I remember the real reason I hate soccer– the power issues

by on June 17, 2010 7
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As someone who will be glued to the TV for the next 3-1/2 weeks, and proudly knows very little about soccer, I remembered today what I hate most about the way the game is played. Yesterday South Africa was taken out of a match by a red card given to the goalie. Today a ref (is that what you call them?) gave a red card to Kaita, a leading player for Nigeria, in the 33rd minute or so, when Nigeria was up over Greece, 1-0. So much for the game. After that it was the worst game you'd ever seen in your life, Nigeria was down a man, and Greece controlled the ball and twice scored against a valiant goalkeeper. I'm serious, folks, the officials have way too much power. Kaita struck out in anger against a Greek player during a scuffle at the sideline. OK, he was bad. But the whole team penalized in the way that it was? This is crazy. Yesterday South African fans left their game early once their goalie had been sent off. You FIFA people are authoritarian.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss

{ 7 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. boulos says:
    June 17, 2010 at 12:25 pm

    Qaddafi agrees with you.

    link to bbc.co.uk

    (google translate can probably give you a decent rendition of this)

  2. AJM says:
    June 17, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    I think sending off’s should only occur when a player has either committed a professional foul- i.e. deliberately committing a foul to prevent the other side scoring- or has seriously, purposefully injured someone. The South African example should have been a penalty only. Many decisions are subjective, refs can have an almost impossible job, not helped by players that will quite happily dive- fake it. Englands first games ref has been branded a scoundrel and a cheat with no shame- in his own country, I thought he did a good job. link to guardian.co.uk

  3. David Samel says:
    June 17, 2010 at 2:18 pm

    I disagree. I’m not much of a soccer fan, but I’ve been watching when I can, and saw all of the plays you mention. Actually, it’s not that the officials have too much power. If anything, they have too little. Basically, these were game-changing calls that were made accurately according to the rules. The official was allowed no discretion once the fouls occurred as they did. If the ref had the discretion to impose a lesser penalty, he could have done so, but I think there was no discretion in these incidents. Kaita was foolish – he kicked a Greek player over nothing. Remember the last world cup final match was decided in large part over the ejection of France’s best player, Zhidane, for a head-butt of an Italian player who had insulted Z’s sister, or something like that. If only severe penalties were imposed automatically for flagrant violations of international law . . .

    Besides, penalizing the team by forcing it to play a man short when a player is ejected is in the best tradition of collective punishment!

    btw, I find the national anthems fascinating. Many teams line up with their arms around each other; some have their hands on their hearts instead. The mike gets close enough to hear individual players sing and most are awful. Did you catch the North Korean player bawling uncontrollably for his national anthem? And the Spanish anthem apparently has no words, so the fans sang “La la” along with the music. The best player I’ve seen has to be Messi from Argentina, who is from the same home town as the Hasbara Buster.

  4. Justice Please says:
    June 17, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    I also disagree with you, Phil.

    Can’t opine about the decision against South Africa, didn’t watch the scene which caused it.

    But I can about the scene with Nigeria. It’s a no-brainer. The player tried to attack his opponent when the game was paused, eg when there was no ball to reach or something. That’s an attack at another person without any connection to a game move. Why shouldn’t he be reprimanded? If I try to punch you in the face during a chess game, I should lose, shouldn’t I :-)

    Bottom line is, the referees should have this much power and red cards should be given because every player should always try to not hurt other players. And with not much body protection (opposed to say American football) and very much kinetic energy in the legs of the players, what’s wrong with that?

    • Justice Please says:
      June 17, 2010 at 4:32 pm

      If anything, the referees should have even more power, namely the possibility to pause the game and consult the TV images of certain scenes, if in doubt about wether any wrong-doing occured.

      Without that power, the players commit many fouls without the referee or his assistant noticing it.

  5. sam says:
    June 17, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    Cool…this has turned into a soccer blog :)) Woo hoo…

  6. alec says:
    June 19, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    The problem is the Greek who was the victim of the missed kick faked injury. He should have been red carded as well.