OK, we've all seen that old definition of association football - trouble is, these days, nobody is making an effort to force the hooligans to play like gentlemen. Here we are, freezing under a white blanket, with little prospect of games on Saturday, so, naturally, there is no real football to divert our attention from the refereeing saga, which rumbles on unchecked.
I was reflecting on the Scottish game's current travails with a former school friend - a one-time Scotland Under-15 internationalist, who failed to get beyond the junior ranks and turned to refereeing. He never made it to the heights of Grade One, but was a senior linesman for many years, before dropping down the ranks until in his mid-fifties, he was mainly officiating in Boys Club and Sunday Pub League games.
"I expected and got verbal abuse in the Pub League, but, you learn to live with that", he said.
"You can deal with that, what finally drove me to hang-up my whistle was the verbal abuse and dumb insolence I was getting from the players in Boys Club games. Again, you expect abuse from the coaches and players at that level, you let it wash off you, but when you get sworn at by a 12-year-old, who refuses to take a warning from you - well for me, that was it", he continued.
"The coaches and parents don't see anything wrong in a kid that age being cheeky to a referee - but, that's today's society, we've lost all respect for authority".
And that is football's main problem - nobody is prepared to draw the line and say: "thus far and no further".
On a broader front, it may be society's problem, but, even though rugby is now professional and the top players re on very big money, even the most-ridiculous of refereeing decisions is accepted without question by players and coaches.
Why should this be? Certainly most rugby players are middle class, most footballers working class. But it is surely not simply a class thing, after all there are some really nasty middle class yobs on the go in our major cities of a weekend, not to metion on the pay-roll of our banks.
I feel, it is because the men running rugby have paid due diligence to the ethos of the game. I've played club rugby, in the front five: the front two rows of the scrum, where no quarter is asked, none given and where, in my day, punches flew more-readily than today. But, always, once the referee had blown the final whistle and we were showered and in the bar, jugs of beer were exchanged between the teams, who inter-acted, sometimes outrageously and had a good time.
Football has never had this post-match camaraderie between players, which is its loss. Also, in the corridors of power in rugby, most of the unpaid officials - the clubs representatives who have the real power, not the paid administrators who do their bidding - are former players, which makes a difference.
Ian McLauchlan, the president of the SRU, is a former national captain, twice a British Lion. In his playing days arguably the best player in the world in his specialist position; the man who scored the crucial try in one of the great victories in world rugby, by the 1971 Lions in New Zealand.
George Peat, the president of the SFA, is best-known for running Airdrieonians out of the game, then popping-up at Stenhousemuir, to safeguard his own position in the SFA hierarchy. See the difference.
Of course all these caps and honours don't protect rugby from some huge mistakes - the mess which is the current scrummage and breakdown laws are testimony to this - but, the rugby guys genuinely care about the welfare of their game and its players. The "blazers" at the top level in football give the impression of being in it for what they can get out of the game.
If something isn't working in rugby, the IRB will have a look at it and tinker. They don't always get it right, but, they try. In football, there does not seem to be a desire to improve the game, either by bringing in new ideas or enforcing better conduct.
Until there is, the game will suffer more and more damage to its image and may even stagnate.
Is there nobody in Scottish football, far less FIFA, willing to start sorting-out a game which is in deep trouble?
No comments:
Post a Comment