Q&A: Rules football should steal from other sports?

0:02Gabby:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:06Mark:Football. People love to have a little grumble, don't they? Whether it's VAR, play acting, there's always something.

0:12Gabby:So what if football could take rules from other sports like simbing or maybe netball super shot or timeouts in basketball?

0:21Mark:Well, today we're taking your suggestions on how to fix football.

0:24Gabby:Welcome to the Sports Agents.

0:34Mark:the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman

0:40Gabby:hello mark hello gabby uh we're going to talk about how we fix football well or rather the suggestions we've had about fixing football if you think it needs fixing thank you for sending in your suggestions uh with rules and ideas from other sports our email is the sports agents at global.com or you can get in touch on social media or via the link in the show notes.

1:01Mark:And boy, have you. I put this out around midday and by two o 'clock on my Instagram, I already had tens of replies, which is a lot because it was the middle of the day. And I was amazed actually at how many people came in with their suggestions. So I don't think it's that everybody thinks football's broken, but it does seem to elicit more and more complaints about time wasting and you know just the way the rules are interpreted

1:26Gabby:was there kind of one sport that people went to more than any other to to bring up suggestions

1:35Mark:or was it just in general rugby and i think that was marginally about attitude towards referee also sim bins but hockey basketball they all got a mention funnily enough gymnastics didn't um so So, tended to be the team sports netball, got to mention, as you'll hear when we go through some of the suggestions. So, shall we get right into it?

1:58Gabby:Yeah, go on then. You pick where you want to start.

2:01Mark:Okay. So, by the way, you know the BBC recently did something. Do you contribute towards that? The BBC's Change One Rule about football.

2:10Gabby:Okay. I wondered what you were asking me, what I contributed to the BBC. There's been a lot going on at the BBC, Gabby. I wondered what you were... I was like, no, God, I didn't contribute to that at all. Most definitely not. Never been near Panorama in my life.

2:26Mark:Well, we asked all the football pundits and presenters to say one thing that they would change. And the thing that I actually went for was a time limit on VAR decisions. So it can't be clear and obvious if you're taking four minutes to look at something, if you're examining angles to try and make a point. And so this had a kind of an airing, if you like, in some of the suggestions. Andrew Haino, Zero, on Twitter said, if VAR can't make a ruling after a couple of looks, stay with the decision. And a fun one, he's got two in here, to stop fake goalkeeping injuries. And the goalkeeper's got to go off for 30 seconds.

3:01Mark:That should liven things up. But let's focus on his ruling about staying with the decision and a time frame. I think that's a decent idea.

3:08Gabby:Yeah, I like that. I like that. I mean, some of them at the moment is just ridiculous. And there was the Newcastle goal against Manchester City, the second one that seemed to take ages this weekend. And a lot of that was down to what we were told was going to be the semi-automated offside decision. And it went on and on and on. And I would agree with that. If you can't make a ruling after a couple of looks, then you stay with the referee's decision. And that, to be honest, is, I mean, it's not a time thing, but cricket has very much the umpire's call when it comes to LBW. And that is for marginal decisions on whether it might just clip a bail or clip leg stump, whatever it may be, depending on which way the umpire has gone, either out or not out, they stick with it because of that margin of error.

4:04Gabby:So I kind of like that time limit. I also quite like the goalkeeper go off for 30 seconds because that is a tactical way that coaches are using the game to just pause it, get their tactics across because they know the goalkeeper can't go off.

4:22Mark:Actually, somebody else suggests borrowing from hockey where you can sub off a goalkeeper for an extra outfield player, which is usually done right at the end of the game. This is Roberto on TikTok. as a few people in our team have pointed out, most goalkeepers these days can play anywhere, can't they? And so I don't know if the reverse is true. If there's anybody who could then find themselves making excellent saves with their feet. We've seen great blocks, haven't we, from defenders this season when the goalkeepers have been caught off their line. Are you all for that one? Do you like that idea?

4:53Gabby:No, I don't. I think that just makes things more complicated. And also removes the entertaining and amusing spectacle of both a goalkeeper going up for a corner and then having to peg it back to try and stop the opposition scoring. And also would remove that occasional goalkeeper header that goes in that everybody goes berserk. So I wouldn't go with that. There are lots of people who have suggested the challenge system. Briga94 on Instagram cites the challenge system. I don't really know this in baseball, whether there's apparently one challenge per game. you can keep it if you're right you lose it if you're wrong we saw that disappear at Wimbledon

5:33Mark:this year didn't we with the Hawkeye challenges so yeah so that kind of a challenge where you say to the the referee can you get VAR to have a look at that please yeah sir and uh and then you're wrong if you're wrong then you lose your challenge but that again is another time-consuming

5:51Gabby:thing isn't it it's a stoppage they obviously have it in the NFL where a coach can throw a red flag and if it's upheld, they keep it. And if they lose that challenge, they lose the time. It's been brought into Rugby League over the last two or three years and it's called the Captain's Challenge. And it started in the NRL and has come over here. And I don't think it's massively popular because, again, it just slows the game down. And it can be used in certain tactical situations as well to actually slow the game down to allow a team to get their breath back if they're under the pump a little bit.

6:27Gabby:So I'm not a massive fan of it being used in football because, as you say, it will slow it down.

