Changes in football

[Rik Meleet]

Football and the way it is performed today is a bit out-dated. Some elements of it just are so 1900's that it gets annoying. The game will need some rule-changes to make it more modern. What changes would be good for football.

* Camera's in the goalposts and along the lines where a video-ref can replay situations to check for errors. For instance, when a goal has been scored, check for off-side and fouls before awarding a goal. Check players falling on the grass for schwalbe's or unnoticed fouls. In general, prevent referee errors. This will make the game fairer and has the side-effect of smothering players objecting to referee decisions and the crowd will be sure questionable decisions don't happen any more, thus will be calmer. Less violence perhaps.

* Stop the clock when the ball is outside the lines, when the referee has whistled, when changes are being made or when the game is dead in a different way. Restart the clock when the ball is back into play. This reduces or even eliminates players using too much time when they are ahead and the game is in the last minutes.

* When a player is injured, but the ball is still in play, allow medical staff on the pitch (same as in rugby). There's no need to stop play for injuries, nor is there a need to wait with taking care of an injured player as long as the ball still is in play.

* Change the time part of the off-side rule to: A player is offside when the ball is kicked, until when that player touches the ball or participates in the play .... If a player is offside when the ball is kicked to him, but before the ball is with him either a defender has overtaken him or he himself moved back into on-side position, he is still given off-side in today's rules. But that's not really neccesary since he no longer has the positional advantage.

* Connect to yellow cards a time-penalty. Like a 10 minute sin-bin time. That means getting a yellow card (and since the videoref verified it, it will be a deserved yellow card) means an immediate disadvantage for your team. That will hopefully lead to less yellow card worthy fouls, thus to less injuries. Some great players have had their careers ended prematurely because of repeated fouls. Marco van Basten is a well-known example.
Nasty fouls on youtube - of the kind that don't belong on the pitch.

* Use a distance measuring device when measuring 9,15 meters. Measuring the distance the opponents must be at when taking a free kick by using your legs is not suitable for the 21st century.

* Use shirts that are slippery and designed to be unholdable. One of the troubles in football nowadays is players grabbing and pulling the opponent's shirts, preventing the opponent from attacking. These fouls are often missed by the referees.

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Comments or suggestions for more changes ?

 

[BCLG100]

I think the shirt thing is a ridiculous idea quite frankly, what are they going to wear? jelly?

I am a supporter of the video ref thing when it comes to things like goals but i am unsure how it could be used effectivly without breaking up the flow of the game, this isn't rugby/tennis/cricket where the play stops every five seconds. I dont think it would be easy to have this running alongside the game without the game being constantly broken up.

I think the free kick thing may as well stay as it is, the wall moves forward about a yard at least the majority of the time anyways.

Tbh i think adding anything more to the offside rule just makes it even more complicated than it is right now anyways.

I completly agree with the injury thing though, with the exception for stoppage if it is a head injury which is already in the rules anyways.

I dont think the clock thing would work so well, i remember reading somewhere that the ball was only in open play for like 20 minutes a half or a match or something, if that was to happen we'd end up sitting there for 3 hours at least watching a match, now thats ok if your watching say arsenal man utd but not if your sitting through the luxury of sunderland wigan.

I do like the sin bin idea but i think it would perhaps work better if the yellow card was in place and say an orange card was introduced for the sin bin, yellows could be dealt out slightly more frequently meaning the orange would be for something slightly harsher than a yellow and a red for the accumalation of both.

What i would like looking at is the sending off of goalkeepers when commiting a foul as the last man and conceeding a penalty, the opposing team has already been awarded the penalty by sending the goalkeeper off you are generally ending the match as a competition.

 

[Sofista]

* Camera's in the goalposts and along the lines where a video-ref can replay situations to check for errors. For instance, when a goal has been scored, check for off-side and fouls before awarding a goal. Check players falling on the grass for schwalbe's or unnoticed fouls. In general, prevent referee errors. This will make the game fairer and has the side-effect of smothering players objecting to referee decisions and the crowd will be sure questionable decisions don't happen any more, thus will be calmer. Less violence perhaps.

