By David Butler
Much has been written on this blog about VAR and rules changes in football. A recent thought by John Considine came to mind when I was watching PSG vs Dortmund last night. In the dying second a PSG defender crashed into a Dortmund player trying to shield the ball in the corner – it was as blatant a foul one would come across, but the referee waved play on. As John recently wrote,- “In explaining the non-penalty decision, Webb used words like "threshold" and "certainty" many times. Webb was effectively saying that referees require a higher degree of certainty when it comes to giving penalty kicks. He clearly implied that the burden of proof is higher later in games.”
Corner flag behaviour/ legal time-wasting is a great example in football where the ‘threshold’ changes – it as if the laws of the game break down if the referee suspects a players motivations are not in line with the spirit of the game; defensive players are often given a carte blanche to recapture the ball when it is retained by the corner flag. These ‘thresholds’ exists in different places on the pitch at different times in the match and are often based on referees’ inference of player motivations.
Of course, over time these thresholds have fluctuated greatly and new rules have regulated what is acceptable. In general, this does worry me when sport is suggested as a ‘natural laboratory’ for research – sports have the same name, but so much has changed over time. Triggers broom comes to mind.
Much has been written on this blog about VAR and rules changes in football. A recent thought by John Considine came to mind when I was watching PSG vs Dortmund last night. In the dying second a PSG defender crashed into a Dortmund player trying to shield the ball in the corner – it was as blatant a foul one would come across, but the referee waved play on. As John recently wrote,- “In explaining the non-penalty decision, Webb used words like "threshold" and "certainty" many times. Webb was effectively saying that referees require a higher degree of certainty when it comes to giving penalty kicks. He clearly implied that the burden of proof is higher later in games.”
Corner flag behaviour/ legal time-wasting is a great example in football where the ‘threshold’ changes – it as if the laws of the game break down if the referee suspects a players motivations are not in line with the spirit of the game; defensive players are often given a carte blanche to recapture the ball when it is retained by the corner flag. These ‘thresholds’ exists in different places on the pitch at different times in the match and are often based on referees’ inference of player motivations.
Of course, over time these thresholds have fluctuated greatly and new rules have regulated what is acceptable. In general, this does worry me when sport is suggested as a ‘natural laboratory’ for research – sports have the same name, but so much has changed over time. Triggers broom comes to mind.
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