Remember that game with the USA/Brazil a few months ago where Brazil scored a goal but the refs apparently thought it never crossed the line?

Goals or potential goals in soccer are a huge enough deal to review them.

As somewhat of a tangent, why don't they just stop the clock for injuries? What's with this addition of injury time which may or may not be the right amount of time and nobody even knows how much it will be till the end?

What if they're playing Togo?

probably not there.

This is dumb. Being able to settle the ball is a big skill for a forward and being allowed to use your hands to do this would be so lololol. Can't even believe I'm responding to this seriously.

From the guy who brought you throwing the ball really high in the air, it's settling the ball with your hand!

Yeah just wait till I find some ingenious baseball strategy, that will really make people's heads asplode.

Oh I just got it. Thread is going up soon.

All this talk about the horrible call has people throwing out the word cheater, as well as pining to replay the game. Just today Michael Wilbon said they should let them replay the game, as well as some Irish big wig of some sort. WHAT THE **** ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING?!? I'll let this clip say what I wanna say. It's seriously ******ed for people to say that they should replay the game.

thats because Wilbon is a dumbass

Nah Wilbon's ok with me.

Yeah of all the sports people on tv to call a dumbass, WIlbon wouldn't be at the top of my list. The guy he works with, on the other hand...

At request of the referee in open play, and for goals.

Also maybe give each team 3 requests per game sumfink like that.

Rugby has video evidence and it has little effect on the flow of the game.

Something has to be done about hoooge games being decided by blatant cheating.

Those talking about the flow.

The flow of football is broken up all the time by numerous incidents, if it was just used for goals, which I think is an acceptable implementation, then you have a natural total stop in momentum then anyway.

As for it escalating beyond that, I think that is a false concern, people have wanted video tech/ other tech/changes for ages and it still is not in place, yes if they do bring in a bit some will want more, but on the evidence so far there is no reason to suspect they will be listened to.

I hope they bring a change of some kind, then Henry's goal will always be associated with it.

A new rule that would be nicknamed Henry's Law would be awesome.

20 years from now:

Dad why do they call it Henry's Law?

Well Son there was this cheating Frenchman etc etc etc.

What nonsense. mistakes happen so we should just accept it? Oh dear. As long as it wasn't for every decision, and practivcally it wouldn't be, then it won't stop the flow.

Just goals & pens, where the game has stopped anyway, could be reviewed.

Pens that are not given are the thorny issue. It's fine reviewing goals and pens awarded, the issue to solve is at what point, or how long can the game go on before a reviewing official could call the game back if he sees there should have been a penalty.

You would surely hope so. the silence from Blatter & Platini has been deafening so far, this just has to be the catalyst for change.

Agree with all of this. Fouls are now blown for barely touching a player. As for FIFa's position, amatuer football doesn't have linesmen normally, often they don't even have an official ref, or nets! So the 'one rule for all' nonsense is just that. They simply need to decide how far down the tree this has to go, and surely it stops at all professional levels.


One further thing that is imo essential. Full review of all matches (let's leave it at worldwide top divisions & Internationals for now) after the fact by the referee, where he can retrospectively yellow or red card players for diving/cheating, or even rescind where he has made a mistake.

These guys get it.


It should be used almost exactly like it is in Rugby. For those not in the know, that is for controversial scoring situations at the discretion of the referee.

Slowing down the game is not a valid criticsm as the game has already stopped when a goal is scored. In the case of a potential controversy, the extra minute or 2 max is completely worth it. This is especially true in situations like the World Cup and even moreso in the Champions League where poor refereeing can cost clubs millions.

It's a no brainer, but unfortunately FIFA and UEFA have consistently proved themselves to be incompetent and nearly always side with tradition over the improvement of the game. Rugby and the NFL are two prime examples of where constant adjustment of the rules to improve the product can be successful (although in the NFL they go a bit far with protecting the QB but thats a debate for another time).

If we ignore the grassroots business FIFA roll out, resolving this issue is probably the major obstacle to seeing something implemented.

Even that shouldn't be too hard to do though. In most cases where a pen is not given the ball is out of play or in the keepers hands pretty much right away and you can just stop it there. If the defense kicks it up field then just blow it dead and give them a goal kick or drop ball or whatever after review.

However there would also need to be a maximum time elapsed within which a play is reviewable.

They do this every time there's an injury. Or a penalty.

See this whole arguement about it slowing up the game: Its the biggest load of ****e ive ever heard in my life

Totally, the game is constantly stop start. There was some sort of survey done a number of years ago, and the average time the ball was in play was somthing around 30 minutes, there is a ton of dead time in football, it's as valid as FIFA's 'grassroots' bollocks.

You could do it in the way it was experimented with in cricket - each team's captain gets to nominate three times per game if he wants to put a decision to video evidence.

while this is true, it doesn't mean you have 60 minutes worth of down time in which to review incidents. A lot of that time is getting set pieces, collecting the ball, arguing after calls, etc. There is time, but there isn't, know what I mean?


This topic has sort of been beaten to death though, but I think most of agree on when it should be used. Goals and penalty calls. I think leaving the remaining other times its used at the descretion of the ref is probably correct. A perfect example of this would be the Evans ninja kick on Drogba two weeks ago. The ref should have been notified of what happened and he should of had a chance to see that again if he wanted to.

qft. I hate the idea of replay.

Make the players wear gloves containing a chip that communicate with the ball upon contact. That would help with the issue of handballs. Preferrably something not too obtrusive because they still have throwins.

The ball touching the hand doesn't necessarily mean that the ref must intervene

With the exception of throwins, why not? My idea was to have some lights on the ball flash for a few seconds.