Have you seen the latest fencing competitions? Ten seconds of action, interspersed by minutes of consultation on all points.
There's a strong argument against this, namely, that such a rule would create a big divide between football of the rich, with cameras and a giant screen, and football of the poor.
But I could see it introduced for international tournaments, provided a limit (see the fencing example) is fixed: for example, the replay will be used on request of a manager, limited to two for half (non cumulative). Fair balance between asking for justice and long periods of TV alternating between replays and guys with painted faces in the stadium.

* Stop the clock when the ball is outside the lines, when the referee has whistled, when changes are being made or when the game is dead in a different way. Restart the clock when the ball is back into play. This reduces or even eliminates players using too much time when they are ahead and the game is in the last minutes.

See BCLG's response. Effectively this would mean ending a player's career before 30. Down with the Maradonas, up with marathon men.
Not to mention that players are bound to want breathers anyway.

* When a player is injured, but the ball is still in play, allow medical staff on the pitch (same as in rugby). There's no need to stop play for injuries, nor is there a need to wait with taking care of an injured player as long as the ball still is in play.

Hasn't FIFA recently pronounced against players taking the initiative of kicking out the ball themselves whenever injury occurred, stating that it's the ref's job to call for it? Guess they won't leave the decision in the hands of team staffs, then.

* Change the time part of the off-side rule to: A player is offside when the ball is kicked, until when that player touches the ball or participates in the play .... If a player is offside when the ball is kicked to him, but before the ball is with him either a defender has overtaken him or he himself moved back into on-side position, he is still given off-side in today's rules. But that's not really neccesary since he no longer has the positional advantage.

You probably think this would lead to more attacking play. I think this would mean 4 defenders+sweeper becoming de rigueur again.

* Connect to yellow cards a time-penalty. Like a 10 minute sin-bin time. That means getting a yellow card (and since the videoref verified it, it will be a deserved yellow card) means an immediate disadvantage for your team. That will hopefully lead to less yellow card worthy fouls, thus to less injuries. Some great players have had their careers ended prematurely because of repeated fouls. Marco van Basten is a well-known example.
Nasty fouls on youtube - of the kind that don't belong on the pitch.

With or without the disqualifications connected with successive yellow cards as it is now? Also, how many controversial yellow cards have you seen recently? This one to work really requires cameras, and again, the world isn't one big Premielr League.
Of course I agree that violent play should be a primary target of FIFA. May I throw in a paradoxal idea, which he'll call the "eye for an eye" proposal? A player that injures another will be out as long as his victim. See if that does not work.

* Use a distance measuring device when measuring 9,15 meters. Measuring the distance the opponents must be at when taking a free kick by using your legs is not suitable for the 21st century.

Again, suppose a game reacher extra time: how many hours would it last with this, and the "stop the clock" idea?

* Use shirts that are slippery and designed to be unholdable. One of the troubles in football nowadays is players grabbing and pulling the opponent's shirts, preventing the opponent from attacking. These fouls are often missed by the referees.

Lycra leotard + shorts? Now that would make women's football popular! No really, would you be more specific?
I vaguely recall that today's highly elastic textures are meant to become very evident when pulled.

 

[BCLG100]

Each players shirt could be covered in paint so then the oponents hands would get covered and they'd be caught red handed so to speak (or green or yellow etc)

 

[downtown]

The shirt pulling problem was an issue in Men's college basketball, so now a lot of their jerseys are skintight. You ould grab on to a dude's shorts, but its hard to get a fistful of jersey now

 

[Ozbenno]

They did the same with rugby a few years back, made the jerseys skin tight so opponents couldn't grab hold of them.

One rule I'd like to see brought in is that if a player goes down injured, he has to be taken off and assessed by an independant doctor for at least 5 minutes before being allowed back on. FIFA could say it is their duty of care. I reckon overnight the amount of players faking injuries would stop if they were leaving their team short for 5 minutes and if it was a serious injury it would encourage the team to make a speedy replacement.

 

[Joe Harker]

* Camera's in the goalposts and along the lines where a video-ref can replay situations to check for errors. For instance, when a goal has been scored, check for off-side and fouls before awarding a goal. Check players falling on the grass for schwalbe's or unnoticed fouls. In general, prevent referee errors. This will make the game fairer and has the side-effect of smothering players objecting to referee decisions and the crowd will be sure questionable decisions don't happen any more, thus will be calmer. Less violence perhaps.

