In
25 years time I will be 80 years old (if I’m lucky) and hopefully, I
will be sitting in my ‘man-cave’ somewhere with a beer watching
football, probably via some form of virtual reality. The question is; will
the game be recognisable compared to the one we watch today?
Since
the extant Laws of Association Football were codified in 1863
they haven’t actually changed that much. The International Football Association
Board (IFAB), established by the four UK ‘home country’
associations, assumed responsibility for maintaining the laws in
1886 and they were joined in doing so by FIFA in 1913. Many people are
surprised to find out that there are only 17 Laws of the game and
since the original codification, only minor amendments have been made. So
for example, astonishingly yellow and red cards were only introduced in
1970! The ‘back pass’ law has only been part of the game since
1992. These were controversial amendments at the time but are now simply
accepted.
The IFAB
credits itself with a ‘major revision’ in
2016/17 describing the amendments as ‘far-reaching and
comprehensive’. Really? How many changes can you name? ‘Minor
tweaks’ would perhaps be a more accurate description.
It’s amazing
really that so little has changed in over 150 years. More amazing when you
consider how much else has evolved during that period of time in virtually
every other aspect of our lives.
However, I
sense that the pace of change is set to increase. The ‘new’ FIFA seems more
inclined to innovation and
is more influential on the IFAB.
The potential introduction of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is a
good example. Incidentally, I was staggered to see Maradona quoted on
the FIFA website as ‘laughing and smiling’ about how his infamous ‘hand of God’
goal would have been disallowed if VAR had been around in 1986. FIFA, answer me
this, since when has blatant cheating been a laughing matter? Condoning this
sort of behaviour is not helpful (even if the incident was 31 years
ago and yes, I am still bitter about it).
A few years
ago I was a luddite (traditionalist) and didn’t want to see
VAR, fearing that it would disrupt the flow of the game. I believed
we had to accept that referees were human and would make mistakes but ultimately
fairness would balance out over the course of 90 minutes. I have
changed my mind now partly because we have seen it used to good effect in most
major sports and goal-line technology has been used successfully.
Furthermore there have been many incidents that have changed the course of a
match such as Thierry Henri’s deliberate handball against Northern
Ireland, Luis Suarez’ ‘save’ on the line against Ghana and Frank Lampard’s
disallowed goal against Germany. All of these were World Cup related matches, and
with so much at stake now it is difficult to argue against VAR.
Limited use of VAR for major issues such as goals, penalties, red cards
and mistaken identities is being trialed which so far has been a
success. I am sure it will be implemented into the Laws come the World Cup
in Russia.
IFAB has
said that individual Football Associations can use their discretion to
introduce other changes at the ‘grassroots’ level such as yellow card ‘sin
bins’, extra substitutes, rolling (return) substitutes (especially for
injury assessment) etc. I think this is a good direction and wouldn’t
be at all surprised to see some of these progressions brought into
the Laws governing top flight football.
Regular
readers of my blog will know that one of my biggest bugbears in football is
time wasting. It is so irritating. It is only a matter of time until the
‘stopwatch’ system is introduced. It works perfectly well in futsal, rugby,
basketball etc and I can see no reason why it should not be adopted
in football. If the clock stops every time the ball is not in play
then it would immediately eradicate all of the time-wasting antics. I have
heard that, based on current research, this may be
two x 30 minute halves! That just shows how much fans (who pay for 90
minutes) are being short-changed at the moment. In my opinion 40 minutes
per half (as in rugby) would be better.
Let me just
throw out a few more ideas.
The pace of
the game has increased dramatically and it is now much more difficult for
referees to keep up with play, to spot all infringements and to make decisions
whilst under fatigue. Why not have two referees, one in each
half? There are three referees in basketball and goodness knows
how many in American Football.
Another
thing that works well in rugby is the fact that only the captain is allowed to
speak to the referee. That, coupled to the ‘sin-bin’ would stop the petulant
dissent.
Another more
radical idea would be to reduce the number of players on the pitch to 10 or
increase the size of the goals. Why do I say that? Here are some
interesting statistics for you. The average number of goals per game at the
world cups held between 1930 and 1958 was 4.27. The average since 1958 is 2.6
goals per game. Between 2010 and 2014 the average number of goals per game in
the top divisions in England, Spain, Germany and Italy never exceeded
3 across the whole season. No-one wants to watch a boring nil-nil
match. When I was growing up the playing formation was 2-3-5. Now it’s
4-4-2 or 4-3-3 and usually ends up as 5-4-1 or even 6-4-0. The average
size and athleticism of players, and goalkeepers in
particular, continues to increase and yet the goals remain a quirky 8ft x
8 yards or 2.44m x 7.32m. A 3m x 8m goal or fewer players (meaning more space)
would make things a lot more exciting.
Our sport
has to evolve and move with the times. I don’t advocate wholesale change
but rather regular, iterative ways to make the game more entertaining
and exciting whilst removing the less appealing aspects such as time-wasting,
simulation, diving, dissent etc.
If I get to
be an octogenarian I hope I will be able to watch a game of football that has
retained its core principles and inherent ‘beauty’ but also one that has used
Law changes to good effect. Time will tell.
Mark
Sutcliffe - CEO
