FIFA Flip Flopping

[Statesman]

Well, I'm certainly confused:

Blatter also criticised the decision by referee Steve Bennett which saw Everton's Tim Cahill given a second yellow card for pulling his shirt over his face after scoring against Manchester City on Saturday.

"A referee should never expel a player just because he pulled his shirt over his head, he should just have a word with him. If you take off your shirt and wave it over your head that's a different matter.''

Clipped from an article in the AP. According to the FIFA interpretation (http://www.fifa.com/documents/fifa/regulations/Removal_of_the_jersey.pdf) the shirt over the head is an automatic caution. The new wording in Law 12 supports this: "A player who removes his jersey after scoring a goal will be cautioned for unsporting behaviour."

USSF also published their memo stating no cautionable offense is ever to be considered a mandatory caution.

So, based on all of the above:

1) The caution is mandatory (per FIFA), but not necessarily mandatory (per USSF).
2) Pulling the shirt over the head, but not off, is a mandatory caution (per FIFA), except if it is the second caution (per Blatter).
4) Pulling the shirt completely off is a mandatory caution even if it is the second caution (per FIFA and Blatter), but not necessarily a caution (per USSF).

If anybody asks, I never saw any player ever remove their shirt in any way, shape, or form, and I'm standing by that story.

[Nacional Tijuana]

What about pulling of a shirt, but not pulling off a shirt?



















I say blue card.

[HoldenMan]

WTF??????


Ok, Blatter's come up with some stupid things but this is right up there.

Maybe if shirt removal was only a recommended caution he'd have a point, but it's not.

He can't go around criticising referees for applying the LOAF - that's their job.

You know, I hate to tell Blatter this but he wasn't sent off for removing his shirt. He was sent off coz that was the second stupid thing he did that match.

Between this and some of the garbage that's in the Q&A (such as the goalkeeper stuff that contradicts the laws), I seriously think FIFA are losing the plot

[Alberto]

WTF??????


Ok, Blatter's come up with some stupid things but this is right up there.

Maybe if shirt removal was only a recommended caution he'd have a point, but it's not.

He can't go around criticising referees for applying the LOAF - that's their job.

You know, I hate to tell Blatter this but he wasn't sent off for removing his shirt. He was sent off coz that was the second stupid thing he did that match.

Between this and some of the garbage that's in the Q&A (such as the goalkeeper stuff that contradicts the laws), I seriously think FIFA are losing the plot

This touches on a very critical issue. The worthiness of a send off. A send off is an extremely critical call particularly early in a match. With all of the mandatory cautioning that has been written into the game in order to idiot proof it so a bunch of trained chimpanzees could referee. It has created siuations like the one noted by Blatter. A clear FIFA edict to caution for raising the shirt over the head. So how do you deal with a player that scored and his exhuberance commits the act and he already has a caution. It is a very severe penalty to issue a red card and send the player off the field. It's not fair and in the spirit of the game. I agree with Statesmen I would turn a blind eye in this instance. This falls into the realm of the send off for the jewelry. Referees should exhibit common sense and weight the severity of the action with the possible match and man management options available. To arbitrarily issue a second caution for this act is an extreme overaction. It would have been better for him to speak directly to the player and give him a short lecture. It would have sent the right message and it would have kept the match fair for both teams.

[Ref Flunkie]

This touches on a very critical issue. The worthiness of a send off. A send off is an extremely critical call particularly early in a match. With all of the mandatory cautioning that has been written into the game in order to idiot proof it so a bunch of trained chimpanzees could referee. It has created siuations like the one noted by Blatter. A clear FIFA edict to caution for raising the shirt over the head. So how do you deal with a player that scored and his exhuberance commits the act and he already has a caution. It is a very severe penalty to issue a red card and send the player off the field. It's not fair and in the spirit of the game. I agree with Statesmen I would turn a blind eye in this instance. This falls into the realm of the send off for the jewelry. Referees should exhibit common sense and weight the severity of the action with the possible match and man management options available. To arbitrarily issue a second caution for this act is an extreme overaction. It would have been better for him to speak directly to the player and give him a short lecture. It would have sent the right message and it would have kept the match fair for both teams.



