If players commit fouls and are not caught during the game then they will be on ‘film’.

Like cricket let us not deny that human touch to the game so vital.

it improves character to accept bad decisions when they happen. It is like players playing badly.
They don’t mean it it just happens

As to ‘essential’, the World Cup’s been around a while and seen its share of crazy reffing decisions and reprehensible dives, yet people are miraculously still watching. It’d be fairer and saner to have video reffing, but since when do they have anything to do with sport?

It doesn’t usually take 5 minutes and it does provide (in Rugby Union where everyone sees the replays used) public confidence in the referees.

Also, surely it would eliminate diving in the box almost completely? Especially the egregious Rivaldo-style of diving.

Match review tribunal lready exists, though it failed to punish Danny Tiatto for nearly crippling Richie Alagich in round 2 — though it did suspend Robbie Middleby for stomping.

That said, video reffing is causing problems for the NRL as it undermines the confidence of the refs. I was watching the rugby today on the ABC and impressed with that the ref used his judgment and used it well in determining whether a couples tries had been scored. Then again he may not have had the luxury of a video but his decisions were sound.

The same tries in NRL would have caused a 5 minute stoppage as every frame would be scrutinized.

How about a match review committee to cite players are a game and have them face a tribunal?

Bearing in mind that video-reffing isn’t perfect either, and it’d have to be at the ref’s discretion a la League — you couldn’t do it for every tackle or injury, otherwise stoppage time would run into double figures.

The aesthetic/philosophical objection would be that it interferes with the flow of the game and the ‘ref is right even when he’s wrong’* spirit of the game, wherein you’re supposed to struggle on and win anyway regardless how many of your players are red-carded and win in the last second of stoppage time anyway. Which is bollocks really, as unlike other sports, referees can do serious damage with penalties and reds (cf. Markus Merk, Graeme Poll, Luis Medina Cantelejo).

*in the immortal words of Vinnie ‘Il Neurochiurgione’ Grella

As I understand, if you go down clutching your knee, writhing in agony because an opposition player tapped you on your shoulder, you have to be stretchered off the field and then stay off the field for a period of time.

Of the course the other player is yellow or red carded because the ref is blind.

Can’t football use video like other sports to have a look at the foul. If it is an obvious dive then that diver gets red carded and/or banned from a game or two?

And yes, Dida should have the book thrown at him, though knowing FIFA they’ll declare the game 3-0 to AC Milan and spin like kids on red cordial when asked about Dida.

My point is more that every professional sport has shonky practices and shitty bureaucracies, but when it come to soccer these are apparently enough to rule the game ‘a joke’ in the eyes of some Aussies (often overrepresented in the commercial media) — does AFL get that despite changing it’s rules every season to the infuriation of coaches and fans alike? Does League, despite the much higher risks of serious injury to players from shifty tackles?