How Football Rules Should Be Improved - Assignment Example

How Football Rules Should Be Improved Football is an international sport and its rules need to be applied and interpreted with absolute consistency. Irrespective of where the sport is played the rules need to be followed to the latter. Yes, the sport is beautiful and loved by many people across the world unreservedly. The fans are always sick for this sport and they sacrifice their time and weekends for it. Some even willingly worship at the altar of the global greatest sporting passion. Fans, moods always shift with the fortunes of the teams they passionately support and they revel in fantastic performances from world-class players such as Messi and Ronaldo. The fans enjoy the performance of such players as if their abilities and talents are tethered in their souls (Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Culture, Media and Sport Committee 28). The overwhelming worldwide support accorded to the sport does not imply of its sense of perfection. Apparently, the fans remain principle victims of irregularities and flaws associated to the sport due to their passionate commitment. They are compelled to adhere to the misdeed due to their limited options of address. However, the sport still remains oriented to benefit from numerous opportunities of adjustment and perfection. Embracing few changes in some critical areas of concern may allow for the bettering of the sport, hence making it enjoyable for the fans. Additionally, the perception of the sport being global implies that its rules should be applied and interpreted with an absolute sense of consistency across all regions. As a global football governing body, FIFA needs to develop better policies towards the training of its referees. Such policies should aim at ensuring a sense of improvement in the officiating standards that are engaged in the sport. The game has grown from the ages of zero substitutions and disciplinary cards to the introduction of various rules, including the goal-line technology. Such allows a reflection on the versatility that may be embraced by the sport. However, the game is still in need of the embracing of various adjustments in its officiating. Therefore, suggestions aimed at making changes to the game range from scrapping the penalty shootout to sin bins. There are also suggestions to scrap the penalty shootout in the determination of the victorious team. It is of merit to acknowledge that not all not all the suggestions would be beneficial to the game. However, such should not limit the possibility of their consideration. There exist numerous suggestions that may benefit the sport. Notably, many suggestions presented here are just but conceptual and coming up with possible changes would need refining and better testing before being applied or instituted. In addition, rules need approval by the relevant authority. The authority in this case is the International Football Association Board (IFAB). IFAB as a body, it is made up of the world football governing body, FIFA. By nature, most football fans are traditionalists. However, several of these changes to the rules can probably improve the world football. Most of these rules are indeed intriguing. The changes are about ten in number but since football is a growing game, more changes to the rules will still be essential in the future. The idea of “sin-bin” was patterned after the rugby rules. The idea first cropped up ten years ago, but was recently revived in 2009. The revival of this idea cropped up when the Irish Football Association presented the sin-bin proposal to the International Football Association Board.Unfortunately, the presentation did not last in the gaming fraternity. This is a good idea that aimed at curbing the discipline problems affecting the game today. Perhaps it is time to look at it. To some extent, players are likely to think twice about the fouls they commit that deserve yellow cards. If these punishments for such fouls were included in the sin-bin, players would not easily commit fouls. Games have bogged down as a result of constant physical play fouling. The constant fouling would probably open up in case one of the sides is offered a 10-minute advantage. Dangerous tackles and persistent infringement stain the efficiency of matches. The offences make the matches boring to the spectators due to the continuous stoppings and the subsequent impact of the adopted disciplinary actions The introduction of a “sin-bin” may be perceived as being sufficient in the address of indiscipline or dangerous tackles. The speed of the game has considerably made the assistant referees’ job increasingly difficult. The tempo of most of the matches is usually changed due to calls for incorrect off sides. The fastest way to increase the scoring in the game of football and make it more entertaining is by loosening the offside rule. It is therefore important for FIFA to come in with haste and rescue football and increase its entertaining nature. Also, the history of the rule require liberalization. In the early decades of the game, there were three defenders but were later reduced to two. In 1990, the revision of the sport gave a chance for four defenders. The rules need to be adjusted further to allow to allow a player to be ruled onside when any part of his body is in line with the last defender. Such adjustment would, probably, eliminate controversies caused by the razor edge calls for offsides. The embrace of slight changes in the officiating rules would increase the flow of the game dramatically, hence entertaining the fans (Elgert and Schreiner 45-51). Another suggestion that is not obvious and “silly” is about limiting the size of gloves that goalkeepers wear. Today, there are absolutely no rules that dictate the size of attires that goalkeepers need to use while on the field. The only rule that is being used is the rule that requires them to wear jerseys with a different color from the one of the teammates. A rule that will prevent goalkeepers from using oversize gloves will probably increase the scoring even if the size of the goal remains the same. This rule has also been suggested by many before, but nothing has been done about it. Keeper gloves are padded so heavily making them be much bigger than the size of the goalkeeper’s hands. Using such big gloves is an obvious advantage to the goalkeepers when it comes to stopping shots. A reduction in the size of gloves is one of the available changes which are less intrusive. However, this change still has a tangible effect when it comes to the level of entertainment that a particular match offers to the fans (Richards 42). The back pass rule was advocated for the address of the aforesaid problems. It was introduced in response terrible drab playing in Italy in 1990. The goalkeeper was compelled not to get hand contact upon receiving a back pass in hope eliminating the concern of rampant time wastage. However, the rule had little input regarding the address of negative play by various (Waton 67). Also, disallowing the passing of the ball to the goalkeeper using the feet from outside the penalty box would have allowed players to have other convenient passing options. The passing is mostly in times the players are under pressure. They are, therefore forced to move the ball up-field irrespective of the situation. According to Waton (70) , using penalty shootouts to determine a winner in a knock-out situation is a terrible way of determining the winner. The penalty shootout does not in any way incorporate the elements of the real match rather, the shootout only involves kicking a dead ball. It then turns the goalkeeper as the determining factor of a win or a loss for the team. Therefore, it is important to get rid of such ways of determining the winner of a match. The obvious option, the Golden Goal, was proposed, but it did not last in the soccer matches. Using such rules, it appeared that teams were not playing to lose but just going for the winning score. It would be better if the shootout is held before the extra time rather than after 120 minutes of play. In such a case, at least a team will play and attack keeping in mind that it needs to score. Thus, make the game more entertaining. In general, FIFA is the only body which is wholly involved in stipulating the rules of the games. At the moment, most national teams are using players with the wrong citizenship since they only require a short period of citizenship. FIFA needs to ensure that players only represent their countries of birth. Even though there are numerous rules that need changing, none of these rules would be successful without the goal-line technology. It will be important for a goal to be counted in spite of the controversy. FIFA needs to introduce the goal-line technology fro all competitive matches to avoid the controversies witnessed when a goal is scored. FIFA is making a step towards realizing the goal-line technology. However, it needs to implement the goal-line technology with haste (Wingate 28). Works cited Elgert, Norbert . Attacking Soccer: Mastering the Modern Game. Frankfurt: Meyer & Meyer Verlag, 2013 Print Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Football Governance: Seventh Report of Session 2010. Stamford: Cengage Publishing , 2011. Print Richards, Ted. Soccer Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game. Stamford: Cengage Publishing, 2013. Print Waton, Douglas. The Place in Emotion Argument. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. Wingate, Brian. Football: Rules, Tips, Strategy, and Safety. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2007. Print Read More