It is Fédération Internationale de Football Association - from http://www.fifa.com, but French is not my strong point… 
Gp
Flymaster, your interpretation is correct.
Hemlock: in theory, players are not allowed to grab someone by the shirt. Sometimes, it can go unnoticed, though. Hence the exagerated tumbles London_Calling is referring to. Note that an exagerated tumble does not necessarily constitute complete Rivaldo style theatrics - there’s a line somewhere. A really tough one to call, at times.
No. Once yer off, yer off.
Its like hockey. Corners are chances for Attacking teams to run set pieces that they have practised. Very often, you will see the person taking the corner holding his hand up, or both hands up. This is a signal for what type of set piece to run. It dosent happen often, as most teams will abandon set peices if desparate for a goal, and concentrate on packing the danger area with players with the hope of someone getting a head to the cross, or a mistake by a defender.
First I have heard of it.
FIFA are allegedly cracking down on it, and several players have been booked for it in this world cup. The problem stems from the referee’s proximity to the tackle. They may not be close enough to see how accurate the tackle was, or wether it was a foul, but the player over emphasised it fall. A lot of Referee’s are wary of wrongfully booking a player.
It’s good to see FIFA making use of Television evidence to penalise players after the evidence, but it sure aint going to be much of a deterrent down the sunday leagues.
This can be one of 2 things.
- To waste time
- To create time. Every substitution adds 30 seconds onto injury time at the end. And In Irelands case, those 30 seconds were very, very important indeed
Because FIFA are a bunch of Slack Jawed Troglodytes who are scared of breaking “the flow” of the game. But it will aide refereeing decisions.
six of one, half a dozen of the other.
As LC said, its all maths. Group qualifiers often end up like this.
Currently:
Germany 4pts GD +8
Cameroon 4pts GD +1
Ireland 2pts GD 0
Saudi Arabia 0pts GD-9
If Ireland win 2-0 they go to 5pts with a GD of +2. This means that if the Germany v Cameroon match is a draw then they both go to 5pts but Cameroon will only have a GD of +1. If either of them win, then this will leave one of them on 4pts and Ireland would only need to win…1-0 would do.
Firstly - referees were actually told to clamp down on shirt-pulling at the last world cup. They gave out quite a few yellow cards as a result. I think shirt-pulling has decreased since - either way it is not permissible, though many try it.
On the gloves thing: if this is true I suspect it is for the same reason that goalkeepers are required to wear long-sleeved shirts. In a melée in the goal area, a hand touching the ball can only be clearly identified as the 'keeper’s if it has some distinguishing feature. Gloves would certainly make the referee’s life easier in this regard.
Reasons for the offside rule: this is a tricky one. Referees in USA 94 were actually told to give strikers the benefit of the doubt - whether they did this or not is a matter of opinion. Certainly, though, the rule in itself encourages attractive play, since one cannot simply HOOF the ball up the pitch to a crowd of 6 foot 6 players - one must be a little more subtle (note: not always all that much more subtle, mind you).
Note that the offside rule does not discourage breakaways per se. The player who actually has the ball can never be offside whilst he has it. Also, you cannot be offside if the ball is passed backwards. This means that a player can outpace defenders down the wing, then cross the ball backwards to any number of strikers who have similarly managed to outpace their defenders. A goal like this in theory may be ultimately scored with all 11 members of the attacking team being in front of all 11 members of the defending team.
The offside rule also encourages teams to push up, since they know any striker left behind them cannot be passed to.
It does, however, lead to the offside trap, where play is broken up by the cynical employ by the defending side of a technique by which all defenders move forward at the last moment, leaving a striker offside and disrupting play. Clever, but not pretty. Offside also is sometimes called when the player was actually onside, thus erroneously preventing attractive and legal goals - the “benefit of the doubt” was supposed to avoid this but it seems to have been lost again.
But the biggest point of offside as far as I can see is to give a fan just a second’s hope after the opposition has put the ball in the net. The condemned man’s reprieve, so to speak. And heaven know’s we all need that little hope sometimes.
pan
Am I the only one thinking of *The Fast Show * when trying to explain the Offside rule? 
In field hockey (which I (used to) play at national level) the offside rule was the same as in football up until about 6 years ago, when it was then abolished.
For the first 10-12 matches there was a lot of goal-hanging and ‘mooching’ as we call it by players, but teams soon learned that you were basically wasting a player who could be useful elsewhere in the game. So the play finally settled back to structured arrangements and flowed better than before. A lot less free hits and whislte blowing, and more goals. It made the game freeer and more exciting to watch, albeit tougher to play.
