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On the local park some leagues will have adopted the new FA League Rules this season, which govern the running of our local leagues. All leagues must adopt the new rules by next season. One change that affects referees is the signing of players on the day of the match. Check out your handbooks on this one. If the new rules have been adopted referees do not get involved in the signing on of new players. The procedure will be that the new player signs the form in ink which is countersigned by an officer of his club and witnessed by the team manager or captain of the opposing club. One less job for the hard-pressed referee!
Dreaming of Fair Play
Football is a great game but unfortunately it appears to no longer be a game! It's a serious living to many and as such cannot be classed as a game or, alas, a sport. These many I speak of are those at the top of the food chain and many thousand would bees struggling to get into that particular nest.
I'm in my fifties and have played since I was a child. In those days when I started there were no substitutes allowed. I can vividly remember being taken off by my team manager part way into the first half of a match for pulling an opponent back by his shirt. I got a real dressing down about cheating and the team had to play with only 10 boys because of my behaviour.
The message we were taught was that we had to try our very best to win, but at all times any form of cheating was strictly outlawed. We would never appeal for a throw-in or a corner knowing that it wasn't ours. We did get stuck in and, indeed, the game was more physical than it is today. You can be hard, and try your best to beat an opponent, without resorting to cheating.
The problem is, as I see it, that to days managers were taught to cheat and firmly believe that that is the correct way to go about the business. Anything that can give you an edge is fine. I now think that a team that doesn't cheat can't be successful at the top levels of the business. Commentators are clearly of the opinion that cheating is the right way to do things - after all most of them came from the sullied ranks of the professional football business and were taught to cheat.
The I.F.A. are aware of the problem, but I am not sure that they can see it clearly, or if they do they have failed to display the courage to clean up the mess. Referees have all the power they need to cut out cheating. Certainly if they applied the law correctly it would ruin games as a spectacle in the short term and have all the commentators screaming about just how ******* stupid the referees had become.
Unfortunately refereeing is a fragmented business and there is no single voice that can guarantee all referees, at all levels, would follow a single agreed code. This is a fact, not an opinion. If you want proof of this read up the Laws of Association Football and then watch our top referees in action. They apply the laws very selectively according to the latest directive of refereeing guru of their particular league - if they do not obey they won't succeed and may well be dropped from the list.
The only way that cheating can be cut from the game is for the IFA to lay down the law strictly and then direct all county FAs to remove from their lists any referee that fails to act against the cheats. Referees should not be on league lists under the control of the leagues but should be on FA lists only. The county FA would look after junior and intermediate football and then recommend referees to the FA list for Senior, Premiership and Football League duty. In this way we could re-impose the standards of behaviour that we were once renowned for.
Call me a dreamer if you like, but I know that football would be much more enjoyable for all concerned if we could succeed in cutting out cheating - it would also be faster and more exciting.
John Brown
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