WEEKLY WHINE

A five point action plan

Should there be more officials in football?

There may be those who claim that referees are like Tom Servo: they should be limited to one, or fewer. But in fact football matches would be very different without referees. For one thing, players who dive would look even more ridiculous than they already do.

But in recent experiments, the number of officials has increased from four to six. Is that too many? Or is it still not enough? Even futsal, which has less than half as many players and less than a sixth of the pitch area, has 75% as many referees as eleven player football. And American football, which has the same number of players and about half the pitch area, has 75% more officials, including a head linesman and the guy across from him, who, unfortunately, is not referred to as the foot linesman, though there’s still time to change that.

But football has always been responsive to the fans’ whims. In most countries, that’s primarily because the fans boycott, start fights, start riots, or set Vespas on fire if they don’t get their way. And in the US and Canada, fans get their way without even doing any of these things. If they’re fans of DC United or Toronto FC, of course.

The plans that are being trialled in various matches, including UEFA Under-19 Championship qualifiers, add two officials who are either in each area or behind each goal line. These officials would be well placed to judge whether the ball entered the goal and whether a foul was committed in the area.

Is this plan the solution to all that ails football? Or is it a red herring?

Correct answer: B, red herring.

What’s wrong with football cannot be solved with additional officials or with slow motion video cameras. What’s wrong with football must be solved with the following five point action plan, developed over the last fifteen minutes by the GoobNet Special Projects Enhancement and Enforcement Division [SPEED]:

1. A universal spectators’ code of conduct that applies at all domestic and international football matches throughout the world, covering such topics as:
   • Respect for all involved, including players, officials, the other team’s supporters, and neutral spectators
   • The right to use strong language
   • The responsibility to not use racist, sexist, homophobic, or other forms of language that construe personal attacks not relating to the person’s job duties [acceptable to claim that the referee is blind, not acceptable to claim that the referee is the offspring of a lady of the evening]
2. Formation of investigative bodies to investigate all relevant facts and to make decisions in the following areas:
   • Whether flares, smoke bombs, rockets, and other pyrotechnic or explosive devices should be used in the stands, and if so, under what circumstances
   • Whether alcoholic drinks should be served to spectators at matches, and if so, under what circumstances
   • Whether ridiculously expensive concessions and souvenirs should be sold at matches, and if so, under what circumstances
   • Whether invading the pitch is fun or a nuisance, and under what circumstances the answer can change
3. A comprehensive plan to reduce ticket prices by adding more football clubs in each country, thereby increasing the supply of football matches which, in conditions of constant demand, will lead to a drop in prices [this process is well under way in England, but significant drops in ticket prices are not expected until the Football League has a League Fourteen]
4. A moratorium on selling the following to sponsors:
   • Uniform space
   • Stadium names
   • Team names
   • League names
   • Competition names
   • Trophy names
   • Award names
5. A weekly blooper reel to be aired on the video screen during halftime of every football match played at a stadium so equipped, to be titled “World’s Most Egregious Dives”, with appropriate cartoon sound effects of crashing, clattering, tires squealing, boinging, and the like

International football community, when all these measures are put in place, come back and we’ll talk about adding a couple of officials. Okay?