Why football has a lot to learn

As the famous saying goes, football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans and rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen and the more time I spend watching both sports it is hard to disagree. It is becoming almost impossible to argue that football is worthy of being called the ‘beautiful game’ when you compare it with rugby. Having been a late-comer to the wonders of the egg-shaped ball game, I now spend weekends watching both sports and every time I tune into the rugby it leaves me thinking about what football could learn from them.

In just one 80 minute match a constant stream of changes that need making to football will run through your head and it will almost certainly be detrimental to your enjoyment of our national sport once the rose-tinted football glasses are removed to show the games’ ugly head. Even those that don’t appreciate rugby will begin to realise that rather than a brutal, uneducated game there is intelligence, respect and an ability to change within the sport that further highlights the problems we face.

People will say that this argument is completely flawed because the sports are inherently different in every way: the shape of the ball, the amount of players, the scoring, the breaks in play and the basic rules and more. But ignoring this, the conduct of the players, the use of video technology and the quality of officiating is far superior in rugby, and that’s the problem for football that needs to be addressed.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the conduct of the players that we pay to see represent our clubs. Every week there is a player that attempts to deceive the referee by diving. It is one of the most frustrating facets of the game to see somebody going to ground as if they have been shot when a member of the opposition gets within touching distance. There is no glossing over the fact that this happens and affects most games, whether it earns their team a penalty or gets them out of a difficult situation near their own goal. Players are hardly ever punished and even receiving a yellow card isn’t going to affect them so for the likes of Nani and Sergio Busquets the reward outways the punishment and even if a referee decided to tackle the problem by booking everybody that dived then there would be a record number of cards handed out and they would be chastised by managers, pundits and fans alike.

While in rugby, feigning injuries and diving is extremely rare. It is a brutal, full-blooded game where tough tackles are par for the course but there are strict parameters that are heavily enforced on players that break the rules with high and dangerous tackles. For a player to pretend that they were a victim of a dangerous challenge in order to gain an advantage is unheard of and ridiculous. In 2009, the sport was embroiled in the Bloodgate scandal where a player feigned an injury so his team could make a blood substitution. When the cheating was found out those who created the incident were banned from the game and since then the incident hasn’t been repeated. If footballers decided to obey the rules rather than manipulate them, maybe games would be won by the better side rather than the team that included the good actor.

In football, players treat officials like verbal punch bags, hurling abuse in their direction for daring to give a decision against a multi-million pound star. The sight of players surrounding the referee is all too common (particularly at Old Trafford) and is a slap in the face to the failing Respect campaign set up by the FA. Players swearing, shouting, pushing and harassing referees are disgraceful and the respect that these stars have for the man in charge is minimal if it exists at all. Even though the referee will not change his decision once it’s made it doesn’t stop them venting their anger.

Instead, rugby players learn from an early age to call the referee “Sir” and only speak to him when he addresses you first. It is only the captain that can question a referees’ decision but that is done in a respectful way and there is no chance they would get away with using foul and abusive language towards the official. Having watched football for so many years, to begin watching a different sport and seeing the referee spoken to as if he was the school headmaster was a shock, especially when you see the considerable difference in size between player and ref, so why can’t that same rule be taken into football? Swearing isn’t the problem here, it’s the lack of respect. Players are ruining matches by intimidating officials into giving the decisions there way and if they continue to do their job then teams criticise them after the game. Like diving it is something that we know is a problem but until you watch a game of rugby it is difficult to comprehend just how bad the problem is.