http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/26341392 As I've stated on here several time I can't stand the crowding of the referee and just the general lack of respect that exists in football. I've often said I'd like to see straight red cards for arguing with the referee when you've not be called over to speak to him (after the introduction of technology meaning the decisions are generally correct). The idea of a manager dropping a player due to lack of respect in football is laughable which I think is a shame. Why can't we demand this level of respect in our game.
oh i thought you meant Utd losing 2-0. come on Olympiacos- come on get a third, I like the champions league again
Completely agree and I applaud this sort of ethos, but (without wishing to be too cynical) I suspect that the nature of the opposition ensured this was an easier statement to make. Unfortunately, I imagine Saint-Andre would have been less inclined to drop Picamoles had this been leading into the final game of the six nations against, say, England, with the title at stake...
Probably true rob, but even openly criticising him for something you will see about 10 times in every football match sets them aside.
It's frustrating because they have these half-hearted "Respect" campaigns, which have no substance to them. It really is as simple as making it so only captains can speak to refs, anyone else the ref hasn't called over gets booked.
Speaking as a referee myself I think that there is nothing wrong with players showing passion and emotion. This is what the game is all about and only football players will know what it is like when playing! There are far too many armchair commentators expressing outrage over the way players behave but what they fail to realise is that football is played in the heat of the moment. I do not caution many players for showing passion or dissent as we call it because good old fashioned common sense must be used. Football is played by human beings not robots and if referees started sending off players for dissent then it would be the end of football as a competitive sport. So many things have been sanitised in our modern society please just leave football as it is! It isn't perfect but it is fit for purpose and do,not try and fix something that isn't broken! Apologies for the rant but I am a referee who gives up every weekend to referee local games and player dissent is really the least of our worries!
Sure football's played in the heat of the moment, but is rugby not? Rugby doesn't have as noticeable issue with dissent as football does, both at grassroots and the top level. What does the sport gain from thirty seconds of berating the ref after each decision? And consciously or sub-consciously, doesn't it effect the decision-making of at least some refs?
I knew someone would try to relate it to "Passion", how you could argue that the same level of passion is not present in a sport like rugby is ludicrous (If you haven't seen it watch the England Ireland game on iPlayer, thats passion), passion is not a valid excuse for a lack of respect. It may be the "least of [your] worries" in local games but among some of the most high profile people in the country, the people who a large number of children consider role models (for the record thats another thing that annoys me), it is a problem.
You are blowing this up out of all proportion. The laws of football work well and I do not have any problems with player conduct as it is all down to man management and how you judge each situation. Please don't start comparing football with rugby as it is an old chestnut! Two completely different sports with completely different ethos and Rugby is predominately a middle class elitist sport. If you think that issuing a few yellows and reds every game is the answer then you obviously have no knowledge of football. You try refereeing a game in Croydon on a Sunday morning and start dishing the cards out for player dissent and see where it gets you! Cards are the last resort reasoning is the first and believe it or not players respond with just a word of advice.
Words just fail me! What you have said there sums up all that is wrong with people watching the game nowadays.
Football and Rugby are like chalk and cheese so why try and compare the two? Rugby is a thugs game played by gentlemen and Football is a gentlemen's game played by thugs!
I'm not convinced that the people playing rugby these days are as gentlemanly as you would imagine. I will admit however that the ability to hit your opponents hard in the chest with your shoulder and drive them to the ground is quite cathartic.
Just one more point. We want our footballers to show fight and passion but we expect them to behave impeccably at all times! You obviously haven't played the game if you believe that. Take away the passion and you have little else left! The major problem we face is the simulation and play acting not dissent.
Not going to disagree with that I've played both (neither well) but I couldn't say that one has more passion than the other
If it's all down to man-management, why do we get such ugly scenes at the top of the game? Surely you should have the best refs at that level, with excellent man-management skills, so the issues should be diffused so we rarely see refs surrounded by players. It's probably around every other week in the PL/championship there's some unsightly scenes which reflectly poorly on players that are (rightly or wrongly as Bath says) role models for many youngsters. Having said that, I can see your point about dishing out cards, perhaps it's not the best solution. My ref-ing experience is limited to fairly young kids where cards aren't really used anyway (more subtly "suggest" that the manager sub someone if they were getting a bit carried away), which in the teams I was involved with (again, middle-classed area admittedly) would have worked should mouthing-off be a problem. With adults I can accept it being more tricky. I still think a stronger deterrent is needed however, and I don't see the demographic that football supposedly draws from being a reason to accept poorer behaviour. It's a rather different sport, but boxing has the reputation of turning youngsters from poorer areas into superstars, yet respect plays a big role in the "traditional" boxing gym (though perhaps the money at the top end corrupts this somewhat, I accept). Rugby may have a larger middle class element, but that's not exclusive. Players from less-privileged backgrounds (i hate using that phrase) aren't given a free pass on affording refs the same respect as their peers. If you can introduce a culture of respect into a sport, at any level, once it becomes the norm then players will conform to that without giving it a second thought. It's a separate argument, but is football still a "working class" game anyway? In less well-off inner city areas it's probably still more popular than rugby, but the way ticket prices are going for league football, a larger number of people are being priced out of it.
When you come from a place like Northampton there is an unwritten rule for anyone who likes sports and that's to never compliment rugby, because you will never hear the end of it, you will also be informed by some 22 stone lump in either a South Africa/NZ/Australia shirt with the wax jacket combo telling you how **** and inferior your sport apparently is, all in the most self righteous fashion because everyone else are animals in comparison.
Could it be because they are overpaid pampered twats, who because of the obscene amount of money they have been given - not earned - and the media building them up as heroes, now believe that they are above any laws, both on and off the pitch, and act accordingly?
Fair point, it'd be interesting to see how football compares with other sports with massively inflated wages, is the sport or the money the root of the problem? NHL players can earn up to £138k p/w, American Football has some large salaries, as does Basketball, but unfortunately I don't know a lot about any of those sports. Casual viewing of the olympic ice hockey didn't show much in the way of ref disrespect, but I don't know how frequent ref mistakes are for example, or how representative it is of club level games.
