Ten rule changes to improve football (soccer). Discuss

[Elano]

1 Scrap the away goals rule and penalty shoot-outs in two-legged games
The away goals rule was introduced to stop visiting teams playing negatively but, while this has been achieved, the progress made has been cancelled out because home sides play more negatively. Managers often speak of a goalless draw at home as a decent result, because it allows their team to advance with a score draw away from home.

Furthermore, second-leg matches are rendered stone dead when an away side moves one goal ahead on aggregate late in the 90 minutes having scored more away goals, because they will only fail if they concede twice in quick succession. Without the away goals rule the home side in this situation would need only to score once to draw level, thus creating more excitement.

If the scores are level after 120 minutes (irrespective of which team have scored the more away goals) then the away side in the second leg should advance because, over the course of the tie, they have played an extra 30 minutes away from home. A penalty shoot-out does at least, in theory, reward footballing ability (unlike the away goals rule) but it remains an unsatisfactory diversion from the real game.

2 Use goal difference before head-to-head records
When two or more group rivals finish level on points in the Champions League or European championship, they are divided first by head-to-head records, and only if those do not split them does goal difference over the whole group phase come into play.

In a European championship qualifier (unlike a World Cup qualifier, when goal difference holds sway) if England scrape past Andorra 2-0 they will be at no disadvantage in their battle to top their group with, say, Croatia if the latter beat Andorra 22-0. The head-to-head method is (a) unfair, (b) confusing (permutations towards the end of the qualifying phase are often too baffling to comprehend properly) and (c) discourages positive play. Apart from that it's all right.

3 Introduce "celebration time" and remove punishments
Goal celebrations are part of the enjoyment of the game for players and spectators. If you see a goal scored on television, you don't immediately look away because the play has stopped - your eyes remain glued to the screen to watch the gleeful reaction of the scorer and his team-mates.

Such expressions of joy reinforce the impression that the game is important and therefore worth watching. Why not allow the goalscoring team one minute to celebrate before they must return to the halfway line? The minute can be added on at the end. Removing a shirt is a harmless form of celebrating and should not earn a yellow card. Players should not be booked for hugging members of the crowd; in fact, in these days of players being increasingly isolated from fans, it should be cherished.

4 Book players for ANY dissent
People in the game claim constantly that it is a matter of human nature that players are unable stop themselves complaining if they feel an injustice has been committed.

This is obviously nonsense, as is shown in rugby and cricket, when the vast majority of players keep their thoughts to themselves. The Respect campaign, in which referees this season have booked players for strong dissent - very angry reactions to their decisions - is, inevitably, working well, with back-chat having noticeably declined, and will continue to do so as long as the officials stick to their guns.

The odd case of dissent will continue, particularly from players with anger-management issues, but generally players will stop the moment they realise that their previously normal behaviour in a match will bring dismissals and suspensions. But, while we're at it, let's introduce yellow cards for all dissent - even brief shows of irritation by the waving of arms - to remove a stain on the game visible in internationals games down to park football.

5 Scrap the rule that forces injured players to leave the pitch after receiving treatment before re-entering the field
This was introduced to stop players trying to waste time by feigning injury but, while it might indeed have reduced the number of occasions that trainers have come on to the pitch, it has penalised genuinely injured players.

These players, even when they have been readied for action by the trainer on the pitch, must walk to the sidelines and wait a few seconds to be summoned back into play by the referee, sometimes while a set-piece is taking place.

In fact, time is wasted under the present system because play is held up while the fit-again player trudges off pointlessly with his trainer (instead of the trainer just sprinting off on his own). In any case, the problem of players wasting time can be overcome simply by adding time at the end of a game, a facility that many referees are reluctant to use, which thus, of course, encourages time-wasting.

6 If a player falls to the ground and stays down apparently injured for, say, three seconds, the referee should stop the game immediately
This would save time since, in almost every case, another player (whether a team-mate of the injured player or an opponent) will kick the ball into touch deliberately to allow treatment to be administered.

At best, it takes about 10 seconds after the player has fallen for the ball to be kicked out; other times it might be 15 to 20 seconds of uncertainty as one team gesture to their opponents to kick the ball out and those opponents, hesitantly and reluctantly, agree.

Occasionally, when one team refuse to kick the ball out, it leads to furious arguments between the players about the morality of the situation. When play restarts with a throw-in, and the ball needs to be returned to the possession of the other team, yet more time is often wasted as a player kicks the ball deep towards the opposing corner flag and the goalkeeper, unchallenged, trots out to collect it and saunters back before launching his clearance. If a player is lying genuinely injured on the ground, his team should not be penalised by having to play with ten men. If the referee decides the player is feigning injury, he should be booked.

7 Players must retreat ten yards at a free kick within five seconds
Offending teams often amble away from the scene of the crime, buying themselves vital seconds and almost always without punishment - those players who do so should be booked. If the offence is within shooting distance and the offending team want to build a wall, fine, but they have five seconds to do so, rather than the unofficial 50 seconds or so at present, which includes an interrogation of the referee, a study of the standard of the grass in the immediate vicinity and a long consultation with the goalkeeper.

