Regulating the World Cup
Regulating the World Cup
Nicolaus Mills: Regulating the World Cup
Nothing has been harder these days than getting the kind of regulation that will protect us from too-big-to-fail banks and the kind of offshore oil drilling that has proven such a catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
But if we want to get an indication of how the world?not just America?feels about regulation, all we need to do is look at what is happening at the World Cup soccer games in South Africa. No other game provides a better indication of the global state of mind, and in South Africa we see an aversion to regulation that has been disastrous.
Three games have already been affected by terrible referee decisions that could easily have been prevented or reversed. The first bad decision cost the United States a victory over Slovenia when the referee called a phantom penalty on the American midfielder, Maurice Edu. The second and third bad decisions occurred ten days later. In a game between England and Germany the referee failed to credit England with a goal on a shot by forward Frank Lampard that struck the crossbar and landed more than a foot behind the goal line, and in a game between Argentina and Mexico, Argentina was credited with a goal despite its forward Carlos Tévez being clearly offside on the goal.
In a sport in which goals are rare, these bad calls were particularly serious. England and Mexico, two underdog teams, were forced to play from behind and take more chances than they would have had the referees? calls not gone against them. In another game, the United States managed to right another bad call by beating Algeria 1-0.
No referee is going to be perfect, but if FIFA was willing to accept new regulations, bad calls could be overturned and minimized. Instant replay would allow referees to correct their mistakes, and even more importantly, having another referee on the field would help. Basketball has three officials to call fouls in a comparatively small space. Soccer has just one referee for a field one hundred yards long and sixty yards wide, which a good team can cover in just seconds with two long passes. It is hardly surprising that soccer officials, despite their excellent conditioning, are often in no position to make the right call.
But equally unsurprising in today?s business climate is FIFA?s resistance to change. With revenues of $3.2 billion from this World Cup series alone, the federation has little incentive to stop doing business as usual. As with the banks and the oil industry, it is going to take an outpouring of public protest to bring about reform. The real danger to soccer is no longer from its hooligans.
