One thought on attendance: it is a tricky proposition to measure attendance figures over time and compare them. Access to the game has changed radically in the last ten years alone. When you factor in the cost of attending versus the other alternatives, I'm not surprised less people pay the ticket price (especially during an economic downturn). The issue now is that this creates a second problem: greater disparity because of TV and sponsorship money. Before I put soccer on its deathbed, I would look to understand trends in: sales/website activity of Marca, AS, etc ... sites that offer streaming and # of visitors ... year over year same store sales for sports bars or pubs ... etc. I think you have to look at a lot more than stadium attendance.
I mean.. I thought it was a weak penalty claim. It could've been given to us, but if I was a ref I probably would choose to ignore it. Especially in such a big game. As for video techonlogy. No. Football is about entertainment. If it was 100% fair then it would only tone down the controversial stuff. We are the audience not the players.We should be demanding entertainment and video evidence kills a part of the game.
I think that most of the clubs earn most of their income from attendance and sponsorship deals. I am not talking about first leagues only, but teams overall. So i think that more TV spectators equals more money for the TV company and some money for the average FC.
Re: Olympique Lyonnais vs Real Madrid | UEFA CL 1st KO - Post-match Discussion [R] Yeah because pushing an open market is a dumb move by UEFA. With a growing Hispanic population and generally more interest in football @US there's a great new revenue source to keep our lovely football going for years to come. Attendancy doesn't really mean that much and the dip in attendance is explained by the economic downturn most countries had, they are projected to rise again in 2011. Mean while broadcasting rights are growing again so honestly, ******** attendancy, broadcast is where it's at. This proves how wrong you are Eddie;
Seriously, I don't care if your blocking your face or not. If you can't take it to the face then don't stand there. That same instance, if it happens in the field (outside the pk box) would be called for sure, so why not in the PK box. A good example of "manning up" was Kyrgiakos at the Liverpool-Sparta game where it was extremely close to his face yet he didn't flinch. He got struck quite hard in the neck-collar area.
How about a Segunda Division team? Would you say they earn THAT much from TV rights? Wouldn't they benefit more from a packed stadium during the season and broadcast rights? Second, its FIFA that is pushing into the USA not UEFA.
FIFA // UEFA, same shit different name, all run by french people anyways. Sporting Gijon has a higher average attendancy than Villareal. Real Betis is at 37,137 per match, only a few hundres lower than Tottenham and Valencia, crazy.
The whole thing is the especially in europe, football is the opium of the people. This will never change, but this is no excuse for the sport to stay behind the times and the development in technology. We are tracking how much a players runs, how fast a shot was, where he was, every little detail, but we can't display a replay that is being brought to our screens at home within half a minute? I seriously doubt it. The World Cup decision recently, where everybody came to the conclusion that it was "sold"...how is that a case for more transparency, but not in the actual sport itself? The point is, if there is a chance of making the game fair, and improve officiating, then there should be very strong reasons why this should not be allowed. Reasons such as "maintaining the human nature of the sport" sound like complete fairytales to me. What people are saying is that it doesn't matter how terrible the officiating becomes, the herd will follow regardless. I personally don't agree with this.
You use some very weird logic. The missed goal call was 2nd time in the history and only fair enough considering the first one went against the germans. It all evens out in the end. Anyways, here you are; Clinically clean football with no human decisions at all and no reasons for any of us to discuss any offside calls etc. even if it's sometimes is to our benefits. Yeah! Next we just need to build robots to play the game and it'll be the most awesomest sport ever!11 [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r2koLSlSqM"]YouTube - World Business: Pitch Perfect 10/04/09[/ame]
Well Villareals total population is about 50.000. Their stadium has a 25.000 capacity which means half of the city has to go to the match for it to be full. And Betis fans are just crazy but still that attendance is pretty high if it's from the last couple of seasons.
I just think it becomes to complicated to incorporate replay into the game. How do you manage that? How many offside calls are there per game? 8? 10? 12? Do you review them all? Maybe you review very specific, very limited instances (did the ball cross the goal line) - but otherwise it becomes unmanageable. Refs will continue to make mistakes in soccer as they do in every sport. Again, I think the change should start with changing how players act... the fake injuries, the dives, rolling around, trying to goad refs into cards - all crap if you ask me. Review that after games; issue some bans; issue extended bans for repeat offenders. Start by getting that crap out of the game first.
I used to sympathise with this line of thought. I'm sure there was a thread in World Rivalries a while back where I may have had the same opinion. But the referee also kills a part of the game, but no-one argues to get rid of the ref and linesman. The game will not be sanitised or "automated" with the introduction of video evidence. There will still always be shades of grey. For instance, the ref will know whether the ball hit someone's hand - the decision as to whether it was intentional still rests with the ref's interpretation. He simply will have a tool to help him make the decision. Similarly with offside. The ref will know whether a person was in an offside position - the decision as to whether he actively interfered in play will lie with the ref. There is nothing taken away from the ref, the only thing happening is that the decision-makers are being empowered. The players use the best shoes, ball, shirts, training regimes, gloves etc. that technology can develop. The officials should have the same luxuries. EDIT: Here's the World Rivalries thread https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1338268
Spanish refs can start by not punishing a players who gets hit with a ball 2 sec after he commited the foul. I mean there's no way for him to get up and clear the way in such short time. Dani Alves used to do this to opponents a lot but haven't really seen him do it lately.
