Instant Replay in SoccerThis is a featured page

Alexander Cobb WR 135 11/03/10 Instant Replay in Soccer With his team down 2-1 to Germany in the knock out round of the World Cup, England’s captain Stephen Gerard collects the ball about 30 yards out from goal and cracks a shot. As soon as the game ends sports journalists around the globe are in an uproar and proclaim that this is the day FIFA finally accepts instant replay. Stephen Gerard’s shot had hit the crossbar, bounced over the goal line and then back out of goal. The referee did not see the ball cross the plain of the goal and ordered for play to continue (Travis). Instead of the shot equalizing the game, and maybe completely changing the later events of the world cup, England ended up getting knocked out once again to their archrivals Germany. The Sport of soccer has remained practically unchanged for the past 200 years, but with such critical blown calls altering the outcome of soccer on its highest stage, it is time for the “beautiful game” to adopt modern technology. Whether you call the sport soccer or futbol, the game is arguably the most traditional and simplest in terms of rules. Unlike many other thriving modern day sports such as basketball and football, soccer has stayed relatively unchanged in its 200 years of existence, with the exception of the offside rule implemented in the 1940s. Basketball originally had only 13 rules, but that soon changed and today there are more than 100 rules in the NBA’s official rule book (King). The NFL consists of over a couple hundred, whereas soccer only consists of 17 main rules (King). One of the main reasons people are drawn to soccer is because of its simple beauty and the fact that there is constant action considering there are no timeouts or stoppages, the clock is always running. One of the first oppositions to implementing instant replay in professional soccer worldwide is the fact it would have to slow the game down to some extent. Fans of the sport don’t want to have their games stopped and time wasted by review. The first weekend that college football started using instant replay was in 2004, and games that had used it were an average 25 minutes longer (Gregoriancant). Not only did replays add times to the game and stoppages, but many argued that the long pauses in play ruined team’s momentum. Although adding some form of replay would slow down the game to some extent, it would only take a matter of seconds to count a goal, or take a goal back (Travis). Hockey, much like soccer, is a very fast paced game, and if they used a replay system such as the ones used in the NBA and NFL where an official has to watch video evidence over and over again to make a call on a play, than the sport would drastically be slowed down and completely changed (Shatzer). However in 2002, the National Hockey League started using a system where sirens on top of the goal would go off if the hockey puck went into the goal (Wilson). This innovative system could easily be adapted and adopted to fit soccer around the world, and would completely eliminate controversial goal scoring plays. On November 19, 2009 the Republic of Ireland played a playoff match against France to see who would qualify for the last spot for the Fifa World Cup in South Africa. The game was tied up in regular time and went into extra time. With both nations’ dreams on the line, French legend Thierry Henry committed a handball and assisted his teammate for the crucial goal. Right as the ball went into the net the whole Irish team ran over to ref in shock that he had not called a blatant handball (Buskirk). Once again a critical call had ruined the dreams of a World Cup bound squad. The missed call was such a blow to the nation of Ireland that it’s Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, even requested Fifa to replay the match. Months after the match, Thierry Henry announced that he believed that instant reply is a must in determining important plays and goals; even if it had helped his team qualify. Arguably the most infamous play in soccer history is “The Hand of God” In the 1986 World Cup quarter finals Diego Maradonna scored the game winning goal using his fist to propel Argentina over England. Argentina would go on to win the world cup finals, and to this day pubs across England argue that their team should have been awarded the World Cup trophy (Buskirk). The match took place 4 years after the Falklands War between the two nations and many dispute that the referring had been influenced by previous events in history (Buskirk). Sadly, soccer has been blemished by corruption. In the late 1990s a huge scandal was discovered in the Italian soccer league, ending with three teams being de promoted from the top flight of play. Referees had been paid by large betting firms and even the mafia to keep certain games close, or to influence the game in some way to allow a specific team to win. Instant replay wouldn’t necessarily get rid of all the corruption, but it would at least help keep tabs on referees, and balance out judgment calls so that the referees wouldn’t have complete authority. The past events also bring up another important factor to the use of instant replay, and that is what can and can’t be reviewed. Most typically, the controversial and game changing plays in soccer include handballs, and offsides. In order to maintain the simplistic identity of the sport, it would be hard for all of these plays to be reviewed (Shatzer). The NFL is in its 11th season using instant replay, and every year rules change on what can and can’t be reviewed. Each season it seems like calls are getting better and better, but it is far from perfect, and it might take eleven more years for the system to finally be perfected, but they are making groundbreaking steps in the use of technology in sports. Being an avid soccer player for the past 12 years of my life, I can say that at first glance I hated the idea of instant replay. Soccer is a fast paced sport that keeps you on your heels, and after watching the NFL constantly wasting time when a coach orders for a play to be reviewed, I said, “No way in hell should such a passionate sport be modernized and ruined!” Yet, with all the ruckus stirred up during the World Cup this past summer and previous accounts of misinterpreted plays, it’s finally time to at least start implementing some form of instant replay to the world’s beautiful game. It might not be perfect from the get go, and there will always be confusion and arguments over what can and can’t be reviewed, but like most sports today that use technology to review plays, you have to make that risk taking step in order to better enhance the game for the future.


No user avatar
alexandermcobb 		Latest page update: made by alexandermcobb , Dec 1 2010, 3:34 PM EST (about this update About This Update alexandermcobb Edited by alexandermcobb

1190 words added

view changes
- complete history)
Keyword tags: soccer instant replay
More Info: links to this page

Threads for this page

There are no threads for this page.  Be the first to start a new thread.