Should Video Replay Be Used For Penalty Decisions In Football?
October 9th, 2008
In recent times referees in the English Premier League (EPL) have made poor decisions on awarding a penalty kick that maybe should not have been called. It’s obvious that one goal/penalty (if taken correctly) will affect the outcome of a game. We have seen over and over the theatrics involved in the penalty area by players screaming, rolling over in agony or trying to attract the attention of a director so they can one day get the Oscar for that special dive. Wouldn’t a simple video replay during the game cut out all of this nonsense?
Let me give you of an example of this, the game between Manchester United and Bolton that was played last month involved a decision even the referee had to apologize for after the game. The ‘master’ of this art called “diving “ was involved again in a wonderful dive. I believe most of you will know who this master is, Cristiano Ronaldo. The play took place in the second half of the match and Jlloyd Samuel the defender for Bolton played the ball away from Ronaldo’s foot but because the referee Rob Styles had a fly in his eye he awarded a penalty that made me and other honest fans look on with disbelief. Does a bad decision warrant a video replay? I don’t think taking 15 –30 seconds to review a video would be that detrimental to this wonderful game.
Here is another example of when another video replay could have been used this year in the EPL. A game played last month involved Wigan and Manchester City but this time not the referee the manager Steve Bruce admitted his player Wilson Palacios deserved that wonderful award called the Oscar. Palacios decision could have gone either way, however, after looking at the replay you could clearly see Palacios dove like an Olympic swimmer did this past summer. He definitely earned the gold for that dive. Again, a simple video replay would have overturned that decision.
Some people may argue that this takes time away from the game or some may argue that if it’s never been used before why now? Well I don’t think a few seconds a game will take much away since it takes that long for the player that was fouled to get up after he was rolling around the floor for that long. Also, for those wondering why it was never used before all you have to do is take a look at how fast these professional divers are developing.
PTM