Problem, is, now would you check without stopping played, eg when the ball is scrambled off the the line and then the ref blows his whistle to check whether it is a goal, then if it wasn't, who would get the ball? The only way it could work is if you have a video ref, who tells the actual ref to stop play when he actually notices something.

* Stop the clock when the ball is outside the lines, when the referee has whistled, when changes are being made or when the game is dead in a different way. Restart the clock when the ball is back into play. This reduces or even eliminates players using too much time when they are ahead and the game is in the last minutes.

People will still time waste, they just won't hoof the ball out of play. (ie keep it on the corner flag)

* Change the time part of the off-side rule to: A player is offside when the ball is kicked, until when that player touches the ball or participates in the play .... If a player is offside when the ball is kicked to him, but before the ball is with him either a defender has overtaken him or he himself moved back into on-side position, he is still given off-side in today's rules. But that's not really neccesary since he no longer has the positional advantage.

I think the current verison is fine, also alot of the time, in situations you desrcibe the player who is technially offside doesn't normally get flagged, I agree with the idea, i just think it might be too complex to be effective, we struggling with the current set of rules!

The shirt pulling problem was an issue in Men's college basketball, so now a lot of their jerseys are skintight. You ould grab on to a dude's shorts, but its hard to get a fistful of jersey now

Yeah, we tried that in the 70s, not a pretty sight

 

[holy king]

One rule I'd like to see brought in is that if a player goes down injured, he has to be taken off and assessed by an independant doctor for at least 5 minutes before being allowed back on. FIFA could say it is their duty of care. I reckon overnight the amount of players faking injuries would stop if they were leaving their team short for 5 minutes and if it was a serious injury it would encourage the team to make a speedy replacement.

sometimes a hit does hurt for a minute or two to the extent of the player not being able to stand up and take part in the game again, though it's not a serious injury.

 

[warpus]

* Camera's in the goalposts and along the lines where a video-ref can replay situations to check for errors. For instance, when a goal has been scored, check for off-side and fouls before awarding a goal. Check players falling on the grass for schwalbe's or unnoticed fouls. In general, prevent referee errors. This will make the game fairer and has the side-effect of smothering players objecting to referee decisions and the crowd will be sure questionable decisions don't happen any more, thus will be calmer. Less violence perhaps.

This would take far too long and would disrupt the flow of the game. Goal line technology, such as sticking a chip in the ball, would work better for this purpose.. if they got it to work right. I'm not even against video technology in the game.. but you can't use it for every goal. It would slow things down too much.

* Stop the clock when the ball is outside the lines, when the referee has whistled, when changes are being made or when the game is dead in a different way. Restart the clock when the ball is back into play. This reduces or even eliminates players using too much time when they are ahead and the game is in the last minutes.

Is there a need for this? Players get yellow carded for wasting time. It isn't a uge problem. The stopping and re-starting of game time would disrupt the flow of the game.

* When a player is injured, but the ball is still in play, allow medical staff on the pitch (same as in rugby). There's no need to stop play for injuries, nor is there a need to wait with taking care of an injured player as long as the ball still is in play.

How could the game go on with a part of the pitch taken up by medical staff? Bad idea!

* Change the time part of the off-side rule to: A player is offside when the ball is kicked, until when that player touches the ball or participates in the play .... If a player is offside when the ball is kicked to him, but before the ball is with him either a defender has overtaken him or he himself moved back into on-side position, he is still given off-side in today's rules. But that's not really neccesary since he no longer has the positional advantage.

Hmm that's interesting, and might work in some situations, but the offside player might have an advantage. It might be easier for him to receive the ball.

* Connect to yellow cards a time-penalty. Like a 10 minute sin-bin time. That means getting a yellow card (and since the videoref verified it, it will be a deserved yellow card) means an immediate disadvantage for your team. That will hopefully lead to less yellow card worthy fouls, thus to less injuries. Some great players have had their careers ended prematurely because of repeated fouls. Marco van Basten is a well-known example.
Nasty fouls on youtube - of the kind that don't belong on the pitch.

I like! But then two yellows leading to a red seems a bit too much.

* Use a distance measuring device when measuring 9,15 meters. Measuring the distance the opponents must be at when taking a free kick by using your legs is not suitable for the 21st century.

Would disrupt the flow of the game.

