Soccer Central

Watching the English Premier League highlights on BBC’s Match of the Day programme has brought up an interesting issue for me this evening; Is the English football game getting too soft? In a match between West Bromwich Albion and Blackburn Rovers; a penalty was given for shirt pulling, and a player was also sent off for a second booking. Now, strictly following the laws of the game; yes I believe that both of these decisions were correct, nine times out of ten however neither decision would have been given.

A ‘respect’ policy has been brought into English football this season leading to increased strictness from referees and heightened control of what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour within a football game. The referee for this game between West Brom and Blackburn was Mike Jones; taking on the referee role in the game for only the third time in the Premier League. He’ll be being kept closely monitored at current and is therefore showing stricter action than most, what’s worrying about this however is that Mike Jones is only performing the role as strictly as referees are intended to be in football. What is being asked of referees at current is to stop the game for every slight offence which will ultimately lead to an incredibly disjointed and patchy game of football.

Football is all about flow, playing passionate passing football and building goals of spectacular standard. If every foul is picked up and punished however then this is going to severely stop the flow of the game and English football will no longer be a fine flowing, entertaining game to watch. If English football becomes too soft a sport then it’ll lose its appeal, it’s good to see a bit of roughness in a game; it’s what you expect from players that are so passionate about their sport, obviously there are some things that just aren’t acceptable, but breaking up the flow of the game for every slightest infringement just isn’t in the best interest of the sport.

I feel that the English game is in serious danger of becoming too soft, that the rules will soon prohibit teams from playing flowing football and that if this line continues to be taken then the sport could end up being ruined. Football has long been my favourite sport, I love to watch the game at all levels and look forward to many more happy years of doing so too. I’d hate to see my favourite sport spoilt, to see the game become so cautious that all are too afraid to make any serious committed challenges. There’s nothing wrong with seeing a good, hard, strong challenge from time to time; it’s when players pull out of such tackles that injuries are caused, if players are encouraged to play with no passion however then this is something that could potentially remove the life from the sport and kill off the beautiful game that is football.

Football is a game of passion, drive, determination and courage; asking for the game to be played with greater caution is effectively asking the game to be played with a decreased level of passion. Passion is what makes the sport work so well, and passion is what has driven many of the world’s biggest name stars to greatness; I do feel that the sport is in danger of being killed off if greater caution is continually encouraged, hopefully it won’t come to that however and the sport will continue to thrive and be appreciated by plenty for many more years to come.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS