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