This week CBS asked the famous Arsenal legend Thierry Henry if he were King for the day, what 5 rules would he change in Football?
After reading the ideas of our ex-striker, I challenged myself to come up with alterations that would improve the sport and asked readers to post their comments.
Now, Henry is a World Cup winner, an Invincible, winner of nearly every medal possible to win and the greatest striker to ever live.
I’m ……. well just Dan.
Anyways, just for a bit of fun …….
Zero Tolerance Towards Unwanted Behaviour
I’m tired of hearing that the UK has a zero-tolerance attitude towards racism and abuse.
Zero tolerance in my opinion is someone having standards that they won’t accept being stepped over. Where breaking the principles set simply won’t be accepted, and will be dealt with harshly because that’s how serious you are about the subject.
In the last few years there has been a rise in arrests for anti-social behaviour at grounds.
A worrying aspect is some of this behaviour has become an almost accepted fabric of the game in Britain. Racial abuse from the stands or online (or both) no longer makes headline news. It’s just shrugged off and accepted.
In the last Euros, essentially a home tournament, England’s fans were warned about chants aimed towards visitors from Denmark and Italy.
The Final was overshadowed by yobs without tickets breaking down barriers and stealing seats that didn’t belong to them.
Did the FA, who are very quick to point out problems abroad, truly assess the growing issues in a sport they are paid a lot of money to govern?
As I write this, earlier on Saturday a fan ran onto the pitch at Elland Road to confront Eddie Howe.
At the age of 21, Saka has twice now reported racial abuse.
Chelsea fans have been condemned for sick chants regarding Hillsborough, Liverpool and Man City fans every year feel the need to destroy each other’s buses.
We even had a fixture postponed a couple of years ago because protestors thought they had the right to break into Old Trafford.
If that happened in Serie A, we would be quick to critique how clubs are left to police themselves.
A gooner, a couple of months ago, tried to challenge me that he doesn’t hear abuse at the Emirates?
You never heard, ‘She said No Robin, she said No?’
How about ‘Na Na Na Na Nasri you’re a c…. Nasri you’re a c….’?
How about ‘10 men went to bed, went to bed with Ashley ‘?
So, if I was King, I truly would have a zero tolerance towards the above.
I would meet the 20 chairmen and owners in the summer and sign an agreement, any type of crowd trouble, proven abuse heard will lead to an immediate 5 points deduction and 5 games played behind closed doors.
The Prem is scared to ever do this, because how do you promote their brand as the best in the world if arenas are empty, and of course clubs don’t want to agree to losing points or fans, because that’s a business turning down money.
That’s fine just don’t pretend you have a zero tolerance.
It’s an insult to take the knee then turn a blind eye when racism is happening.
My harsh punishment would be an effective deterrent, because you’re hitting those guilty in the place it hurts. Most think they can act how they want in the confines of their football bubble, so punish them in the one area they take so seriously. Let them see they are hurting what they love.
In the late 80’s clubs were forced to act and lost out on a lot of revenue due to the government tackling hooliganism. In the short-term interest in the product dwindled, English Champions missed the big payday of Europe and names with value chose to play abroad.
In the long term though, English football reinvented itself for the better.
Protect Officials
The irony is Henry wanted to hold officials more culpable, forcing them to wear a mic so it’s apparent what they are saying, and putting them in front of the media to discuss their decisions.
I think this isn’t safeguarding a profession which already is short of numbers.
As sad as it is to say, refs would be open to an increase of abuse if they were fed to the public just for the sake of good TV.
Again, this is zero tolerance.
We either are serious that we don’t want officials spoken to in a certain way or we don’t.
We either care about children and parents replicating shouting in the face of linesman/women on a Sunday morning or we don’t.
This season alone we have seen Arteta and Guardiola mock officials, and Klopp’s answer to a winning goal the other weekend was to square up to the 4th official.
Simply meet in pre-season and agree with the 20 managers that any swearing at an official is an automatic red card.
On the pitch, any player hounding the ref who is not the captain gets an automatic red.
We went through this phase a few years back, but it seems to have crept back in.
It would take an official to be brave to implement the rule to begin with, but once managers and players start getting sent off, trust me they will fall in line.
Rugby is just as competitive, but they are taught you don’t abuse the official.
If a tennis player, does it, he or she, the announcers, the spectators, press, etc, know it’s a points violation. Simple!”
Stopwatch
In Qatar FIFA said they were tired of how long games had the ball not actually in play, claiming on average a ball would be in play for on average just 60 minutes.
If nothing else: the customer is not getting value for money.
So, fixtures at the last World Cup would regularly have added time in both half’s that were over double digits in minutes. Players quickly got used to it, so there was no point in time wasting.
Why FIFA have not imposed this on various associations hasn’t been explained.
If I were King, I would order my officials to manage time-keeping by adopting the NBA system. Every time the ball is out of play, or the match halted, someone stops the clock and restarts it when play resumes.
This is quite easy to implement.
TV companies might not like it because suddenly games would be going on longer and finishing at various times. Yet my hope would be if clubs know the time is on pause, there would be no point in time wasting.
