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- BEHIND THE PLAY #2
VAR time limits. It’s there to ensure egregious errors made at field level are corrected. It is supposed to deal with clear and obvious mistakes only. The reality is that it slows the game down way too often and for too long. If three people in a booth cannot see a clear and obvious error within 20 seconds then one hasn’t been made. Put a hard cap on VAR reviews and get the game started again.
End jersey begging. The TV cameras pander to them and the players feel guilted into giving kids their jerseys as they leave the field. Betting 90% of these are being sold by someone who has paid the kid to hold the sign asking for it. Don’t allow signs like this.
Punch pitch invaders in the head. Ask yourself, in this world today is it more or less likely that we see another Monica Seles incident? There will come a day when a pitch invader isn’t after a selfie with Messi or Ronaldo. All pitch invaders need to be treated like they are the deadly physical threat that eventually one of them will end up being. If pitch invaders saw that they weren’t going to be gently led off the field but rather were going to be taken down hard and punched several times by professionals who were trained to assume pitch invaders may have weapons and ill will, it would cut down on both the attention-seeking, Insta content-creator nonsense and let bad agents see that their chances of getting to a player to cause harm were much slimmer than they are now. Am I an old man yelling at clouds? Maybe. Am I advocating for violence? Yes, controlled, measured, semi-performative violence, administered by well-trained staff. End the days of overly-rotund “stadium security” embarrassingly trying to run down a pitch invader for ages. They end up falling or giving up most of the time anyways.
Turkish players took field invader matters into their own hands recently.
Favour defenders for penalty decisions in the box and attackers for offside. The current writing of hand ball as a foul in the Laws of the Game has just encouraged players to rifle the ball at defenders from close quarters and hope it hits an outstretched arm that isn’t tight to the body. The risk/reward ratio on this is incredibly low for attackers so it happens repeatedly, resulting in some undeserved goals from penalties. Embellishment is the other friend of unwarranted penalty kicks. The sooner in a game referees can make it clear they will give yellows for embellishment, the less they will need to worry about it in regards to fouls in the box. The corollary to this is that referees should also be prepared to call free kicks, including penalties, when a player has managed to keep their feet after being fouled.
On the other hand, the VAR reviews for offside goals are denying goals that should be allowed, often on the basis of a line drawn by humans on a screen that shows an attacker’s knee that may be a centimetre offside. Yes, you need to define a line that constitutes offside but its not this. Get rid of the TV lines and if VAR can’t tell by the naked eye once play is stopped on their monitor, the goal should stand. Again, this decision should take seconds. Freeze play as the ball is played forward, look at the screen. Is it clear a player is offside within ten seconds? Yes? Call it offside. But if it isn’t clear, quickly relay that to the referee and let the goal stand because, again, it’s not a clear and obvious error.
Ban private equity and nation-states and their proxy funds from owning professional teams. And narcissist billionaires while we’re at it. If you’re going to have Financial Fair Play, simplify it and give it teeth. Encourage supporter-owned clubs by doing this. Not every element of commerce over a million dollars in this world needs to be conducted through corporations. If what the Glazers have done with United doesn’t make it clear that such owners do not have the best interests of the game in mind, I’m concerned nothing will.
Better development models for elite level play. Find a development model for young players that avoids the worst of both the pay-to-play system prevalent in North America and the catch and release approach in the rest of the world which sees professional clubs sign players at very young ages and then mercilessly cull the herd annually when players are often at sensitive ages.
Normalize reasonable critiques of the women’s game. The women’s game is evolving faster than most men’s opinion of it. Personally, I started going to our women’s national team games when they played Holland at Thunderbird Stadium at UBC in 2006. I’ve written often on my old blog about it and would like to see the women’s game flourish here. But improvements come through open dialogue and there’s still an expectation that you can’t critique aspects of the game without being in danger of being labelled a misogynist. It’s infantilizing, condescending and, in the end, counter-productive to having an environment improve if it only gets positive feedback. Nothing grows in an echo chamber.
Reform the voting structure at FIFA. One country, one vote does not work and is at the root of any and all corruption scandals there. The governance model at FIFA needs to change and the voting structure is a big part of that. More on this in a future newsletter.
Parent education. When I started as a Technical Director in 2003, everything was about player development. Then coach development was stacked on top of that and when national standards for youth clubs were established in the form of the CSA’s National Youth Club License we added club development (governance, administration, finance, etc). What’s really missing now is Parent Education. In the absence of leadership from people working in the game (I raise my hand), parents look to each other for information and advice and as is the case in many aspects of life, those quickest to dispense advice often aren’t the most informed. Add in social media and parent WhatsApp groups and the misinformation gets out of hand very quickly leading to FOMO and a herd mentality where groups of players are suddenly up and leaving because a coach from another club or academy has whispered something complimentary about one of their kids. It’s gotten very weird out there in this regard since COVID. I think it’s definitely one of many anxiety hangovers from the pandemic as I see very rational people doing very irrational things and marching their kids around the Lower Mainland from club to club based on the latest, “Well, I heard…” notification popping up on their phone. Okay, this is turning into its own separate newsletter so I’ll stop there but likely re-visit this one later as well.
More free play. This is acting against my own self-interest as my livelihood is based around structured, fee-based soccer programming but the benefits of kids organizing their own play is undeniable. It’s good for the game and it’s good for their personal, physical, mental and social development. One of the surest signs letting kids play when, where, with whom and how they want is dying is when parents contact us and are upset we can’t tell them when their training time will be six months in advance of the season starting. We have others who are annoyed when our summer camp info isn’t up by the start of February. It’s a clear sign of over-subscribed kids whose parents need and/or want activities that are scheduled and staffed. Autonomy and agency often begin for some kids when they are able to play with others without the oversight of adults.
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