06-21-2010, 07:54 PM
(06-20-2010, 12:44 PM)Gnollguy Wrote: Fans appreciate results where the ref is less of a factor more than they are bothered by breaks in flow or slightly longer games. At least that has almost always been the result in US sports, even with some of the clumsier implementations of replay in college sports. It's not perfect, but I think it's better.
That is a long discussion in football. One reason to keep things as they are now is that you have far more emotions among fans.....keeping football the most popoular sport on earth, and a sport with hooliganism under fans.
Second is a more conspiracy theory kind of thing. The more human work, the more possibility you have to influence outcome of matches.
And a final between Brazil and England is financially far more attractive for the FIFA then netherlands-denmark for example.
One thing is very clear is that commerce plays a (too) big role. The bacaria girls incident illustrated this. Nobody would have noticed these girls untill FIFA decided to remove them.....and there you have great advertisement for Bavaria.
Another thing is the choice of referee's. Most people think Fifa's chairman gives referee jobs to countries that vote for him in the next fifa president elections. So the greatest tournament every four years by far doesn't have the best refs. There are referee's from countries like Mali, New Zealand (2), the seychelles and the one from sweden that didn't see Henry's hand ball against Ireland. Countries that don't have very strong competitions and never worked with good pretend divers like the players in Southern Europe and south america.