Nick Bendel
Fair play is the best guarantee of fair play
September 16th 2008 07:24
If Sydney FC coach John Kosmina isn’t choking players, he’s putting his foot in his mouth with alarming regularity.
His latest non sequitur came on Saturday night, after watching his side draw 0-0 away to Newcastle. Commenting on the dismissal of Mitchell Prentice- who received his second yellow card just 17 minutes after coming off the bench- the typically passionate Kosmina opted not for anger, but tenderness.
“I felt sorry for Mitch, because he’s been through a tough time in the past 12 months,” he began, as if Prentice’s conviction for assault somehow merited sympathy. For the first card, “Adam Griffiths made a bit more” of the foul than warranted, while the second yellow was “naïve”, and may never have even been given had it not been “suggested…by the Newcastle blokes.”
In fact, the second yellow card was given for a reckless two-footed lunge, of the sort that FIFA has spent years trying to eradicate from the game. Yet while insisting that “there was no malice whatsoever” in his midfielder's tackle, Kosmina would apparently not have been too perturbed if there had been.
“You’ve got to have a bit of fire in the belly to play professional sport. Let’s be honest, sport has taken the place of tribal warfare in the development of society in the past 5000 years or so. So there’s always going to be a little bit of indiscriminate violence, I suppose”.
According to Sydney FC’s amateur anthropologist, the Prentice incident was proof that the A-League’s officiating is in need of review. “I think sometimes maybe the referees have to look at the intention side of things,” he reasoned. “I’ve just seen the list and everyone got booked for unsporting behaviour. Does that mean trying to tackle is now unsporting in the game? I don’t know, I’m confused. I don’t really know what the rules are anymore.”
In fact, the rules are simple: don’t tackle with two feet- and, while you’re at it, take care not to tackle from behind, or to talk back to the referee. This was all obvious, but just to clear up any confusion, the A-League announced prior to the start of the season that it would be taking a harder line on misbehaviour. The aim was to reduce dangerous challenges and disrespectful conduct.
This was a worthy initiative, and one that should have been introduced a long time earlier. Scything down an opponent is often a cynical act, designed to break up the very play that the fans have come to see, and which has the potential to severely disrupt- and even terminate- somebody’s career. Nobody benefits if such “indiscriminate violence” is condoned: not the players, not the fans, and not the administrators who try to convince parents that football is a safe and fun sport for their children to play. Prentice had been warned, and got what he deserved.
The other thing that should never be condoned is the astonishing level of disrespect that has been allowed to enter the game in the last decade, or so. When a referee whistles for a foul, it is common for him to receive abuse in return. When a linesman flags for offside, it is common for the offending striker to demonstratively wag his finger, shake his head, and/or verbally express his disagreement. And when an official has the temerity to award a penalty, it is common for the defending side to not merely shower him with abuse, finger wagging, head shaking and verbal disagreement, but also to aggressively jostle him. Besides being distasteful in its own right, such misbehaviour is intolerable for the negative message that it sends to parents, and the appalling example it provides to their children.
One of FIFA’s best reforms came in 1992, with the introduction of the back-pass rule. It enlivened the game, by outlawing the negative tactic of defenders returning the ball to their goalkeeper’s safe hands. If the A-League wants to boost the profile of the sport in Australia- which one can only assume, given the fierce competition faced from the AFL, NRL and rugby union- it should not simply continue with this disciplinary crackdown, but heighten it. Once the players have been made to realise that ugly football will no longer be accepted, the incidence of crude tackling and shameful disrespect will decline, and the competition will be enlivened as a result.
In the 16 matches that have been played thus far, four red cards and 78 yellows have been awarded. If ugly football is to wane, those figures will need to increase before they can decrease. Some simple, commonsense rules should therefore be introduced: two-footed tackling, tackling from behind, abuse of officials and touching of referees should result in a mandatory card (with the colour to be determined by the severity of the offence). Notwithstanding the occasional tackle from behind, all of those acts are deliberate; they are also inexcusable, and should be shown to be so.
Initially, the Mitchell Prentices will continue to sin, and the John Kosminas will continue to defend them. Sooner or later, however, the players will learn that if they want to remain on the field, the old standards can no longer be observed, while the coaches will conclude that if they want to stop losing games and keep their jobs, their charges must be made to heed the new regulations. Any transition would likely be a protracted and contentious process, but if the A-League had the courage of its convictions, it would inevitably succeed. The result would be a more attractive spectacle, one that players, fans, administrators, parents, children- and even Kossie- could all take pleasure in.
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