Yes. Alot. Injuries already interrupt the flow of the game - and one thing Football is good at is flowing (one reason I personally enjoy it).

A good game is non-stop action (which is my only criticism of US sports - I usually get bored waiting for baseball for example :))

Match outcomes are routinely altered by erroneous ref. decisions, decisions which the whole world except the ref. knows are erroneous because we see the 1000FPS close up 30 seconds later. It's become so nonsensical that at the recent Brazil game, the brazilian players after a bad ref. decision to send off Kaka with a red card were begging the ref. to look up on the stadion screen to see the replay which clearly showed nothing happened, but he couldn't be bothered.

This is the point of the game :) bad decisions aren't all that prevalent - you just notice them because people will yell (rightly) about them. Human error is what makes the sport so much fun.

But more importantly stopping for 30s while replays are reviewed just delays the game - a game which is designed to flow. That would kill it for me!

If everyone is wondering why the USA does not get into soccer, it is because the blatant cheating makes it a joke. It is not a real sport, and never will be, when one dive can win a game for a side, and have a player sent off. Americans have a sense of fair play, that will never accept this.

Of course, this would never get through. South American, Italian, Spanish and Greek clubs have to much sway over FIFA.

I don't know if there is such thing as a World American Football Association, but if there was, I'm sure Americans would call the shots.

However, what you say might still be true, they really do not care about the cheating that affects the game so much.

I am just trying to help you understand why soccer will not be big in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

But I am utterly unconvinced that in-game replays will make a difference.

In fact the main problem is the culture of footballers. Go back a few years and things are a whole lot more brighter. Men were men :D and the rules were the law. You are right; strict punishment for cheating would help fix that. Setting limits for player wages and so forth as well would be an important idea.

dives are stupid and I hate them, but I think they are far overrated in the US (assumption from what I see in internet discussions)

Different sports, different "tactics".

The problem is ensuring the game is recorded fairly - they could use the existing cameras certainly but I suspect it's a non-trivial discussion to ensure that the camera coverage is fair for review purposes.

No. Not at all. Games are already being interrupted constantly by players diving, kicking each other. Video replays wouldn't add that much.

One of the attractions of the game is that the referee is the law; he makes a decision on his best judgement and that is the game.

I see your point; and it has merit. But I think it really detracts from the spirit, the flow and the attraction of the game :)

Already, I can't take the world cup seriously. 2006, it was the Italians diving to get free penalty kicks. Now, I can't even trust the refs to make honest calls. I'll continue to watch the games until something better comes along.

Are you talking about a particular incident of dishonesty? Refs tend to be impartial as they benefit from being impartial (wages, honour) whilst would lose by being noticeably partial (lost license to ref, no more wages).

The ref for the Slovenia/US game was banned from refing any future Worldcup matches and is being investigated by FIFA.

Many many injuries are players pretending to be injured. Video capture would stop those "injuries". And if there is an injury you don't need to stop for 30 seconds. Replay reviewing can be quicker than the time it takes for the player to get up.

> bad decisions aren't all that prevalent

They are extremely prevalent, especially not punishing players who pretend to be injured.

Would it really? I don't think so at all - except in the most blatant cases. If contact is made, well, the player might be making a meal of it but the letter of the law is quite solid.

And if we had to stop each time a player went down to decide if contact was made or not that would just ruin the game :P

> Replay reviewing can be quicker than the time it takes for the player to get up.

Current rules require the player to leave the pitch for treatment. IMO this is a much more streamlined solution. If you change that for the same initial stoppage, plus the ref requesting a review, plus a restart of the game (which may take additional seconds to sort out) it starts to add up. I fail to see how a TV replay shortens that at all.

> They are extremely prevalent, especially not punishing players who pretend to be injured.

How do you define that though? Throwing themselves on the floor with no contact is, obviously, bad and should be punished. But if contact is made how do you judge whether an injury has occurred or not? It's next to impossible a decision to make. On many occasions players make the most out of it - on others the most innocent of taps can be excruciating (this is speaking as an ex-footballer in my youth :D).

To me TV replay represents classic over-engineering of a problem.

Ehm, obviously the players would pretend less if they get punished for it. That's the idea of a working ref system...

> Current rules require the player to leave the pitch for treatment. IMO this is a much more streamlined solution. If you change that for the same initial stoppage, plus the ref requesting a review, plus a restart of the game (which may take additional seconds to sort out) it starts to add up. I fail to see how a TV replay shortens that at all.

It's not like it all has to happen in sequence. You have a crew of 20 people continuously reviewing the slow motion capture and they tell the results to the ref, who only after that decides what to do. The only difference is that instead of using the ref's eyes, you use super-eyes. A little bit slower but not significantly slower, and significantly more accurate.

> How do you define that though? Throwing themselves on the floor with no contact is, obviously, bad and should be punished. But if contact is made how do you judge whether an injury has occurred or not? It's next to impossible a decision to make. On many occasions players make the most out of it - on others the most innocent of taps can be excruciating (this is speaking as an ex-footballer in my youth :D).

Are you claiming that a ref in the field can judge this better than one looking at a slow motion video?

On TV it's often very obvious that they are faking it. But of course judging this is hard sometimes, the point is that it is way, way harder for a ref on the field to judge than for somebody looking at slow motion video.

> To me TV replay represents classic over-engineering of a problem.

It's fixing an obviously broken system.

You see what I am saying about complicating things. These are just not needed as there are plenty of other fixes to try first!

Are you claiming that a ref in the field can judge this better than one looking at a slow motion video?

Well, uh, probably actually.

