I am a firm believer that football is a fantastic game but it is surrounded by to much controversy, mainly around refereeing decisions so I think there should be some radical moves in order to introduce certain new disciplinary procedures stamp out certain elements of the game and here are my thoughts.......... 1) Goal-line Technology - This is a must and should be in by next season. If successful (no doubt it will) we should look at introducing further camera help for the officials over a period of time. 2) Sin binning - The yellow and red card system is a farce and again causes to much controversy because you can get a yellow card for the most minor of offences these days so bringing in a 10 minute sin bin for simulation and dissent would soon discourage teams from contesting decisons and diving because you are putting you team at a disadvantage for a short period of time. Do you think managers would encourage players to go down easy or argue with the ref if they thought they were going to be a man light for 10 minutes? 3) Retrospective action - This is another element where the FA needs to act and fast. The referee may deal with a situation as HE sees it but the referee doesnt always see the WHOLE incident, so give a panel of experts the power to act on certain incidents whether the referee has seen it or not. The panel should be made up of ex-players who have played and understand the game, not an independent panel of suits! Referees and Assistants need help, they are only human and there decision making would improve if they were not expected to SEE EVERY move made on the field of play.
Use video replays for every goal, red card and penalty. Any diver gets a red card and 1 match ban, 2 the next time, 3 after that etc. Diving is any for of embellishing to me and it doesnt matter if there was contact. Eg remember when Cisse grabbed Johnson, if he would have gone down, he would have got a red card too. Also have a person to judge dives in every game in case they are missed on the day and also publish a tally sheet of the divers. On a related note, anyone who goes down meaning the game must be stopped has be subbed. That will keep players on their feet. The annoying thing is its so simple to stop yet FIFA and the FA will never do it, they will crack down on something else meaning cheats will dive even more.
I wonder if 10 minutes in the sin bin is enough - in ice hockey they use a 2 minute sin bin and time and again clubs fail to capitalize on it. I agree on automatic red card for diving and 3 match ban - including retorspective vieiwng of the matches by a "Fair Play" panel
players will still do it, red card and a pen versus 10 mins off the pitch, thats still worth doing. The punishment has to be worse than anything they could gain.