VAR
I was tempted to just ban VAR period.
Yet I accept that the issue with video technology is the consistency of it’s being implemented. FIFA stress it should only be being used if an obvious error has been made, and indeed there are scenario where a judgement can be made on fact (a player is offside or onside).
The issue since its introduction in the UK is it feels like every time we have a goal, every last movement from all involved is dissected to minute detail.
Let’s simplify this.
Each manager gets 2 disputes per game, one each half.
Each dug out has the option to ask an official to refer to the TV screen each half but once they do, they can’t do so again.
If On Joint Points….
Currently if Arsenal finished on the same points as Man City, we would lose out on the title due to goal difference. I think this rule is a harsh way to determine Champions, relegation, promotion, etc.
I think after 38 games, if you have earned the same points as your competitors, your hard work shouldn’t count for nothing based on how many goals you have scored or conceded.
At the end of the day, you have earnt the same points as them, how you have gone about it shouldn’t matter.
For example, if Forest and Leicester end up on the same points, Forrest would be relegated based on conceding more than the Foxes. That seems harsh.
I like the La Liga method.
If two teams finish on the same points, separate them by their head-to-head series first.
If two teams finished on the same points but one had beaten the other both times that season, that seems a more conclusive way of deciding who were the superior side more than goal difference.
If both matches were drawn use the away goal rules. If still level arrange a play off at Wembley
Give me your 5 rules you would implement if you were king.
Dan
Haven’t we done this Dan ?.
In a word …no lol
Thankfully, in the 17th century, we done away with the King making laws.
In American football (I think), they can ask the ref/umpire to look at an incident 2 or 3 times. If the original decision turns out to be wrong, their tally of requests returns to whatever it was before (stays at the original 2 or 3), however if the original decision was correct, their tally counts down. I think that’s fair – if the ref gets it wrong four times in a game, but you can only flag three times, you risk getting screwed at least once unnecessarily, but this system also prevents coaches from wasting too much time or interrupting the game
Protect the incompetent referees? How can England with all the advancement on football compared to the rest of the world have so incompetent referees for decades? Something does not smell right here.
Maybe it’s because of lack of accountability? Anyone in any profession if not accountable they will do what they please at the expense of others.
There should be zero tolerance against incompetent officials.
If I was king I would address the time wasting monster first by implementing the recent time wasting added time procedures from the world cup.
Secondly I would make a bold call to cap all footballers salaries from exceeding £400, 000 a week.
Those two for starters.
A week! Jeez 400k a year is enough!!!
It cannot be slashed too drastic, £400,000 a week for the very highest paid players eg Haaland.
That could remain for the next five years and those below remain as well, this is a more practical arrangement than the £400,000 a year you suggested.
Gunsmoke are you a millionaire ? Why do you so easily toss around the idea of a player commanding such an obscene amount of dosh ? Money must be like water to you my son.
I’ve only just seen your outrageous idea as I’ve been busy on other topics. Now I know who to come to when I fancy being greedy for more. I do love you for being so openhearted !
Oh my I may have gotten a little generous with my figures there, was just trying to come up with a realistic figure of capping the salaries that are spiraling out of control.
But isn’t Haaland present salary in that region ?
The idea would be to cap the salaries from going beyond a certain point.
I agree on a lot of what you say and I would go as far as saying that a lot of the stuff you have pointed out has already been addressed over the years and we have rules in place either by the footballing bodies and legal system but unfortunately they are not consistently implemented.
1 final rule if I were king would be pass a law to say AFC every season get a 20 point head start on all teams.
Onwards and upwards
Off topic. we were on top of the table for 247 days and yet city are winning it with 14 days on top, Very bitter pill to swallow 😭 😂
I take a complete;y POLAR opposite take onrefs from the tedious post of HH.
. FAR FrOM TAKING REFS TO ACCOUNT , i WOULD BACK THEM ALWAYS AND 100%. To this end I WOULD NOT HAVE VAR at all in any shape or form, as it undermines the necessary final and sole decision of the match ref.
Like DAN, I would introduce massively Draconian deterrents for ref baiting, whether by players, or managers and coaches.
I would also ban proven diving by a mandatory six match Prem ban and an immediate red card, and the ban doubles if repeated. Then, if necessary, doubled again to 24 matches. THAT would stop it .
To see a pathetic and laughable yellow card for the MORAL CRIME of cheating the game and ones fellow professonal players is UNACCEPTABLE , HENCE MY MASSIVE DETERRENT CURE for this ill.
I will leave it there for now, for time reasons alone, but will have more to say on game improvements, in an article ere long.
REFS ARE TREATED DISGRACEFULLY AND BY MOST FANS TOO. Such hypocrisy for biased fans to falsely accuse refs of bias.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
My pet peev is footballers spitting and/or freely snorting scum out of their nostrils time and time again, especially after they have mess up their shots. They should receive a yellow card for that for unsportsmanlike conduct.
But then there,is no hope for doing something about that if there is nothing done about that at times of all kinds of respiratory infection problems.
Even more unbelievable is that nobody seems to have any problem with that as I have never heard anyone say a thing about it.