West Brom have written to the Premier League asking for penalty decisions to be reviewed. This got me thinking - will FIFA ever agree to bring in more technology? The pressure to bring in goal line technology massively increased in recent years - the same thing is surely going to happen with penalty decisions, diving, red cards etc. Now no human errors can be made with the goal line, the media attention has turned to diving and penalty decisions. This has put even more pressure on the referee as goal line decisions were down to the assistant referee before. Personally I think something need to be done before an English referee attempts suicide. We have some young referees at Premier League level, Michael Oliver for example and if he made a glaring error which could relegate a team or in the FA Cup Final, he will get abused left, right and centre on twitter and facebook, and this, combined with the guilt he would feel could drive a referee over the edge. Several things can be done to help referees. Firstly and most easy step, punish divers much more heavily. It shouldn't be a red card offence as that would put more pressure on referees, but the FA should take retrospective action - a one game ban. Repeat offenders get 3 game bans. Secondly, have a 5th official in the stands that has access to a video monitor and the referee, if he sees fit can review a decision. These decisions are just for major incidents, i.e a penalty, red cards etc. That would take a hell of a lot of pressure off referees and could potentially prevent a tragedy.
I can't blame WBA, and I can't see a decent reason why video technology can't be implemented. By the time players stop arguing about whether a penalty is real or whether there is simulation, a decision can be arrived at. And even if the decision is too difficult to make at the time there can be always be retrospective punishment if a player has dived or has been fouled. I think Tomw19 mentioned before, referees are humans and therefore incapable of 100% correct decisions. Well, seeing as football clubs cannot depend on a method that isn't 100% perhaps we need to have something in place that is closer to that ideal. We also have to get away from the mentality that referees are some kind of idiot with a white stick if he doesn't see the apparent obvious, or Superman with super clear sight if he sees something, only revealed by video technology, that nobody else has. He's trained to see, unlike us, but clearly he now needs help. The other night, Claridge, Chapman, Motty and McGarry were absolutely split down the middle as to whether the Ramirez/Reid incident was a dive. It got slightly heated, and they'd been watching video as well..! What they were largely arguing about though was the interpretation of the laws, and how they affected the outcome. It was interesting.
Agree with WBA, they have been hard done by. It was inevitable, however that Chelsea would equalise at the end, I knew at the time that it would happen.
Other sports seem to do just fine using technology to make the hard decisions. The thing I hate the most about the modern game is the diving, I often feel sorry for the defenders. The stakes are so high today that its inevitable that strikers will try to cheat. The mere prospect of a retrospective video based decison would prevent much of it from happening in the first place.
Excuse me...I haven't been well...will someone fetch a ladder as I need to get on my high horse. There is a massive danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In order to be 100% accurate (which won't happen even with replays) people will ruin a wonderful game. If a penalty has been given, there will be time to look at replays. Terrible decisions may be overthrown, but most would still be open to interpretation. Will the decision be made by committee with a reply expected next Wednesday? If a penalty decision is not given, do we stop the game because one team is arguing with the ref...meanwhile the other team has gone up the other end and scored. Does that goal stand? So you think that gamesmanship won't come into it? How would you feel if no penalty was given, but the game was stopped because of protests when Saints were charging up the pitch? Especially if the original decision was shown to be correct. I predict there will be one dreadful season where technology is used before it's abandoned or severely watered down for the following season. Grow up, take it on the chin and enjoy the game.
It would be easy to have a system in place to review penalties from a negative point of view, i.e. review those that have been given, like the Chelsea one on Saturday. Far harder to stop a game in progress, unless you have a system like the current Hawkeye system for goal-line decisions, where someone says instantly in the ref's ear that a penalty should have been given. The problem is that there are far more reasons to award a penalty than giving a decision on whether the ball has gone over the goal-line, so a decision can't always be given instantly, and will practically always be subjective rather than objective.
Hallelujah! At last, someone has recognised that football (unlike virtually every other game) does not have natural stops after every move. If players/managers can appeal against decisions, the game will be stop/start (and some will be for purely tactical reasons).
