We have all complained about officiating and certain players getting preferential treatment by officials. Now my question is, and I’ll use this year’s World Cup as an example, does trying to change the officiating taint the championship?
What I mean is, the announcers have said multiple times that guys like Messi and Renaldo are given preferential treatment in UEFA, but FIFA wanted to make sure that the refs ensured they didn’t get it at the World Cup. However, watching these games it seems like on what seems to be legitimate fouls against the “name” guys aren’t being called, but the same plays are being called against “non-name” players. Did FIFA make a mistake, to me it affected the outcome of the tournament.
To compare it to an American sport, I’ll use the NBA, LeBron gets away with a lot, but if the NBA instructed the officials to ensure LeBron isn’t getting preferential treatment, but the officials in trying to ensure no preferential treatment aren’t calling legitimate calls being committed against LeBron. Does that taint the NBA Championship because LeBron didn’t get a fair call? And yes, I believe giving him preferential treatment taints the championship as well. Is there a common ground?
It is a matter of time until humans will not be involved, computers and cameras will be boss.
I personally gave up on thee NBA a few years ago. The NFL is getting tough to watch since they are close to eliminating the running segment and installing a 7 on 7 game. I hate Arena football but that is where the NFL and college football is headed.
I think there will always be complaints about the officials. Especially in soccer, where you have three people covering a very large area and in reality one of them makes all the calls with assistance from the guys with the flags. Video review only shifts the complaints from the guys on the field to the guys in front of the monitors. Neymar has become an international laughingstock with his flop-and-roll act, and the GIF-makers have gone wild.
Neymar isn’t the only one doing it, but he may be the best player (I think he’s up there with Messi and Renaldo) doing it, BUT I saw legitimate fouls against Renaldo and he didn’t flop-and-roll and the officials didn’t call it. They did however call the same fouls against players with less names.
If a human has any part of the officiating, it’s tainted. He will make mistakes. And as long as humans watch, they will feel the officiating is poor. As long as there is the idea that people pay to see LeBron or Rinaldi or (name your star here), those guys will be protected. If they aren’t protected, then it’s going to look like they aren’t getting calls they should.