Should FIFA change a few procedures to reduce controversy and inform fans?

[superdave]

I'm thinking of two examples.

1. In the case of a PK, I believe the referee should clearly indicate on whom the foul has been called. I'm thinking specifically of the DC-NE match. The FSW guys and many fans on the DC boards were all over the referee for calling a foul on Rimando, but I'm pretty sure he called the foul on Boswell. At least, he should have; Boswell had Twellman horsecollared. Some simple gesture denoting that the foul was on Boswell and not Rimando would have shut the FSW guys up, informed the fans, and, in other circumstances, possibly avoided crowd trouble. (Imagine the exact same play in a Milan or Old Firm derby.)

2. Another one is yellows for PI. It's very common that a match commentator (and, presumably, alot of fans) criticize a CR for a yellow that I presume is for PI. Sometimes, you even see the CR holding up three fingers or pointing to different areas of the field while the announcer babbles on about how the foul wasn't that hard. Perhaps a "blue card" or some other thing to differentiate a yellow from PI from a yellow for an especially hard tackle.

I'm sure you guys can think of other scenarios.

But the main question is, do you think it's worth it? One attitude would be, so long as the CR can explain it to the captain, and the captain to his teammates, who cares what all the observers think? Why complicate things?

Me, I think that you want to enhance the viewers' experience, because they pay everyone's salaries, including the referees. And I believe it would enhance that experience if some things were made clearer, so the viewer won't be stewing about a bad call when in reality the viewer just misunderstood the call. Further, in light of a seeming increase in fan trouble, anything that keeps fans at the stadium from being misinformed can end up being a safety measure.

Thoughts?

[refmike]

For better or worse, the signals in soccer are to indicate to the players what they are to do next, not what they did to get a call. I believe that this concept prevents dissent and should be left alone.

If we are to give signals about what we saw, we can begin by reading the rules for high school soccer (bad term because high school does not use the laws of Association Football so they DON'T play soccer) and American Football to see the full list of signals required of the referees.

[PVancouver]

For better or worse...

I'd rather have better.

I believe that this concept prevents dissent and should be left alone.
Then why are so many yellow cards issued for dissent, or in the case of Peter Nowak, red cards? Why is dissent such a problem? Why isn't there more dissent in pro football? pro basketball?

There are many times in an American football game that fans and announcers look to the ref to make the call. Ditto for baseball and basketball and hockey. It's an expected part of the game. But there isn't a lot of dissent in any of these sports, at least, not any more dissent than there is in soccer. The main commonality between these sports is that they are sports. The most annoying sport for me to watch is water polo. I only watch it occasionally during the Olympics. But all the action is underwater, the referee seems to blow the whistle every three seconds, and one can only guess about what the foul might be. No, there isn't any dissent, but there isn't any involvement of the fan, either.

Yes, sometimes there is dissent in baseball but would it make any sense for umpires to keep the ball and strike count to himself and simply have the batter walk to the dugout or first base after a number of pitches have been thrown? It would eliminate all that nasty dissent about balls and strikes that occurs from time to time. Fans and players may not always agree with the call but is that a good reason for not explaining what your call is?

Not making a call may help prevent dissent but it definitely prevents understanding. It also promotes disrespect for referees, since players often must often guess about what the call was and aren't always going to come to the right conclusion, or may not even be able to come to a conclusion at all. The more often this occurs during a game the less respect the player will have for the referee. In the DC-NE game Mark Geiger made such a nonchalant call for a penalty that the announcers had no clue that a penalty had even been called for at least a minute. I can't say if the stadium announcer knew or not but the sport came off looking rather silly in my mind. And unless you're using TiVo you can't rewind the game to take a hard enough look at the play to figure out what actually happened.

You are likely to be in the majority in terms of your "should be left alone" comment, but nevertheless, I believe the sport would be better off with signaled calls.

...while the announcer babbles on about how the foul wasn't that hard...

In the absence, or even in the presence, of hand signals, announcers in general should be more careful about what they think they see. They should take another good look at the play before coming to rash and incorrect conclusions. Even then they need to be aware of how the play might look from the referee's angle. At the very least, if there is some doubt they should say so, instead of intimating that their version of the play is irrefutable.

[Garkbit]

Now, if we're going to complain about commentators not knowing what fouls or cards were for, and wish for a measure that would purely address this problem, by far the best one would be to mike top-level referees up and give the feed to the broadcaster, as in both codes of rugby.

