Colonel Mustard
Well-known member
- Jun 18, 2023
- 2,240
I'm strongly in favour. Yes, there may be semantics about the word "surrounding", but I think the more important phrase in the new rules is "confrontational manner". If 2 or 3 players approach the ref in a calm way I doubt that would be penalised. But if they are screaming their heads off at the ref, punish them. Even if it means a spate of yellows and even reds, if the refs hold firm and actually do this for the first few weekends I've no doubt that the players would get the message. It's a culture that has to be confronted and defeated. Young kids need to understand that it's not acceptable.
As for particularly annoying things, for me it's players not retreating at free kicks. We see it all the time -- a player is fouled. He jumps up to take it quickly to continue the momentum, but the fouler stands there in front of the ball until his teammates get back into position. It's very clear gamesmanship (the polite word for cheating).
The other thing we all hate is time wasting, especially towards the end of a game. I've read that this season, refs will adopt a World Cup-style approach and allow additional time to compensate for extended goal celebrations and too much time taken for free kicks, corners etc. So it looks like double-figure additional time. Again, I'm happy with that. I read the other day that the average actual ball-in-play duration of a match last season was 54 minutes! Thats not far off half the 90. It's got way out of hand and needs addressing.
As for particularly annoying things, for me it's players not retreating at free kicks. We see it all the time -- a player is fouled. He jumps up to take it quickly to continue the momentum, but the fouler stands there in front of the ball until his teammates get back into position. It's very clear gamesmanship (the polite word for cheating).
The other thing we all hate is time wasting, especially towards the end of a game. I've read that this season, refs will adopt a World Cup-style approach and allow additional time to compensate for extended goal celebrations and too much time taken for free kicks, corners etc. So it looks like double-figure additional time. Again, I'm happy with that. I read the other day that the average actual ball-in-play duration of a match last season was 54 minutes! Thats not far off half the 90. It's got way out of hand and needs addressing.