I suggest that the 4th referree look at the situation on his little screen - and the screen should tell him how far they shoudl be back with one of those graphical displays WE see (in some leagues) during free kicks. He can thetn communicate to the referee if the players are too close.

Comments or suggestions for more changes ?

- Review the game on video after the fact and dish out suspensions & bans from the game for simulation.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Football is the most popular sport in the world, it's spread all over the world etc.

Why fix it if it isn't broken?

 

[dgfred]

Great ideas Rik!

 

[Rik Meleet]

BCLG / Joe Harker/Warpus: The video ref doesn't disrupt or delay play for more than a few seconds. I can think of situations where the players angrily running to the ref and talking to him etc. takes far more time than this. I happened to see the situation after the 1-2 of the European championship 1976 Netherlands - Czechoslovakia. That delay after the 1-2 took way longer than the 15 seconds a videoref would need.
Remember that there is a special video ref with proper equipment, being able to view back a situation as it happened. We get the same when watching it on TV.
And I envision this that any doubt-situation (like off-side or a player falling down) means: play-on until the ball is dead (which gives the videoref even time during play, if neccesary) and if it happened to be off-side, continue from there; if it was a foul on the player, penalise and continue from there. If there was no off-side or foul; the game has continued already. This reduces bad referee decisions by a large factor, while keeping the delay of the game to a minimum.

Sofista: I see a limit as extremely undesirable. If things happen 3 times during a single half then the 3rd time is "bad luck you're out of video-checks?" - that's not helping to make the game fairer.

BCLG: about the shirts, like Ozbenno and downtown has show, those shirts already exist. Even in Football. Cameroon wore such shirts in 2004 and instead of encouraging this, FIFA penalised Cameroon.

Clock-thing: It doesn't have to be 2x45 minutes of pure game-time. It could be less. The main idea is to remove unfair time-wasting. And Joe Harker: keeping a ball in play at the corner-flag I see as fair time-wasting, since the ball is kept in play (meaning the opponent still has a chance, unlike when the ball is outside the lines and the player on the pitch furthest from there slowly walks over to do the throw-in...).

Injury: Sofista: I wasn't thinking of FIFA disallowing the players to decide when doctors can come on the pitch, but I was thinking of removing the "no doctors on the pitch during play" altogether. If someone is injured and needs medical attention a doctor is obliged to help. In todays situation he can't during a football match since some non-medically-skilled man in black is forbidding him.
Ozbenno: your idea is rewarding the side that injures the other side. An undesirable thing. Let's say my opponent kicks me so hard I am in real pain. Then why should they be rewarded for having 11-10 for 5 minutes ? That's the opposite of what sould be the goal: remove or reduce fouls and injuries as much as possible. And fake injuries are spotted via the videoref and would mean an instant yellow card, thus sin-bin, making faking absolutely a stupid thing to do.

Offsiderule: OK, this might be a bit over-the top and too confusing. Better ideas required here.

Sin-bin. As pointed out by Sofista and others, to work well this indeed requires cameras and videorefs. But that was my first point already.
And yes: with the disqualifications connected and yellow + yellow = red. Why? Because the goal should be to protect players from fouls and injuries. But you want to protect them in a fair and honest way. I've had enough of world-class players being destroyed and kicked out of a game because of horrible fouls. For instance Wouters breaking Gasgoigne's face is something you shouldn't want.

9,15 meters: I've seen a match in the 90's where devices were tested. The ref had a small device on his wrist with 2 lasers, which joined at exactly 9,15 meter. So he'd stand at the freekick location and point it at the players who are forming a wall and tells them to walk back further. As long as there are 2 dots on that player's shirt he's closer than 9,15 m. When the 2 dots are at the same spot (so 1 dot) he is at 9,15 meter. No loss of time, no hassle and the exact correct distance.

More comments / ideas ?

 

[BCLG100]

BCLG / Joe Harker/Warpus: The video ref doesn't disruptor delay play for more than a few seconds. I can think of situations where the players angrily running to the ref and talking to him etc. takes far more time than this. I happened to see the situation after the 1-2 of the European championship 1976 Netherlands - Czechoslovakia. That delay after the 1-2 took way longer than the 15 seconds a videoref would need.
Remember that there is a special video ref with proper equipment, being able to view back a situation as it happened. We get the same when watching it on TV.
And I envision this that any doubt-situation (like off-side or a player falling down) means: play-on until the ball is dead (which gives the videoref even time during play, if neccesary) and if it happened to be off-side, continue from there; if it was a foul on the player, penalise and continue from there. If there was no off-side or foul; the game has continued already. This reduces bad referee decisions by a large factor, while keeping the delay of the game to a minimum.