If five seconds isn't enough time to prepare, then don't commit the foul in the first place. The attacking side theoretically have the option of taking a quick free kick but this is normally denied them by their opponents crowding around the ball. A defending team being allowed to bring ten players behind the ball at their leisure is often unfair because the attacking team might have had only one or two defenders between them and the goalkeeper when the foul took place.

8 Dismiss goalkeepers for encroachment at a penalty
Deciding whether challenges are fair or foul is often so tricky that a consensus cannot be reached after repeated video viewings - was the tackle acceptable and, if not, was it deliberate? Such uncertainty disappears when assessing whether or not a goalkeeper deliberately advanced past his goal-line before a penalty kick was taken.

It must be assumed that a professional goalkeeper has the capability to balance on two legs, so any placing of his feet beyond the white line is cheating. This happens for the majority of penalties but is almost never punished. In an extreme, but by no means unique, case, the Azerbaijan goalkeeper playing against Wales at the weekend stood two yards off his line as a penalty was taken and his save was allowed to stand. The assistant linesman can easily spot such an infringement, so the threat of a red card would surely bring this cheating to an end.

9 Suspensions for an accumulation of non-bookable fouls conceded
Five yellow cards bring a suspension, and so should, say, 30 fouls that lead to a free kick but not a booking (you would discount a player's fouls committed in a game when he was booked, since he might have received his yellow card because of persistent fouling, so he would already have been punished for those fouls).

This would weed out those "clever" players who halt attacks by impeding an opponent in such a subtle way that referee feels a booking would be too harsh.

10 Scrap offside
OK, admittedly I'm not completely convinced it would be an improvement, but let's trial it in a few friendly games to find out.

For those who immediately say football would not work without offside, the response is: "Nor does the offside rule itself work." This is not just a reference to arguments about when players are active or inactive - an issue which, incidentally, while complicated, is reasonably fair and only rarely applied wrongly.

The over-riding problem is that in a typical game there will be at least three or four incorrect offside calls because the assistant referee could not tell whether an attacker was behind the last defender when the pass was made him - and, indeed, the officials usually should not be criticised. It is so hard to decide close calls that a monkey with a flag would have the same success rate. In fact television commentators, when studying a replay, thus knowing which players to watch at the key moment and having the action slowed down - unlike the linesman, who needed to be looking at all the players at real speed - often still get it wrong.

These offside mistakes frequently lead to goals being wrongly awarded or chalked off, which brings at least some limited reaction (although how many people are aware that Wayne Rooney had a goal wrongly disallowed in Manchester United's last league match against Portsmouth, for example?). But the routine errors, when a player is wrongly given as offside when clean through on the goalkeeper (linesmen tend to err on the side of the defending team when unsure), and thus had perhaps a 30-40 per cent chance of scoring, are almost completely disregarded. Yet this is not basketball, but football, which averages about 2.5 goals per game, so every goal has a good chance of changing the result. Effectively, several decisions per match, which could each have a huge bearing on the result, are a complete lottery.

[OG Hack Wilson]

no more sudden death OT

get rid of the 5 yard rule

[Furor Teutonicus]

Hmmm, i would think of

- remove passive offside
- red cards for divers, on the other hand, no more bs like a yellow card for lifting your shirt
- a bonus when you score many goals (let's say one extra point for beating the other team with more than 2 goals difference) 

I disagree with most of the suggestions, especially number 1, 3, 5 and number 10. I agree with number 4. Number 9 is interesting, but it wouldn't prevent little tactical fouls and wouldn't stop these "subtile payers"
money destroys football anyway. I want a salary cup, and of course, ban those Abrahmowitchs to guarantee a fair competion. Moreover, the clubs most have a stronger position towards players (it's a joke that players can do what they want (diego) and that they can force their clubs to trade them (Ronaldo).

[K.Dub]

What's Diego up to?

[Furor Teutonicus]

haven't you heard about the Olympics-incident? Diego  flew to Peking without permission from Bremen. He dared to ignore their orders.

[K.Dub]

haven't you heard about the Olympics-incident? Diego  flew to Peking without permission from Bremen. He dared to ignore their orders.

Oh that.
I'm on the players' side on that matter. Of course they want to join their National team and try to win the Olympics - but I do understand the clubs' point of views also.

[OG Hack Wilson]

What's Diego up to?

0-2

[KURUPTION-81]

6 If a player falls to the ground and stays down apparently injured for, say, three seconds, the referee should stop the game immediately
 
Awful idea, there are already enough players faking injury let alone allowing players to go down and the game getting stopped nearly straight away.

Alos dont agree on no offsides, i could see the game just getting stretched with two sets of players at either penalty area hoofing the ball to each other.

[No Compute]

1. Pish, scrap the away goals rule by all means but you can't have a team progressing just because they happen to be the away side. Penalty shoot outs aren't perfect but they are preferable to away goals.

2. No

3. "celebration time", are players going to get "disappointment time" when they miss. There is no need for a player to take their top off.

can't be bothered

[Mac 10 †]

I think if you actually added on the amount of time that teams in the lead or playing for a draw waste then it'd be ok.

"The referee has added on 24 minutes". Would love to hear that shit I really would against some teams Celtic have played in the past.

[da_notorious_mack]

I think refs should be made to explain contentious decisions after the game and if shown to be wrong apologize to the the manager players and fans it affected


cus i had £20 on gerrard being first scorer this weekend