Then don't write it in the rules as a mandatory caution, simply make it a fine or something. You can't have it both ways and turn a blind eye to it if it happens to be the 2nd caution...either way you are impacting the game, one by not enforcing the WRITTEN rule, or by ignoring it. So you are saying: hard foul (yellow) + removal of shirt (yellow) should not equal send-off, BUT removal of shirt (yellow) + hard foul (yellow) equals send-off? 2+1=3 but 1+2 =4? For one, Blatter should keep his mouth shut about refereeing. Two, it isn't like these players don't know the rules. I have no sympathy for stupidity. Three, either write the rules where everything is based on common sense and is completely vague or write them where everything is black and white and don't change them every year.

Flip flop, flippity flop. Flop flop, flip flip flop. Sing it with me!!!

[Englishref]

Being from England, and being a referee in England, you have touched on possibly the most sore point this season! :D

In England, The FA have done absolutely everything it can to minimise the impact of this ruling. It has sent representatives from The FA, The Referee's Committee, etc, to every single professional club in the country, it has had meetings with all the forms of the media, and it has had meetings with the PFA (Professional Footballers Assoc), and the LMA (League Managers Assoc), explaining as clearly as possible, and taking questions on, what is and isn't acceptable this season, with regards to shirt 'removal'. They have gone to even greater lengths to emphasise that it is a mandatory caution, and that it is not the referee's fault if he has to show a yellow card for this offence. If he doesn't, he will be docked points in his assessment, and possibly brought before a hearing to explain why he never cautioned. They have been so worried by it, that in every single professional team's dressing room, home and away, The FA have issued a poster which must be put up on the wall, to remind players that they shouldn't take their shirt off when celebrating. We've had Graham Poll on the tv before the season telling us about the new law, and how he and the other refs have no choice and that it will be a caution, and not to blame them, and we've had John Baker, The FA's head of Refereeing, and England's representative on the IFAB, go to every FAMOA (Football Assoc Match Officials Assoc, of which every English referee, regardless of level, is a member of) conference and explain to us what is and isn't acceptable, and he told us to remind the managers before the game and to tell their players. He has been on every football show explaining the new law. So, basically, he, and The FA, could not have done anything more.

And it worked. For the past 4 weeks, we have seen 2 or 3 incidents where a player has been sent off for a SBO for removing the shirt/running into the crowd, and the managers have come on tv and slammed their players, saying that they've had meetings with their players telling them not to do it, yet they have done, and so it wasn't the referees fault.

Then it happens in the Premier League, Steve Bennett does as he has been told to do for the past 2 months, following Tim Cahill doing something he's been told not to do for the past 2 months, and Sepp Blatter takes it upon himself to come out and publicly criticise a referee, but also ruin everything The FA have done over the past 2 months to improve relations between referees, players, managers and fans. It is absolutely shocking from the man who is supposed to be in charge of world football. He is known for sticking his oar in where it isn't wanted, but this takes the biscuit.

What makes it even more unbelievable is FIFA have 4 members on the IFAB iirc, one of which i think is Blatter. The IFAB, which also includes a representative from the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh FAs, made up this ruling and agreed on it. So how can Blatter now come out and go against what the IFAB themselves implemented?!?! It is a ******* ridiculous statement he has made.

I am 110% certain English referees, at least, will continue to caution for such offences. After all, the IFAB, and through Englands rep on the board, John Baker, have made it clear that pulling the shirt over your head is a YC/SBO, and only the IFAB can change that, not Sepp Blatter.

I just wish someone would tell Sepp Blatter to keep his nose out of other peoples business once in a while, to think before he speaks (remember his comments about women footballers should be wearing skimpier outfits?), and to check with his own association before he makes such an important statement. Well either that, or someone should sack the idiot. He is gradually ruining the game. :mad:

[ArsenalTexan3]

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=310016&cc=5901

The FA defends themselves and I agree with them. They are only doing what the rules state. Blatter needs to go get his head checked.

[Gary V]

Was Blather playing hooky the day the teacher covered this in class?

