GOM World Cup Diary #27 – Whatever Happened To The Laws?

There was a time when football was wonderfully simple.

The referee reached into his pocket, produced a yellow card or a red card, and that was that. You might not have agreed with the decision, you might have shouted at the television, and you might even have questioned whether the referee needed a visit to the opticians, but the game moved on.

Last night reminded me just how much things have changed.

There was controversy over a red card, discussions about whether the suspension should stand, plenty of debate, no shortage of opinions and enough analysis to keep every television pundit gainfully employed until the next World Cup.

In the end, after all the arguing, Belgium went out and won anyway.

Funny, isn’t it?

Sometimes we spend so long debating the rules that we forget to get on with the game.

It isn’t just football, either.

Everything nowadays seems open to negotiation.

School rules.

Parking tickets.

Return policies.

Neighbours arguing over fences.

Someone always wants a second opinion, a review, an appeal or a committee to decide whether the original decision was quite decisive enough.

I’m not saying referees always get it right. Goodness knows they don’t. Some of the decisions we’ve seen in this tournament have left me wondering whether the officials were watching the same match as the rest of us.

But there does come a point when life has to move on.

Football is at its best when it flows. Mistakes are part of the game. They’re frustrating, infuriating even, but they give us something to talk about in the pub afterwards. If every decision has to be examined from six different camera angles before anyone is allowed to celebrate, we’ve lost something along the way.

Perhaps that’s what makes football such a good reflection of modern life.

We’ve become so determined to make everything perfect that we’ve forgotten perfection is usually impossible.

Sometimes the referee gets it wrong.

Sometimes life gets it wrong.

And sometimes, despite all the debate, the best team still wins anyway.

As England prepare for Norway in the quarter-finals, I’m sure there’ll be more talking about decisions, tactics and predictions than the actual football.

Personally, I’d settle for ninety minutes where we spend more time watching the game than discussing the rulebook.

Now that really would be something.

Anyway, what do I know?

I’m just a grumpy old man.