Red card or right on?
- 3 Jul 06, 08:14 AM
Since the first day of World Cup Have Your Say one issue has dominated your comments, emails and text messages. Referees. It seems most of you have an opinion - sometimes good but mostly bad - about the men in black.
So as we're here to serve you we've decided that tomorrow we're going to dedicate an entire programme to referees.
That's your cue to get your voice heard now. What have you made of their performance in the tournament? Red card or right on?
For many games the post match analysis has involved more chat about the refs than the players. A couple of fixtures that spring to mind include (remember those 16 yellows and four reds) and ( losing count).
Is it time Fifa turned the spotlight on the officials or do refs get a tough ride as teams increasingly turn to gamesmanship? (Some of you may say cheating but I'm willing to give players the benefit of the doubt.)
As a special treat tomorrow we've booked former top referee Jeff Winter to take your questions and give the ref's version of events. Leave a comment below or email us your question or comments and we'll put them to Jeff from 0800GMT tomorrow (Tuesday) on World Cup Have Your Say.
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The Refs may be part of the problem. But one has to understand that the Referees are not in sports to court public opinion. Referrees are in sports to make a split second decision about what is going inside the sports arena.
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Being an ex ref from RSA is it not possible that when a yellow or a red card is shown by the ref that the law concerning the incident and the ref's comment on what he saw at that moment be published in the news papers/ on TV, as this might change a lot of peoples thoughts. As known the public know the laws better than the men in black that have written the exams
Richie
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"The Beautiful Game"?
That depends on your definition of beautiful. If fouls, shirt pulling, diving, pushing and faking injury are beautiful, then Pele is right to call football, 'The Beautiful Game'.
I don't call it beautiful, though. I call it cheating. And it's ugly.
Ugliest of all is when players dispute the referee's decision. The poor referee! Clearly he needs some help, some firepower to back him up.
I think the referees need something in between yellow and red- something stronger than a yellow and not so irreversibly match- altering as a red. I think they can find what they need on a page of the Rugby rule book: it's called the SIN BIN.
The Sin Bin (called 'Sin' Bin because you get sent there for committing a 'sin' against the rules of the game) is like a 10 minute red card: A player is sent off for 10 minutes. No replacement is allowed, and when 10 minutes have gone by, he is allowed to return to the field.
It's a punishment that gives the other team a real but temporary advantage. Perfect for a referee beseiged by complaining footballers.
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I don't watch football weekly as I am an Australian. I would like to say that in our sports (AFL and Rugby) playing like the Italians would be considered cheating. Diving for a free kick or penalty is a joke and the worst thing is the referees reward the players for doing it. I perfer to watch games that require men to play hard and if you have a serious problem with another player you don't kiss and cuddle about it. Fifa need a reality check, I like seeing the better team win not the best divers. The ref should say, "Get up you sook" to any player diving or faking an injury.
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