The trouble with hand signals is that not every one of the penal offences is specific. For example, charging an opponent, which can cover running into an opponent very hard, or jumping into him, or stopping in front of him, or making a back. Or holding an opponent, which can cover players hugging their opponents or shirt-pulling. And I wouldn't like to see a possible signal for spitting at an opponent...

And that's to say nothing of the technical offences. How do you signal a goalkeeper who holds the ball for six seconds, or who drops the ball and picks it up again, or who handles a pass to him? What about impeding, dangerous play (another one which can take an enormous number of variants), and preventing the goalkeeper from releasing the ball from his hands?

So, either you still have slightly ambiguous signals by only signalling for offences named by the LOAF (and ones that could easily change in meaning: one referee might see making a back as charging, while another might call it pushing) , or you have to carefully evaluate every possible method of committing an offence and give it a name and a signal. That's a *lot* of signals for me to be remembering, never mind for footballers and managers to be remembering, and certainly never mind the fans to be remembering (that is, if they can see the gestures in the first place).

And then you get into the problem of what the signals actually are. Both codes of rugby use individual-offence signals very successfully. This is because there aren't actually *that* many offences and they can all be represented by reasonably simple, but also pictorial gestures rather than abstract ones (a pictorial gesture mimes the offence committed: for example, the ice hockey signal for cross-checking, while an abstract one is just a signal, like the ice hockey signal for interference). Therefore, so long as you know that, for example, it's illegal to tackle above the shoulders in rugby league, when you see the ref whistle for a penalty and then signal like so:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/bsp/hi/rugby_league/rules/referees_signals/img/head_high_tackle.jpg

it's pretty obvious he's signalling a head-high tackle. Abstract gestures you have to learn, with no frame of reference in the real world. They're also a lot easier to, if not delivered crisply, be misunderstood: I'm sure we've all had problems with assistants or club linesmen with dodgy flagging in the past.

Also, as far as fans go, forcing them to learn the LOAF would be much more useful in terms of crowd trouble rather than having referees dance around for them: the anger all comes from not actually knowing what a foul is and what a foul isn't, what a send-off is and what a send-off isn't, what offside is and what offside isn't, etc. and believing a decision to be plain wrong through ignorance a lot more than misunderstanding the reason for it.

Finally: the vast majority of referees have no need to learn the signals, because they've got nobody to signal to but players and coaches, and personally I feel that I'd be much better understood by shouting or saying "making a back" than by placing my left hand on my hip and holding my right arm up in the shape of a V (ten points to anyone who can tell me what the joke is), as well as looking a lot less silly in the process.

In conclusion: hand signals are unnecessary at the top level because a microphone could be used to inform commentators (and a different approach is needed to pacify fans), and unnecessary at the grass roots because the voice suffices.

[HoldenMan]

FIFA do encourage the use of extra signals by referees - eg, signals to mimic pushing or shirt-pulling. However, things such as tripping/kicking, which is the most common offence - well, that's a bit difficult to mimic.

Pushing in the back, which is usually done with the body and is more of a charge anyway, is also difficult to mimic and they're also the ones that leave people thinking 'what was that for?'

Soccer will never have abstract signals - too many people will argue that it will americanise the game. It'll never come in.

As for the PI thing - usually when you're at a park people have a fair idea when a player has been cautioned for PI - it's usually the one who's been a jerk all game. People usually don't pay that close attention to the game when watching from a stadium - you can't see who's who from that far anyway. As for the TV...well, it always amazes me how you can get paid good money for commentating a sport when you don't know the first thing about that match.

[superdave]

I'm thinking of two examples.

1. In the case of a PK, I believe the referee should clearly indicate on whom the foul has been called.
Hand signals to indicate WHAT the foul is might be fine, but that, IMO, doesn't do as much to address the problem of fans and announcers being in the dark as indicating the fouler. Again, I refer to the DC-NE match. Maybe a signal for holding would have caused Max'n'Allen to take another look at Boswell. I don't know if it would have done anything for the fans at RFK. But pointing at Boswell would have made everything obvious to everyone.

Again, it's a minor problem in this case. It just is another snack feeding the notion that MLS referees are the worst in the world. That's a problem, but a minor one compared to what would happen if the same thing had happened at Ibrox on the weekend.