In particular, there was the ridiculous decision to send off Jack Rodwell for a ‘foul’ on Luis Suarez. This critic is one who is usually encouraging more red cards for dangerous fouls, but in Rodwell’s case, his challenge was neither dangerous nor a foul. Sometimes challenges are described as a 50-50, when it is an even race to the ball. If one players has a slight advantage, maybe it’s 60-40. Usually players are discouraged to go for a ball they have any less of a chance of getting than 40%.
In Rodwell’s case, it was pretty much a 90-10 in his favour, so far closer to the ball was he than Suarez. And in the 10% chance of the Uruguayan getting the ball, Rodwell went into the challenge in a controlled manner, using one foot, which if it missed the ball, had little chance of causing Suarez any real injury. This was not an out of control Ryan Shawcross launching into a stupid late tackle which breaks someone’s leg, nor Joey Barton going for a ball he has no chance of winning and potentially snapping someone’s leg in half.
There was one particularly good suggestion made on Radio five live though on Saturday, immediately shot down by one of the hosts. Foreign referees. Jason Roberts, the Blackburn striker, was against them. Why? For various stereotypical reasons, such as always blowing up for fouls, not letting the game flow etc. Apparently it’s what makes the English game great.
Aside from the astonishing stupidity of insinuating that Spanish football is not an entertaining spectacle because of excessive refereeing, the comment revealed one of the problems of the English game. It is the desire to see referees fail to apply the laws in their full meaning. Sometimes this is sensible; no one wants a referee who applies the laws with absolute literal meaning. There should be room for manoeuvre. But you don’t want referees who won’t apply the rules either. It is precisely because many referees do not punish players breaking the rules that we have problems in England.
Perhaps if we did have foreigners refereeing, who did blow up for every single foul, English football would improve, having to focus on passing and technique rather than over zealous tackling. It would also mean English players, who rarely travel overseas, are more used to international football, where you can’t get away with a traditionally ‘English’ style of play. Unless that is, as happened in 1966, the World Cup is refereed by officials who are lenient and allow the kind of blood and guts football we excel at, thus allowing more skilful opponents like Brazil in ’66 to be kicked out of the competition.
Roberts’ views are stone age in football terms. They go back to the debates that raged over 100 years ago between those who believed that foreigners did not have the ‘cojones’ for the game and who did not put in the same effort or commitment as English players. Such stereotypes have been gradually eroded over the years. First there were defeats to the more skilful, pass and move oriented Scots in the first half of the 20th century, before defeats to Austria before the war and then the similarly technically gifted Hungarians in 1953. Since then English football has had numerous similar embarrassments, with the blip of 1990 when an England team which actually contained technically gifted players like Paul Gascoigne, Chris Waddle and John Barnes reached the semi finals of the World Cup.
So if there is a reason to want foreign referees, it is Roberts’ disagreement with the idea. Ever since the game was created in England, its founders have remained committed to a now 130 year old vision of how the game is to be played. Without tactics or technique, but guts, blood and thunder. Gradually they have been eroded, but Roberts is evidence that they still exist, and indeed, dominate the media too much. And whatever their view of football, you can be sure that progressive football will only be achieved by doing the precise opposite of what they say.