Can’t see the same change in football, but it might be interesting.
Ah yes - technical assistance for referees. As far as I understand the problems are as follows:
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They are worried it will undermine the referee’s Ultimate Authoritaye
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They want the game to be the same all the way down to grass roots.
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Decisions normally have to be made split-second whilst the game is in progress. They cannot be made retrospectively. The referee needs both the confidence and willingness to do this - both may be undermined by replays.
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Just what events do we have replays for? Offside decisions? Every time anyone claims a foul or handball? When the ball is kicked out of play? You think timewasting is bad now, wait until you see what cynical players can do with this.
Sure there are others too, but those would seem to be the main four.
pan
Field hockey is different for the rather simple reason that one doesn’t tend to head the ball much! It is therefore that much harder to bypass the midfield.
In football, many players are more than capable of kicking it the length of the pitch and having big forwards get their heads on it.
pan
Also, you’re not offside if you’re not involved in play - so if Bill passes to Jim on the left wing, who’s behind the line of the last defender (onside) while Bob is piddling about on the right wing, a yard ahead of the line of the last defender with no one marking him… Bob is not offside, because he had nothing to do with the play. Whether a player in an offside position is interfering with play is often open to interpretation.
Note to officials:
Level is ONSIDE.
It’s WHEN THE BALL IS PLAYED, not when it’s recieved. Pay attention to where the chaps are when the ball is played, damn you all.
Video replays would be very beneficial.
Yep, but at a decent level in hockey this is easily done too with an aerial ball from the defense. Okay, you don’t knock the ball on with your head, but you can certainly bypass the midfield.
But I agree football would be (fundamentally) changed more than hockey was with the abolition of the offside rule.
I think goalkeepers have to wear gloves for the same reason they have to wear long-sleeved shirts. It is to assist the referee in determining whether a handball offence has been committed when a group of players go up for the ball in the penalty area. The goalkeeper’s hands are easily distinguishable from the outfield players’.
FIFA’s title refers to its status as a coming together of individual national governing bodies. It’s the international federation of football associations (the english FA, the irish FA etc). The title isn’t intended to refer to association football.
There are major difficulties involved in introducing a video referee. Apart from the fact that it could only be applied in the upper echelons of the game and drive a symbolic wedge between the elite and the grassroots, it would interrupt the flow of the game significantly. It would be necessary to define in which circumstances the video referee comes into play. In rugby it only applies where the referee is not certain whether a try has been scored. What about football - penalty appeals only? did the ball cross the line? sendings off? yellow cards? ordinary fouls? handballs? corners? throws? To a greater or lesser extent, these all can have an impact on the game but to include them all within the video ref’s ambit could slow the game to a crawl. Initiatives such as the back pass rule have made the game much more attractive and the video ref. might be a backward step. Maybe I’m too much of a traditionalist but I think it’s a slippery slope.
young boys in the park…jumpers for goalposts…dad with his video camera. No thanks!
I started that post a while ago and went off to do something else. If I’d previewed, I would have seen that many of the points had been made already. Apologies.
As kids in the park, playing with jumpers as posts, we made up our own version of football, choosing and disgarding rules. No offside (too complicated to referee), person closest to the play made the refereeing calls, ‘Over’ was anything above the reach of the 'keeper at the time, hitting the jumper was wide. etc…
I think there will always be a difference between top level and grass roots football. Even having a referee is a big step up.
Sorry if this is degenetating into IMHO discussions.
Oh wait. I’m not sorry.
I thought this thread started in ‘general questions’
Are you sure about this? I’ve seen Jorge Campos (Mexico) play in short sleeves, I’m sure. It would certainly make rules about gloves more important, I suppose.
Well, short sleeves were certainly allowed in the 1998 world cup, as evidenced by Fabien Barthez of France. I didn’t hear about a rule change, personally.
there was no rule on sleeve lenght for keepers. the only reason they were kepy long was one of convenience on keepers arms. from the early 80’s onwards padding was put in keepers jersy’s to protect the shoulders and elbows.
It was a case of “it aint broke, so dont fix it.”
I was wondering if instead of video, it has been considered to have two on field refs. I know that the side-line refs (or whatever they’re called) can be consulted, but it seems to me that one more on the field would make for better calls.
Like in hockey? One per half. It’s a better idea than TV, just not too good if they both disagree on a call.
How about this idea? Keep the offside rule but only when the attacking side is not yet across midfield. Once an attacker touches the ball past midfield, offsides would not be called.
I thought about this when I saw Argentina called for offsides in the 91st minute when most of the players were already bunched near England’s goal.