Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoopie1
Questions for advocates of replays:
1) When are replays used? For goals? Red cards? Yellow cards? Corners? Free Kicks?
2) Who chooses when a replay is used?
3) How far back are you allowed to roll back for a replay? For example, someone wins a tackle in midfield which was actually a foul, 45 seconds of play elapses, the tackler's team scores - can you us the replay to go back and disallow the goal?
1. Start with: review every goal to see if it's in the net and if there was offsides. (Along with, instruct your linesmen to keep their ****ing flags down unless a guy is seven miles offside. If a goal is scored as a result of a marginal offside call not made, it'll be caught.) Given that most goal celebrations resemble halftime at the Super Bowl anyway, there should be minimal delay to the game while this happens.
Things not to review: routine foul calls, out of bounds decisions, that sort of thing.
I think you
should also review, post match, every card that was given to see if it was legit or not, and also review to retroactively issue cards for the renditions of Swan Lake put on by divers.
I wouldn't mind if there was someone able to confirm to the ref in real time regarding card decisions--again, given that they usually whine for a good thirty seconds while a yellow is given, should be enough time to get a replay to see if a card was legitimate or not. I don't feel too strongly about this one though.
2. Start simple: fourth ref in a booth with replay technology and a communication to the field official. He reviews according to the guidelines and lets the ref know when there's been a mistake.
3. Given that random fouls aren't part of my replay, this shouldn't be a big problem. For the two massive mistakes today:
in the first case, replay ref says, "um, that was a goal, we've run off 25 seconds of play for me to figure out that you screwed up, award the goal, put 25 seconds on the stoppage time at the end of the half since that time didn't really happen", move on;
in the second case, replay ref says "um, he was six miles offside, wipe out the goal, award Mexico a free kick from point X, and, time should be fine since we were always stopping it after the players, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Joel started doing coke with Maradona on the sideline."
In both cases, there is minimal disruption to the game (about 25 seconds of people running around pointlessly in the England-Germany game, and zero in the Argentina-Mexico game), and more importantly the refs haven't made a massive screwup which potentially costs two teams four years of work.
And obviously, you can't use this at every level of soccer. Who cares. Your major level leagues could easily use this at relatively minimal cost, and for games that aren't being televised, well, you've probably got fourth-rate officials and sixth-rate players playing before a crowd of family and friends anyway, and who really gives a damn.