I think this would lead to far more stoppages, the only situation i can see this realistically working is goaline and not for every foul or dive that goes on, too many stoppages would ruin the game. Not to mention how if after two minutes of play everything has to go back to where it started the games would be so much longer.

Clock-thing: It doesn't have to be 2x45 minutes of pure game-time. It could be less. The main idea is to remove unfair time-wasting. And Joe Harker: keeping a ball in play at the corner-flag I see as fair time-wasting, since the ball is kept in play (meaning the opponent still has a chance, unlike when the ball is outside the lines and the player on the pitch furthest from there slowly walks over to do the throw-in...).

That wouldnt add anything to the game though, for the fans watching it would be just as boring watching a couple of guys in the corner as one guy walking slowly to retrieve the ball, the best way i found of limiting time wasting is the multi ball system they use in the champions league (not the budwieser advert) in that there is about 20 balls around the pitch ready to be given within seconds rather than in the premiership where there is only 1 the entire game unless a puncture happens (not sure about other leagues).


The majority of your points seem to involve the introduction of cameras into the game, in my opinion all of these can do nothing, with a few exceptions, but hold the game up and make it less enjoyable for everyone. Perhaps governing bodies should be able to look back on a game and award yellow cards but not during as it would bring play to a halt.

 

[lovett]

* Use shirts that are slippery and designed to be unholdable. One of the troubles in football nowadays is players grabbing and pulling the opponent's shirts, preventing the opponent from attacking. These fouls are often missed by the referees.

Good Idea!

Im really surprised it hasn't happened already, actually . I'd think that an attacking side would get a significant advantage from this. And then all the other sides would have to adopt it just to keep up.

Is there FIFA kit regulations or something?

 

[REDY]

Reasonable ideas.

 

[Clam Spammer]

Football is the most popular sport in the world, it's spread all over the world etc.

Why fix it if it isn't broken?

Would this thread exist if football wasn't broken? I doubt it.

Football and the way it is performed today is a bit out-dated. Some elements of it just are so 1900's that it gets annoying. The game will need some rule-changes to make it more modern. What changes would be good for football.

* Camera's in the goalposts and along the lines where a video-ref can replay situations to check for errors. For instance, when a goal has been scored, check for off-side and fouls before awarding a goal. Check players falling on the grass for schwalbe's or unnoticed fouls. In general, prevent referee errors. This will make the game fairer and has the side-effect of smothering players objecting to referee decisions and the crowd will be sure questionable decisions don't happen any more, thus will be calmer. Less violence perhaps.

I don't think video referees would be good for football. The free-flowing nature of the game is part of its beauty, and without this it would be less enjoyable to watch. I would rather have four officials on the sidelines, rather than two, so that they get a better view.

* Stop the clock when the ball is outside the lines, when the referee has whistled, when changes are being made or when the game is dead in a different way. Restart the clock when the ball is back into play. This reduces or even eliminates players using too much time when they are ahead and the game is in the last minutes.

Agreed - stoppage time is way too arbitrary and this would eliminate those stupid bookings for "timewasting".

* When a player is injured, but the ball is still in play, allow medical staff on the pitch (same as in rugby). There's no need to stop play for injuries, nor is there a need to wait with taking care of an injured player as long as the ball still is in play.

This wouldn't work as well as it does in rugby. In rugby, the ball often stays in one area of the field for an extended period. In football play goes back and forth very quickly and medical staff would get in the way.

* Change the time part of the off-side rule to: A player is offside when the ball is kicked, until when that player touches the ball or participates in the play .... If a player is offside when the ball is kicked to him, but before the ball is with him either a defender has overtaken him or he himself moved back into on-side position, he is still given off-side in today's rules. But that's not really neccesary since he no longer has the positional advantage.

Offsides in football are too difficult to referee, even for top class linesmen, as I'm sure you all have seen on numerous occasions. I would prefer that they scrap the rule altogether. Hockey (by which I mean 11-a-side turf hockey, NOT ice hockey), which in many ways is very similar to football, seems to work just fine without an offside rule.

