop even trying to make a World Cup bid for at least another 10  years!

ctid

[The Pupi]

And on to other news part 2

Have you seen this? About the Eduardo dive incident?
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_5520147,00.html

I think a long overdue problem that needs to be addressed is being addressed the wrong way but this is surely going to be a shot in the arm for advocates of video refereeing. Opinion?

[Mick]

Opinion?

I've thought for years that diving should be stamped out, and I've thought for years that video evidence could and should be used for that if necessary - the point being that if a player intends to deceive a referee and succeeds in doing so, then clearly the ref will have given an incorrect decision through no fault of his own. The player then clearly profits from successful cheating, and no retrospective sanction is applied, so there is no disincentive for cheating. However, the way this is being done stinks to high heaven - the FA, UEFA and FIFA have set their faces firmly against video evidence and refused to intervene except when it suits them the referee says he didn't clearly see an incident during a game and would have given a different decision had he done so.

In this case the ref saw it, and called it wrong. I don't think for a minute it was a penalty, but whether Eduardo intended to deceive is at least arguable. We have all seen far more blatant dives (we were discussing Pederson's effort in the pub) and we all know a certain Portuguese who was not above doing this sort of thing. I can think of a couple of scousers (Wooney, shit Joey Barton) who are not above taking a tumble, and let's not forget Franny more or less inventing it - there's a lot of it about. Why is this particular incident being targeted?

If this is the shape of things to come, if all such incidents are to be examined impartially, then I'm all for it. Of course it is important to differentiate between players going down when they haven't been touched and claiming a penalty, ie cheating, and players just falling over, either because of a slight contact (but no foul) or because they simply trip over their own feet or the ball.

However, simulation with intent to deceive the referee is an automatically cautionable offence according to the laws of the game, and the game would be much better for the laws being applied consistently and impartially. Players dive because they correctly believe that they have a good chance of profiting from a referee who is fooled by it, and are in little danger of any sanction if the ref is not fooled, or if it is revealed to the world on tv afterwards that they have cheated. In the same way, players pull shirts and hold other players in the box because they correctly believe that the ref is unlikely to award a penalty despite the fact that they have blatantly committed a foul. If the referees applied the laws of the game consistently and fairly, allowing for human error, players would not profit so readily from cheating and would be less inclined to do so.

Sadly, I don't think that this a case of suddenly remembering the laws of the game and applying them, and I have some sympathy with Monsieur le Whinger when he cries witch-hunt. The football authorities, both the FA and UEFA, are neither consistent nor impartial, and it is a stain on the game.

[epun]

i must admit i'm against videos replays during a game, it would hold up the flow, if you can't do it down the park on a sunday morning then it shouldn't happen in the prem. its ok in cricket which is a slower game, with plenty of stoppages between each bowl, maybe ok in rugby, again a game with plenty of stoppages, but not football, some games may take 2 hours or more to complete.

[Mick]

i must admit i'm against videos replays during a game, it would hold up the flow, if you can't do it down the park on a sunday morning then it shouldn't happen in the prem. its ok in cricket which is a slower game, with plenty of stoppages between each bowl, maybe ok in rugby, again a game with plenty of stoppages, but not football, some games may take 2 hours or more to complete.

Not convinced by the argument that it would hold up the flow - there are plenty of stoppages in football, I think the average game actually has around 60 minutes of play. How long does play stop for when there's a disputed penalty decision and players surround the officials to argue the case? The actual action in question might be 2 or 3 seconds of video - how long would it take for the 4th official to review that? And then there could be no argument on the pitch. In any event, it could only ever apply when play had already stopped, and you could only prove it one way or the other by trialling it, which hasn't happened.

Nor do I accept the argument that if you can't do it on a Sunday morning in  the local park you shouldn't do it in the Prem. How many park games have a 4th official? How many park games have 7 subs on the bench?

We already have rules about the facilities which must be available at different levels of football - Prestwich Heys do not have the requisite facilities for the North West Counties League (no floodlights), Stalybridge Celtic do not have the requisite facilities for the Premiership. Check out http://www.premierleague.com/staticFiles/bd/3b/0,,12306~146365,00.pdf page 128 to see the criteria required for Premiership clubs. In particular, check out this on page 134 -

39. Except for League Matches which are televised in accordance with the Company’s broadcasting contracts, each Home Club shall procure that each League Match played at its ground is filmed by at least 6 cameras.

So Premiership games are filmed by regulation already Why can we not have higher standards for Premier League (or equivalent abroad) than for park footie? It doesn't seem to have caused an issue for cricket - I don't think my local cricket club has the sort of video replay facilities available at the Oval.

And all of this is an entirely different argument to the one Pupi originally raised, which is about UEFA using existing footage to retrospectively charge Eduardo with simulation. They are already using video evidence, but they are using it after the match rather than during it, and the argument for me is much more about applying these sanctions fairly and consistently. Sadly, fairness and consistency are concepts which seem entirely alien to the football authorities much of the time.

[jds]

It'll never happen while Blatter is FIFA President because he believes it instantly undermines the refs during the match if they've got it wrong, and he also believes it takes away some of the "human face" of football.

Of course, this chump is up for re-election in 2011, after the 2010 World Cup has already passed so he could have a strong African opponent this time around.

[Tragic]

Sadly, fairness and consistency are concepts which seem entirely alien to the football authorities much of the time.

Unfortunately for football it is entirely alien to most people involved in the game especially managers and most importantly players...other than the over complication of the laws of the game by "them" (offside a prime example) a ref's job should be fairly straight forward but for the cheats and that's not just divers but the feigners of injury, the shirt pullers and the bullies like Terry, Keane et al.

It'd be great to get every decision right but that wont ever happen and depending on the camera angle etc. there are loads of decisions that can't be called anyway...hence Hansen et al quibbling away on MotD over the very same incident. The only way to clean up football and make life easy for everyone is for the footballers to stop cheating and that'll never happen.

Goal line technology on the other hand is something that should be looked at, I mean this is something that's been spouted about for decades and has been shown to be rather simple to install and maintain...including at the lower tiers of the game.

ctid