Technology doesn't improve everything. I love the technology used in cricket and tennis because it adds to the game...not so football.
A video ref couldn't overturn the penalty in the West Brom-Saints game Jeremy, because that was a penalty.
There should be LESS technology. Make it a condition of allowing TV coverage that no incident where there is any doubt about the decision should be shown in slow motion or from more than one angle. This incessant (and BOY is it incessant) second guessing of referees decisions is ruining the game. Watch the game, see fouls at real speed and viewers will get over them, just like you do at a real match. It took a very slow-motion replay from a reverse angle before I realised that Shawcross handled in the penalty area against us. What hope did the referee have if another player or Shawcross's body was in the way or if he was watching for shoving in the general melée or.... Finally, man up and accept that decisions WILL even out over time. Refs say what they see - I'd be amazed if any of them are biased - so just show some sodding backbone and accept it. Vin
Agree with that totally... or rather I would've a few months ago. Frankly I don't care about diving anymore, there's too many hypocrites talking about "he's got a right to go down there" in one incident and "he's gone down very easily there" for another. Fans and the media can't even seem to agree what a dive is anymore, let alone refs. It definitely would help stop diving if there was retrospective action but I just can't see it working as too many try to blur the lines of what is and isn't a dive and every club would just appeal them anyway as I'm sure they can find some reason for them to fall over onse they put their minds to it. I don't even blame players for diving, they get rewarded for exaggerating contact, which everyone seems to accept, yet there's an invisible line that people have created where certain amounts of contact are required or certain amounts of "winning" a penalty are allowed. I don't know where the line is and I don't think players in the heat of the moment should be expected to know either. I'm against anymore technology in football matches, referees tend to be conned when they want to be which benefits bigger clubs more than lesser clubs. The game runs at a quick exciting pace at the moment, for the most part, but if anything we should be looking to speed it up, not slow it down. I can live with mistakes being made by the ref within reason, if we go down the route of in game video appeals then I think we'll lose a lot more from the attracitveness of the game than we gain.
Would probably amuse me if Mike Riley wrote back to say they would be 7 points better off if their strikers had scored more than 2 goals....maybe I'm just immature.
Peace doesn't know for sure that they would be 7 pts better off as there was no guarantee that they would have scored the pens against Arsenal and Stoke.
You can't know that. Where's your proof..? I'm afraid your say-so isn't quite valid enough. I'd like to see it thoroughly tested.
I'm with Fran on this.........If you are going to introduce technology make it to assist the ref and not belittle him. Make the clubs and the players more accountable for diving. After all.... technology is not able to determine actual bodily contact or intent. A hand on the back can look, or should I say, be made to look, like a push when in fact no pressure has been made....... What I would like to see is players and clubs heavily fined and bans brought in for diving if the ref has not already made such a decision. (You just have to except that ref's can only blow for what they actually see not for what they thought they saw!) To do that they should review any possible penalty decisions after the game and if it was thought to be a dive, fine and ban them including the clubs, even deduct points from clubs for having habitual offenders. However let the ref make the decision, maybe give him a couple of extra helpers like they do or did in the European games, however I would like these to be specialists, if there can be such a thing. Can't see any other form of current technology being of much use to be honest. I would extend that to some of the blatant fouls being carried out although I believe they are now doing that. Too much technology would spoil the game.........
Agree and if I worked at the Premier League and received that complaint from WBA i'd tell them to get over themselves. One thing our rise up the leagues has taught me is that bad decisions happen whether your a big club or a small club, top of the league or bottom of the league. The difference is that if you're at the top of the league some of those bad decisions don't effect you because you're already winning the game by 3 goals. When you're scrapping for points and struggling for goals those referee decisions become more desperate. Also if you spend a larger percentage of the game in and around your own penalty area then you're running the risk of a decision going against you. So like Qwerty said... Dear Steve Clarke, Do your job better Kind regards Premier League
No to technology. Retrospective 5 match ban and hefty fine for player and club. The most controversial decisions are for diving or deliberate hand ball. Eradicate those and we will see few calls for instant video reviews.