What's really funny is that our (major metro) newspaper picked up a photo of this on the wire service and ran it. (Oooh, some soccer reporting!) Course whoever made that decision had no idea why the photo was on the wire in the first place, so there was just a caption id'ing Cahill celebrating a goal - no mention of the consequences!

[But Referee]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=687&ncid=1356&e=3&u=/ap/20040912/ap_on_sp_so_ne/soc_fifa_blatter

If you say it loud enough, long enough.......

excerpt from the article on the above link;

"Blatter then criticized an English referee for ejecting Everton's Tim Cahill, who pulled his shirt over his head to celebrate his winning goal at Manchester City. He was out of the game after getting his second yellow card.


"I don't agree with the referee," Blatter said. "If, just because you pull your shirt over your head after having scored a goal, he should never expel the player."


Soccer's rule-making organization issued a directive in February saying any player who removed a shirt to celebrate a goal will get a yellow card. That also applied to a player who bared his chest by pulling the shirt over his head. FIFA contended that practice was offensive in some countries.


"We, FIFA, have to absolutely clarify the definition of the word 'remove,' which is what is now in the laws of the game," FIFA vice president David Will said. "

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"It depends on what your definition of is, is." Bill Clinton

[Statesman]

Basically it boils down to this: Blatter is an idiot and shouldn't have said anything. What he said is not correct, and clearly against what FIFA (and USSF) has instructed. The removal of the shirt as demonstrated in the FIFA slideshow should be an automatic caution if it occurs, regardless if it is the second or not. I've confirmed this position with both FIFA and USSF, so I'm sure it applies with the other national federations as well.

[Crowdie]

If you look at page 5 of the FIFA "Goal Celebration - The removal of the jersey" document (http://www.fifa.com/documents/fifa/regulations/Removal_of_the_jersey.pdf) you will see a picture of a player doing exactly what Tim Cahill did with an instruction to issue a yellow card - so how can referee Steve Bennett be wrong? He did exactly as FIFA had instructed.

[saabrian]

Blatter is an idiot. But maybe the fact that he contradicted the rules his body recently pushed through might make them realize how absurd the rule is. Then again, Blatter has raised micromanagement to an art form.

[HoldenMan]

whether or not Blatter has a point is irrelevant. Bennett applied a mandatory caution as dictated by FIFA. Blatter can, by all means, argue against that law but NOT criticise a refereeing for the correct decision.

For those who say they would've turned a blind eye, what if a few minutes later somebody from the other team without a caution scored? You obviously can't caution them or you'd be inconsistent.

Or, what if you had already given out a caution for shirt removal earlier in the game, then a player from the other team, already sitting on a caution, scores and does the same? You going to turn a blind eye or be inconsistent?

Hey, if Cahill hadn't already done something stupid earlier in the match he wouldn't have been sent off for it would he?

I don't see why we should apply the law differently simply becaue the player is already sitting on a caution. I think fairness dictates that we shouldn't take that into consideration (except possibly on borderline cases)

[Andy TAUS]

FWIW, the biggest idiot in all this was Tim Cahill, especially after all the publicity that has been played out in all the footballing fora & media (some of which he should have noticed over the past months) about shirt lifting (in a football game). :o

I was very much aware of what was going on with this "FIFA law" change (and I don't play football at all) so why Tim wasn't is anyone's guess.

Yet another Tim Cahill boo-boo ! :rolleyes:

[Gary V]

so how can referee Steve Bennett be wrong? He did exactly as FIFA had instructed.
That's all it takes to be wrong in Septic Bladder's eyes - to do what you were told.

[njref]

Soccer has arbitrary and rather harsh laws - 10 yellow cards to 10 players, nothing happens, 2 yellows to one player and you are down a player. Or foul 2 inches outside the box, DFK, foul on the edge of the box, PK. It doesn't seem fair sometimes (especially in comparison to other sports with less dramatic penalties). But if you start down the slippery slope of trying to correct the rules by yourself (like having a higher standard for fouls in the box or second yellow cards), you can get into trouble, as Holdenman points out.

Shirt over the head is a clear yellow card, so it is hard to avoid calling it, especially in a high level game.

[fiddlestick]

This was enforced at my club game last weekend. Dude took his shirt off after scoring, saw yellow.