* Connect to yellow cards a time-penalty. Like a 10 minute sin-bin time. That means getting a yellow card (and since the videoref verified it, it will be a deserved yellow card) means an immediate disadvantage for your team. That will hopefully lead to less yellow card worthy fouls, thus to less injuries. Some great players have had their careers ended prematurely because of repeated fouls. Marco van Basten is a well-known example.
Nasty fouls on youtube - of the kind that don't belong on the pitch.

I like this idea. Just make sure that the refs don't go easy on players early in the game like they do in rugby.

* Use a distance measuring device when measuring 9,15 meters. Measuring the distance the opponents must be at when taking a free kick by using your legs is not suitable for the 21st century.

I don't think this is necessary. Rugby and league referees can do a good job of measuring this distance without a tape measure. Maybe football refs should ref some league matches as part of their training?

* Use shirts that are slippery and designed to be unholdable. One of the troubles in football nowadays is players grabbing and pulling the opponent's shirts, preventing the opponent from attacking. These fouls are often missed by the referees.

This works in rugby (although it really shouldn't, since it becomes quite difficult to tackle). I agree with this one.

Thanks Rik for making this thread. I've wanted to complain about football for quite a while now, and it's nice to see I'm not alone here.

 

[ulsterman88]

Football and the way it is performed today is a bit out-dated. Some elements of it just are so 1900's that it gets annoying. The game will need some rule-changes to make it more modern. What changes would be good for football.

* Camera's in the goalposts and along the lines where a video-ref can replay situations to check for errors. For instance, when a goal has been scored, check for off-side and fouls before awarding a goal. Check players falling on the grass for schwalbe's or unnoticed fouls. In general, prevent referee errors. This will make the game fairer and has the side-effect of smothering players objecting to referee decisions and the crowd will be sure questionable decisions don't happen any more, thus will be calmer. Less violence perhaps.

* Stop the clock when the ball is outside the lines, when the referee has whistled, when changes are being made or when the game is dead in a different way. Restart the clock when the ball is back into play. This reduces or even eliminates players using too much time when they are ahead and the game is in the last minutes.

* When a player is injured, but the ball is still in play, allow medical staff on the pitch (same as in rugby). There's no need to stop play for injuries, nor is there a need to wait with taking care of an injured player as long as the ball still is in play.

* Change the time part of the off-side rule to: A player is offside when the ball is kicked, until when that player touches the ball or participates in the play .... If a player is offside when the ball is kicked to him, but before the ball is with him either a defender has overtaken him or he himself moved back into on-side position, he is still given off-side in today's rules. But that's not really neccesary since he no longer has the positional advantage.

* Connect to yellow cards a time-penalty. Like a 10 minute sin-bin time. That means getting a yellow card (and since the videoref verified it, it will be a deserved yellow card) means an immediate disadvantage for your team. That will hopefully lead to less yellow card worthy fouls, thus to less injuries. Some great players have had their careers ended prematurely because of repeated fouls. Marco van Basten is a well-known example.
Nasty fouls on youtube - of the kind that don't belong on the pitch.

* Use a distance measuring device when measuring 9,15 meters. Measuring the distance the opponents must be at when taking a free kick by using your legs is not suitable for the 21st century.

* Use shirts that are slippery and designed to be unholdable. One of the troubles in football nowadays is players grabbing and pulling the opponent's shirts, preventing the opponent from attacking. These fouls are often missed by the referees.

----------

Comments or suggestions for more changes ?

i agree with you on every point except on the distance measuring point, it would just be unnecessary, the distance can be measured fairly well by referees so it is not an issue. The problem is players moving forward a step or 2 when the referee isnt looking. Yes football needs to change for its own good on the field but also off it.

The sport has lost its sense of morality and become a competition were he who spends the most money wins. There should be a wage and transfer cap, and Blatters limitations on foreigners in teams would be excellent combined with stopping clubs stealing youngsters from their home nations. This would level the playing field and bring football back to the 1970's and 1980's when teams could come from nowhere and win the European Cup, such as Aston Villa, Ajax, Nottingham Forest, Red Star and Steaua. They should also return to the pure knockout format of the old european cup instead of the money spinning current format.