Interfering with play? It’s another reffing hell shambles
LAST summer 95 rule changes were introduced with the aim of making the laws of football more consistent.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) brought them in following “a comprehensive, 18-month review” which they described as a “once-in-ageneration” opportunity to address the game’s “anomalies and inconsistencies”.
The big ones were that the ball didn’t have to go forward at kick-off and a player denying a scoring opportunity would not necessarily be sent off if the ref believed he’d tried to play the ball.
Others included refs being allowed to show red cards before the game and “undershorts/tights must be the same colour as the main colour of the shorts”.
Did you notice them? And if so, did you think, “Wow, I’m witnessing a once in a generation improvement in my enjoyment of football?” Me neither.
Well, the great news is that IFAB, led by its technical director, former referee David “I’m a master at Harrow so won’t take any of your uppity lip” Elleray, are at it again, floating more rule changes, this time to address the game’s “negatives”.
These ones, they claim, are more radical, and a couple of the suggestions sound quite good: Allowing a player taking a free-kick to pass to himself and a defender to enter the penalty area to receive a goal-kick could both speed up play.
The rest are not so good, such as the main one, aimed at eliminating timewasting by having two 30-minute halves, with the clock stopped whenever the ball goes out of play.
Surely teams will always find ways of time-wasting when the ball is in play?
Why deny fans the thrill of seeing a board which says there’s five minutes stoppage time to get that winner? What would the Premier League fill the shortened playing time with if not longer half-times for corporate entertaining and TV ad breaks?
They also want to award a penalty instead of an indirect free-kick when a goalie picks up a back-pass (why, when it’s not a penalty?), give a goal instead of a penalty if a player handles on or near the goal-line (why, when it’s not a goal?) and ban players putting in the rebound from a saved penalty (why, when that adds to the drama?).
Had fans been given input into IFAB’s closed shop I’m guessing some of the changes they’d have floated may have been: retrospective bans for diving, only captains allowed to query decisions to stop refs being mobbed, and a card between a red and a yellow which sends players to a sin-bin.
They would have demanded clarity over the rule nobody understands which can make or break games or seasons. The interfering-with-play element of offside.
There are countless examples, but let’s go with Alexis Sanchez’s FA Cup Final opener against Chelsea (right), when his team-mate Aaron Ramsey was in a clear offside position in Thibaut Courtois’ eye-line. Officials, fans, pundits, retired players and refs argued about it.
My colleague John Cross, who was covering the game, tweeted “I no longer understand the offside rule” and Chelsea’s Gary Cahill used it to declare “the offside rule is crazy” and “I don’t understand it”.
It would be fab, IFAB, if you could sort out the interfering with play rule before working out where to interfere next?