Sport
Sport - Robert Winder sets out new rules for football
Published 08 July 2002
My rules for better football: no offside, best player to switch sides when his team is two goals up, and anyone who feigns serious injury to rest for 15 minutes
From the sofa, it seemed the best World Cup of recent years: child-friendly screening times, plenty of frantic upsets, lots of swaggering hubris laid low, glittering stadiums, a likeable winner, and not the remotest hint of crowd trouble. For England fans, it was a relief to watch an international tournament without fearing for some faraway town centre.
The performance of the game's top celebrities, however, did make one anxious for the tournament's future. Only Ronaldo shone. There's a danger here that the game's most pampered princelings will come to see the World Cup merely as a badly paid nuisance and opt out of future competitions. As they see it, they have more to lose than to gain: failure would seriously compromise the next £40m transfer fee, not to mention the exciting Nike contract. Glory is all very well, but it doesn't put Ferraris in the carport. Roy Keane would never have walked out on Man Utd on the eve of a Champions League tie, no matter how bumpy the practice pitch. Suddenly it seems possible that the World Cup will end up as a showcase not for the game's grandees, but for footballers keen to bust a lung, and to advance what we must now call their Korea.
It sounds unlikely, but look at tennis. The Davis Cup is routinely shunned by the zillionaires, who can't think of anything worse than risking injury against some third-world no-hoper for nothing more tangible than national pride. John McEnroe's new biography reveals the difficulty he had as captain of America's Davis Cup team in persuading top players to turn out. Connors, Sampras, Agassi, Chang - sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry (How much did you say we'd be paid? You cannot be serious!). McEnroe himself opted out several times because he would have had to sign a behaviour pledge, and some sacrifices are simply too big to contemplate.
Maybe we would be better off without the stars. Just as McEnroe's fame depended as much on his tantrums (was he a hoodlum from Queens, or just a spoilt rich kid?) as on his magical racquet play, so the celebrity footballers are steeped in bad-boy habits. One of the heroes of the World Cup (Rivaldo) was also one of its villains. As it happens, I have a collection of useful tips I have been meaning to bring to the attention of Fifa, recommendations I am sure will improve the conduct of top-flight football. They have come through stern trials in under-nine kickabouts out back. It is high time they were given an outing on the world stage. Here they are.
1. If anyone shouts that a throw-in or a corner kick is "mine!" or "ours!", or claims it in any other way, then it is automatically awarded to the other side.
2. Anyone who waves a pretend card at the referee, signalling that an opponent should be booked, will be obliged to go in goal for the rest of the game or, in bad cases, take the whistle and referee the damn game himself.
3. Anyone seen tugging the shirt of an opponent will be ordered to play the rest of the game with his hands in his pockets - Adidas/Nike/Umbro, etc, will be requested to add pocket-style "hand-bins" to their designs. The fourth official will see that this is observed with the help of a brand-new technology: PocketCam.
4. Anyone who feigns serious injury or seems to be in pain will be taken very seriously, and sent at once to the bathroom for a check-up and a lie-down. For his own good, he must rest for at least 15 minutes before resuming.
5. Anyone seeking surreptitiously to shrink the goal by moving the relevant jumper will be obliged to expand the goal by the same amount. That'll teach you.
6. In the event of a team establishing a two-goal lead, the best player will switch sides, to even things up.
7. A player who selfishly shoots when he might have passed to a better-positioned team-mate will not be allowed to take corners or free kicks ever again.
8. Anyone diving in an attempt to win a penalty will be asked to repeat the manoeuvre, in slow motion. The spot kick will be given if, in the view of the judges, the dive meets the demanding standards of international choreography. Failure means a penalty will be awarded at the other end.
9. Swearing at the ref - definite penalty!
10. No offside. This increases the space on the pitch, promotes skilful play and restores one of the great playground football archetypes - the goalhanger - to his proper place on the game's roll of honour. In World Cup games, play would continue until a goal is scored, but all goals would be checked by television replay, and disallowed if they were influenced by players in an offside position. It wouldn't take more than a few seconds to rule whether the goal should stand or not. The tension would be unbearable. And it would be both transparent and fair.
On second thoughts, that's a terrible idea. Transparent and fair. Are we talking about football, or what?
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