Refereeing

[fpb]

So far, THREE goals at least have been wrongly awarded - scandalously so - in the view of billions of spectators. This is getting beyond a joke. Unless that crass bastard Sepp Blatter starts acting as though this were the 21st century and technology is in common use, the image of soccer will be damaged. And it is by a long chalk not the first time that the image of refereeing is threatened by bizarre decesions at these levels.

Comments

[elegant-bonfire.livejournal.com]

This was actually big enough news for our local station to wedge into it's sports report last night LOL. (Somewhere between the F1 boat races on the river, Great Lakes Loons and Tiger baseball--the sports section is about 10 min. at the end of the newscast.)

They showed one goal that was obviously in the net, and was called out, and another one that went in but was called out because some-one was off-side? That one confused me, because I couldn't tell what they were talking about.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Offside basically means that there were less than two defenders (including the keeper) between an attacker and goal. The rule is intended to stop attacking teams crowding the penalty area. What makes it difficult to judge (but not in that case, where the attacker was offside by several feet) is that it is judged from the moment the ball is kicked, so a judicious pair of players can start moving at the same time and cut off defenders while staying on side.

[elegant-bonfire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would be hard to see sometimes--but they showed all these things in slow replay, you'd think they'd take a look at that like the ref in some other sports do. Even our local sportscaster commented on it. (The slow-mo thing, that is.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It's just the obstinacy of the man at the top. But in this case the scandal was so blatant that even he seems to be thinking of changing his mind.