Idea to Improve Football

[AZOffaly]

That was before the balance tipped so, back in my day basically. You had to be mugged or sexually assaulted to get a free, and you were told to get up and get on with it in either case. Then someone decided players needed 'protection' and all of a sudden Swan Lake broke out around the country.

Now people have forgotten how to hit a fair belt, and take a fair hit, and we have these feiles of Arse Boxing everytime somebody accidentally runs into someone else.

[Denn Forever]

Some sort f sanction on those player who fouls the ball and then curl up in a ball not allowing the free to be taken. 

Usually resulting in 3 or 4 of the opposition trying to dispossess the player ande it begins to look like a playground game of football.

[ardchieftain]

Get rid of frees. Just play on. Count the bodies after.

Now we're talking

[Celt_Man]

and what is wrong with Football that we need to improve it??

[Premier Emperor]

Make the ball harder and shrink it to about tennis ball size.
Make the players used this to strike it with...

[Ard-Rí]

I like the players to be the focus of a game, not the referee.

[ck]

A few points to consider;

- No more than 10 players should be allowed in your own half at any one time. If 11+ drop then a 45 is awarded.
- No more than 2 handpasses allowed at any one time before a kick
- Define the tackle to include no double tackling

[rrhf]

If only hawk eye could hear. There'd be less oul racialist guff.

[tbrick18]

As far as I know it's already meant to be a yellow card for 3rd man (off the ball) tackles. Its definately a free anyway, but there's something in my head that it was brought in a while back that it should be a yellow.

Personally I have no problem with the "blanket" style of defence, nor do I have a problem with teams hand passing up the pitch....I think there's no reason why a team should have to use all the permitted skills of the game during the match as opposed to concentrating on hand passes or foot passes or tackling back for that matter. I dont think we should change the fundamental rules of the game as some quarters don't like the tactics used by some teams.

I have two problems with the modern game, the first one is cynical fouling. Teams who play the blanket defence invariably attack in waves leaving their own half of the field. Then they foul the man when they lose possession in the opposition half to give themselves time to get back again. This is the part I believe makes the game ugly and stop start. We're never going to get teams to stop doing it so they only way I see around it is re-introducing the sin bin. If you commit 2 fouls its mandatory yellow and in the bin for 10 mins. Also a yellow card in any circumstances should be a sin bin offence. For me this would soon put the dampeners on the cynical part of the game. The rules of the game remain the same, it just changes the sanctions for persistent fouling.
However, this leads me to my second problem....referees.

The standard of Referees at the minute is dire to say the least. Most seem to be on power trips and like the attention to be on themselves. They are inconsistent in their decisions and as someone has already pointed out, it's near impossible to tackle at all or make any type of physical contact without being blown up. It seems to me in their attempt to stamp out cynical fouling, they just blow everything as a foul so a shoulder challenge 9 times out of 10 is a free. It's sickening to be honest.
I've been at a number of games this year where the match has been ruined by the referee making downright stupid decisions. I cant understand why in hurling physical challenges are permitted but not in football. This for me is the single biggest problem in our game at the minute, not the blanket defence or the hand passing or lack of fielding as some in the media would have you believe, but the standard of referees in the game of football. There are also a few referees who seem to always favour certain teams or always come down harder on certain teams - to me another sign of a bad referee is a biased referee.

There's been a lot of talk recently about the respect for referees, and lack thereof, but croke park dont seem to understand that respect has to be earned and you cant respect a crap/inconsistent/biased ref.  Pat McEneany was probably the best ref in the country by a mile, and he always seemed to ref fairly and consistently and as a result he had the respect of players and fans alike. He still got decisions wrong, but you could live with that as he did the job right. It was rare that after a game he was in charge of that you would have heard a manager complain about unfair sendings off or soft frees being awarded (indicating bias), in fact it was rare that he was even mentioned. Thats the sign of a good ref, how many other refs are in that bracket?

rant over.

[DuffleKing]

Ck - what if more that ten opposition players attack - should your forwards stand on the halfway line wishing their outnumbered defenders well?

Also, is there another field sport in the world which dictates who and when can use the laid out rules of the game - ie tackle?

[ck]

Ck - what if more that ten opposition players attack - should your forwards stand on the halfway line wishing their outnumbered defenders well?

Also, is there another field sport in the world which dictates who and when can use the laid out rules of the game - ie tackle?

Re players attacking, yes thats exactly what I'm saying. We would then get a game based on attacking as being the number one way to win a game. You would be allowed to push all your players forward but only 2/3rds back. Obviously there would be a balance to be met because if you push your entire team forward and it breaks down then the opposition would break quickly. It would ultimately mean that we would get an extremely exciting brand of attacking football.

Every time I hear these type of ideas discussed you usually get 2 types of people. 1. Those who will come up with ideas for discussion and 2. Those who offer no ideas but try to pick holes in any new proposals.

[DuffleKing]

As it happens, I believe our game is perfectly fine apart from 2 things - no defined tackle and inabilty of refereres to implement the rules that are already there.

You're proposal makes no sense. You'd have 13 attacking 10 in every attack and it would actually slow the game down massively as teams work the ball into the opposition half where they have guaranteed extra numbers. There'd be no goals either as with a 3 man overlap, defences would retreat to concede only a point in each attack.

How would the 11th man knw that he as the 11th and couldn't cross the hw line? Would he have to do a count to know whether to proceed? Mayvbe we could wire them up and the 11th man woulld get an electric shock to serve as a warning to all others?

[tbrick18]

How would a referee ever know how many have crossed the line???
As I said, nothing wrong with our game, we just need decent refs and a way of stamping out cynical fouling (which for me would be the sin bin but I'd be happy with any way of getting rid of it).

[rrhf]

I like the idea of the full back taking the kick outs

[Whishtup]

Have to agree that improving the ref's + umpires is the only improvement I would make.  We need consistency across the board, too.  Obviously, some ref's prefer to punish certain fouls than others.  Do the ref's at inter-county level tell the teams before matches what fouls they will be punishing or is that just a rugby thing?
Watched a game of basketball there recently-jaysus, how many ref's + umpires are involved in a game including the panel in the crowd?  Doesn't seem to slow the game down, either...