You could either leave the decision as to whether the call should be referred to video to the decision maker. If the ref or linesman is sure, they stick with the decision. If they need to look at a replay, they can ask for it. This is the same as the ref running up to the linesman and asking "Are you sure?", which happens in the game at the moment without any discernible impact upon the game. Alternatively, they can do the above, but take a leaf out of the way cricket or tennis deal with the issue. The ref can check with the video whenever he wants, but you also allow the captain of each team to refer a set number (say two) of any decisions made by the officials in every game. This actually makes it more interesting in cricket and tennis, not less. It's especially great when they refer it and the umpire was right all along I agree with your suggestion about retrospective punishment, but this isn't an "either/or" situation. They could do both very easily, imo.
Eh.. it's a 9km trip from Castellon Plana to Villareal and 30min ride to Sagunto @the diving, fake injuries etc being punished afterwards we can agree on, and it's something they're already doing in Serie A(most unlikely league of all to do this eh)
How long does an average goal celebration take? Usually, when the TV is done with the replays, and the commentators discussed the wonderful curve/ridiculous luck of the striker, the player are about to kick off the match again. As Umar said, the referee is in control of the match. If a goal is scored, a replay is being displayed, if it was offsides (blatant offsides Inzaghi goal in Milan for example), it just doesn't count. This takes not even half a minute with todays technology on that level, and it would correct a huge mistake. Same with the fouls that result in very dubious yellow cards, how long do the players push and follow the linesman and the referee for? In this occasion, we turn to the screen, and everybody can see what happen. It's fairly unlikely that a player will keep complaining after there is proof that there was barely a touch at all, while with normal decisions, players keep lamenting the card, even after it's been given. There are cases where video evidence can't fully confirm or debunk a theory, look at Albiol's save against Sevilla, one camera shows a likely goal, the other a likely save. That is a case against it, but it's such a rare occasion that it doesn't outweigh the positives of such a system. You can't beat diving, cheating or any other aspect out of the game as long as it does not result in an instant turn of events. If a dive in the penalty box is immediately reviewed and, on the top level, displayed on a large monitor for every player and coach to see, players will take a lot less risk to embarrass themselves, without having at least won their team a match. This is the key, as long as it is being awarded with a positive match result, even a minor ban will be worth the cause. How silly is that? The next time you get money out of an ATM, it should give you less money, you know for the excitement, "how much am i going to get today?", or even better, just make it a slot machine, sometimes you get less, sometimes more, sometime nothing at all! Suspense and excitement all around when the family goes for a shopping spree at the mall.
You tell me. If you support the "human aspect of the game" part, tell me where a corrected decision would've been a bad thing for the match. There are a lot of examples where games could have been improved by help of video, and correctign blatant decisions, but i haven't heard one example by somebody who said "you know, when Chelsea were robbed of two penalty kicks, and Pique clearly handled the ball, that was so football, so human". Bad decisions by the officials suck. End of. Until somebody brings a suggestion why a bad decision by an official brings something to this game, there is nothing you can do to convince me that the world cup in Korea and Japan wouldn't have been better without these "minor human referee mistakes" against Italy and Spain.
Let's not make it so complex:Is controversy entertaining ? That's the only question you should be asking yourself. I find it entertaining. If you don't then that's what seperates us.
Not a fan of in game replay. I won't quote everyone, but ... Refs can benefit from the same lighter shoes, the same keep your warmer/cooler clothing, the same advances in training and nutrition, the same video technology to improve their performance, etc, etc. You want to review goals during the celebration and have a booth official? I might begin to consider that. But offsides? Or allowing coaches/captains to challenge calls? It introduces different elements to the game .. and different elements equals different ways to cheat. I'm a coach and I tell my players: 'If something questionable happens waste time! Do not let play continue! Give us time to review it so that I can get some kind of indication of whether or not we should challenge the call.' I think the NBA does a good job with replays. The refs can decide to check if it was a 3 pointer or just 2 and they can check shots the beat/don't beat the clock. You give me something like, I would consider it. To have a replay being checked for possible offsides, possible handballs, was it a corner or goal kick, who held what shirt first, etc, etc, - way too much for me.
Why don't we get rid of refs? It would increase the controversy exponentially. Or why don't we have the worst amateur referees be involved in the most high-profile games. If we are gonna have the ref, lets have some good ones, and lets give them the best tools.
Have we ever benefitted from calls that weren't made correctly? I don't buy your argument because where you stand on that depends on where you sit. Let's be realistic about this.