6:34Mark:And it does seem that the suggestions fall into two, if I could be quite broad here. On the one hand, it's about speeding the game up. So a lot of these suggestions are to do with that. And on the other side, it's a lot to do with behaviours and the way the referee is approached and borrowing from rugby that only the captain can go and speak to the referee. Claire Dix 4 says zero tolerance for pestering the referee from rugby. I've chosen her because she's quoted a few good Nigel Owens lines, which I want to do in his accent as well. Because you can hear the referee so clearly, I think I was either watching or at this game where he turned to a player and went, this is not soccer, which I love the fact he used soccer as well.

7:16Mark:And I'm straighter than that line now, which is relevant because obviously he came out as a gay man many years ago. And then he turned to somebody who obviously come off the bench. Is this why you're not starting the game? So just always worth a couple of Nigel Owens lines there. What do you reckon for trying to improve relationships on pitch between referee and player?

7:37Gabby:And I would then go to Silverstars08 on Instagram, who sent you the one about the ability to listen into referees' conversations. Angela Gillies also suggested might be up the referees. and Tom Regan on Instagram made the point that only captains should be allowed to speak to the referees. I was talking to Rob Green about this at the weekend, actually, before match of the day. There is this fear in football about the referee being miked ever since, and people always go back to this, ever since David Ellery was miked for what I think was a Channel 4 documentary. And you could hear Tony Adams giving him a whole load of abuse.

8:15Gabby:And the point being, we can't mic them up because they need to hear what the players say to them. I would flip that the other way and go, that's the whole point of why you should mic them up. So that hopefully, and maybe you do sound a bit like an old fart here, or I sound like an old fart, it then hopefully starts to eradicate it. Because the thing that frustrates me, Gabby, and I think, you know, I've been quite honest about my childish behavior on the football pitch in the past. I was sent off and booked for abuse and dissent to referees, which is not something to be particularly proud of. But I didn't say half the things that you can see players in the top flight saying to referees and linesmen.

8:57Gabby:And I just think the micing up, referees go, do you know what? I am not going to be called the worst name under the sun by you, bang. You know, we always get told it's meant to be one game. You mentioned it last week on the pod. One game from professional all the way down to Hackney Marshes. Well, it doesn't go the other way. You say that on Hackney Marshes, you're off. I would mic them up so we could hear it. I'd be a lot stricter on it. And I'd also do the other one that somebody said, Joseph Holt, maybe Sarah Schoen, I'd give clock management to someone else. I'd give clock management, someone in the stands, and let the ref deal with that, and then the clock could be...

9:35Mark:A fifth official.

9:37Gabby:Well, or even the fourth official, because, I mean, all they do is stick a board up and spend 90 minutes trying to placate annoying assistant managers.

9:47Mark:And would you have it so the stadium can see that clock being stopped then? Why not? Like it is in rugby.

9:52Gabby:Again, it's allowing the fans to have the information. It's there in rugby and you see the clock and you have a hooter in rugby league. But yet again in football, fans can't see this or can't see that.

10:07Mark:Well, if everybody in the stadium can see that your time wasting here is not actually earning your team any extra time, then you might be getting off that deck a little bit quicker and your fans might start to get a little bit frustrated with you, especially if you're chasing the game. And if you're away from home and you're not chasing the game, then probably 50 ,000 will be on your back. So you might get up really quickly there. So behaviours seems to be a theme. Did you mention Morgan Campbell? I don't think you did. Send players off for 10 minutes when they act like they've been shot. There have been some suggestions of some kind of sin bin being introduced, like in rugby's various codes because a yellow card offence could then develop into a red card offence once it's had a little bit more scrutiny or you come back onto the pitch.

10:53Gabby:Would you go with, I mean, at the moment, I feel like we're taking quite a lot from rugby.

10:58Mark:No, I think the yellow cards work well. And I think managers, it's interesting tactics as well for managers, isn't it? Because tactics and substitutions and those two codes of sports are very different, aren't they? Rugby and football. And I feel like in football, it was Tanaka wasn't it from Leeds on Sunday who was having an absolute rip-roaring game came off the bench quite early but had a yellow and looked for all the world like he might get another yellow the way he was kind of flying around the pitch and was taken off I mean there's a lot to go into Daniel Farker's substitutions and his timing of substitutions is something that frustrates Leeds fans but that was the manager being smart right because he doesn't want to lose that player so I feel like yellow cards in football have a lot to do with tactics actually and um and the way a player then retreats within their performance and I don't think taking them off for 10 minutes

11:46Gabby:would be the answer no I would agree with you on that I'll throw one more in which I haven't seen anywhere actually so I don't know if this was suggested I would reduce the number of subs I would go back to one

12:04Mark:it's 1974

12:08Gabby:I was I was gonna go three I was gonna go three I think to five just still feels far too many for me um this is a discussion that rugby has had because you don't have as many tired players or exhausted players therefore you don't get as many mistakes and you still and therefore you get more of a perfect game, which might be less entertaining. I don't know. I also think five allows the bigger clubs to stockpile even more because players will get more action.

12:39Mark:I think it penalises poorer, weaker clubs, doesn't it? Or clubs who don't have the financial resources of the big ones. Because you look at Arsenal's bench now.

12:48Gabby:Oh, my word.

12:49Mark:Most people in the country, most teams will be happy to have those players starting every single week. So I'm not picking on Arsenal. I'm not before anybody jumps in. and neither am I, just before everybody jumps in. But I think it is definitely something that penalises the clubs who don't have those kinds of resources. So, yeah, I would be all for three. I mean, it can get so confusing sometimes as well, can't it, when you've got five? That's potentially ten substitutions happening, you know, within ten minutes and you go, what's going on? Where have you come from? When did you come on the pitch?