You keep saying "injuries" without really quantifying it. Do you mean throwing themselves on the ground and faking it (i.e. diving) or going down under a soft challenge and pretending to be hurt. The first is inexcusable (and sometimes the ref gets it wrong), the second is not on at all but it could still be a correct foul.

the point is that it is way, way harder for a ref on the field to judge than for somebody looking at slow motion video.

It doesn't matter; because it is just part and parcel of what makes up the game. End of. Football doesn't need to be Americanized (I think that term is justified, no offence intended) as far as I am concerned because we enjoy it the way it is.

There are problems, TV replays are not really the fix we are looking for.

It's fixing an obviously broken system.

Obvious to you. For those of us who love and enjoy the sport it is a terrible and badly thought out fix. No thanks :)

The takeaway is this is all part of the game WE enjoy watching/playing. Yes it is getting a little much at times. Yes there are steps we should take to knock the modern footballer into shape :P but no, TV is not the way.

> It doesn't matter; because it is just part and parcel of what makes up the game. End of. Football doesn't need to be Americanized (I think that term is justified, no offence intended) as far as I am concerned because we enjoy it the way it is.

BTW, I'm from Europe. And everybody I know agrees that TV replays for judging fouls is good. So, your appeal to "we" is a non-argument at best.

> Obvious to you. For those of us who love and enjoy the sport it is a terrible and badly thought out fix. No thanks :)

You are dropping all reasoning and you are just saying "we like it this way, no thanks.".

> TV is not the way.

Then what is?

To summarize your two points:

1) "We already like it this way" -- unclear who we is, and not an argument against replays: maybe it would be even better with replays.

2) "There are other, better fixes" -- without mentioning what these fixes are.

I've discuses them elsewhere. The main ones:

- setting limits on player wages - harsher penalties for cheating or foul play via post-match review - faster review of matches

These address the same issue without materially affecting the game.

What does america have to do with it?

TV replays is a very US influenced idea. It seems fair to term it that way,

And everybody I know agrees that TV replays for judging fouls is good. So, your appeal to "we" is a non-argument at best.

ahem :) see below:

You are dropping all reasoning and you are just saying "we like it this way, no thanks.".

maybe it would be even better with replays.

I already laid out in quite some detail why I feel replays would interrupt game play and generally make the game less fun to watch overall.

I agree that these are good suggestions, but you want to change the game. Remember US-Slovenia? I don't suppose you think it's good for one side (not) to win because the referee made an error?

> ahem :) see below:

Exactly my point: "we" is not a good argument.

> I already laid out in quite some detail why I feel replays would interrupt game play and generally make the game less fun to watch overall.

The point is that it doesn't interrupt the game, unless there was foul play (and then the game should be interrupted). The current situation is that the game gets interrupted when the referee thinks there is foul play, the situation with replays is that the game gets interrupted when there is foul play. The result is that there will be less foul play because the players know that the probability that they will be caught is much higher than it is now. And there will be less pretending to be hurt, because it's much harder to lie on slow motion capture.

You seem to be arguing against a system where the referee constantly stops the game and asks for replay reviews, which is not what I'm proposing. What I'm proposing is a system where a crew continuously watches replays and gives this information to the referee. It's the same idea as sideline referees, but much more accurate and general.

It would be better if the refs just let the players play and only blow the whistle for the most egregious fouls.

The number of refereee interventions would go down, not up, and the number of games won by theatrics instead of skill would drastically decrease.

lying doesn't matter, it's just expressing emotions. you almost never see a referee backing up from a decision, more often discussions result a yellow card.

> Would it really kill soccer if we had video replay?

it wouldn't if they were limited, just as switching players is. if one team had one single chance of calling for a replay, it wouldn't kill the dynamic, but would solve the problem of nonaccredited goals or the Kaka situation with Ivory Coast.

This is roughly the system employed by the NFL, and it works fairly well. Coaches can challenge a number of calls per game (2, I think?) and are penalized with losing a timeout if their challenge turns out to be invalid. I don't know if there is an equivalent penalty that could be leveled at a soccer team for an invalid challenge.

>lying doesn't matter, it's just expressing emotions. you almost never see a referee backing up from a decision, more often discussions result a yellow card.

Lying matters to some people - good sportsmen for example. When I played (only amateur: Uni/Sunday league) I'd tell the ref if he'd made a wrong decision in my favour.

IMO lying is not a proper part of [association] football; that's why I gave up on footie some time ago.

alternatively, basketball has so many rules that it prevents first timers from truly picking up the game at all... ie. a non-intuitive game

> Would it really kill soccer if we had video replay?

Has the lack of video replays killed soccer? Why stop at video replays at all? why not have a group of referees sitting in the comfort of an airconditioned room with muliple camera angles available to them making decisions about the game which are displayed on the screen?

would this kill the game? it is debatable. But would this significantly change the game? yes.... would I want to play in such a game? maybe not..

Also, it has a noticably negative effect at the kids playing at the amateur level. At one of the World Cup games the commentator noted that he teaches his young kid that diving/cheating is part of soccer and it's important to be good at it. Sports are supposed to be a part of life where cheating and lying is discouraged and outlawed.

You make a good point.. there are negative effects of the current state. I'm not too sure that having video replays would address it effectively though. In reality, the number of video replays would probably have to be artificially limited (ie. 3 per team etc). So this might just fuel a diving culture where teams dive so much to get the other team to use up their video replays. i'm not saying that it might turn out this way, but i guess it can still go both ways.

Regardless, the commentator ought to be shot =)

Bookings really shouldn't be reviewed, at least during the match. Perhaps FIFA could institute a review process post-match, however, to reinstate players that would be lost due a red card or multiple yellows.