The Double Standards of RFEF towards Barça is pathetic.

Another Clásico came and went and once again, we got to encounter another controversy regarding Mourinho’s Real Madrid. Everyone saw Pepe’s intentional act of stepping on Messi’s hand and although no swift action was taken, it was expected that the RFEF would use video evidence to go after Pepe. Unfortunately, RFEF failed to punish Pepe and he was back in the starting lineup. This was just another example of how the RFEF have double standards and quite frankly it is getting to be pathetic.

With Madridistas whining about Barça getting calls in their favor and calling for Villarato, this past week gave us another fine example of how it truly is Barça against Spanish football figureheads. The recent Copa Clásicos presented viewers a unique chance to see every angle imaginable thanks to the 28 cameras available at the Santiago Bernabéu. Well, we have all grown accustomed to the Madrid players’ dirty and pathetic cheap shots on Barça players, especially when they are down.  Nevertheless, it still surprised us all that Pepe intentionally stepped on Messi’s hand. He got away it on the pitch but we were certain that the RFEF would sure that he would get disciplined for that act.

Yet, there was Pepe starting in the starting lineup in yesterday’s game. The RFEF opted not to lay a finger on a man who stepped on another player’s hands. How could this be? It was another obvious sign of double standards from the RFEF and a shining example of how inept they truly are. Their competitive neighbors, the Premier League, wasted no time in making sure Mario Balotelli would get suspended for his actions on Sunday. Replays showed Balotelli stamping on Scott Parker during Sunday’s league encounter between Manchester City and Tottenham. The FA charged him two days later with violent conduct and he is awaiting his punishment.

Meanwhile over in Spain, we all waited and waited yet nothing seemed to happen. No word on any action against Pepe came during the weekend. So we all expected a final decision to be made yesterday, on the day of the second leg. Unfortunately, the RFEF and its Competition Committee decided not to punish Pepe because there was no mention of Pepe’s incident in the referee’s report. The decision in not punishing Pepe was an insult to not just all Cules, but to all football fans across world.

However, Barça fans had to be aggrieved. How could they not punish Pepe? Why is it that the RFEF has different standards when it comes to punishing Barcelona players and punishing Real Madrid players? Back in the 1999-2000 season, the RFEF had no problem punishing Barça player Patrick Kluivert for punching Rayo Vallecano’s Cota by banning him for five matches. That was a league match and the incident was missed by the officials but caught by the cameras. So why was Kluivert banned while Pepe walked?

Speaking of Pepe; it was also ironic that the RFEF failed to punish him last season too for his Butifarra gestures after celebrating Ronaldo’s goal in the Copa Del Rey Final. When these two sides last met in the Copa Del Rey back in the 96-97 season, Brazilian striker Giovanni scored what turned out to be the game winning goal in Madrid. He is famously remembered by Barça fans for celebrating that goal with his Butifarra gestures in front of the Madrid crowd. However, the RFEF was not too pleased and he was banned for two games. Now fast-forward to last season’s Copa Del Rey Final. Pepe committed the same act and yet, he escaped punishment from the RFEF. Even UEFA punished former Barça player Mark van Bommel with a fine a few years ago when he committed the same gesture after scoring against Real Madrid in the Bernabéu for Bayern Munich.

 

Yet, the RFEF and its Competition Committee failed to punish Pepe twice now when they punished Barça player for similar conduct and actions in the past. Madrid may cry Villarato as much as they want, but the RFEF’s cowardly decision not to punish Pepe at all just shows that perhaps the Spanish capital club is the club that is getting the favors after all. We know he won't get punished for attempting to step on Dani Alves too yesterday.

Time for Fútbol to join the club and use replay.

As we enter a new year, an old dilemma still haunts our beloved game of football. Just these past few weeks, the calls of ref bias reared its ugly head again. The big surprise though, was that it was coming from Barça fans this time. The missed calls on the obvious handball in the Espanyol game coupled with the booking to Iniesta after he was fouled inside the box in the Betis game and the missed calls in the Madrid Mallorca game upset many fans who believe the gap between the archrivals should be down to two points. I don’t think there is a bias by the refs. It’s just incompetence. I also think that the idea of instant replay has to become a reality in the near future so we don't have to witness another poor decision like Iniesta's booking against Betis this past weekend.

This debate has been going on for a while with those for and against instant replay. There was even a very lively discussion about it on twitter between me, ESPN Soccernet’s Eduardo Alvarez and the infamous Barcastuff this past weekend. The discussion went back and forth between us regarding the issues that refs are not intentionally favoring any side; past or present in recent history. Eduardo made the point that referees need to be full-time professionals and not part-timers. He made the strong point that if they remain part-timers, then the pressure on the referees will keep growing, and they will remain unprepared and amateur as they are nowadays.

Barcastuff countered that the pressure though is coming from Real Madrid, its fans and the Madrid press. I have to say I agree with that statement. One of the best examples was during last year’s Champions League Semi-Finals. Madridistas were upset with Wolfgang Stark’s decision to send off Pepe. Afterwards, ITV’s Andy Townsend was threatened by angry Madrid fans who thought he was Stark. If this is what Townsend went through, imagine what the Spanish refs go through then. It is not that farfetched for referees to feel the wrath of fans. It wasn’t that long ago that Anders Frisk retired following Mourinho’s accusations that resulted in threats made at him and his family from Chelsea fans.

Now back to Eduardo’s comment that referees should be full-time professionals. I agree and this is something that many others have said before and the NFL is currently thinking about making their referees become fulltime. I don’t think the referees are biased. They just are not that good. It seems like the game is advancing every year while they regress backwards. I don’t think referees becoming full-time professionals is enough though and that more needs to be implemented to aid the referees and provide just results.

More referees was one suggestion and perhaps it might work. However, we all agreed that instant replay/TV technology is something we all want to be implemented someday.  Of course, that topic has ruffled the feathers of the purists for a long time. I can understand their views against it. It’s not part of the game, it slows down games, and it takes away from the game. I agree with all except the latter. I am sorry but I didn’t buy Platini’s explanation that human error is part of the game. Sorry, but this sport is now a business where managers lose their jobs and players might end up losing out on success. I don’t believe Mexico’s and England’s national teams were too pleased with FIFA’s apology after their elimination from the World Cup.

The neutrals might say they prefer it that way but I would be hard pressed to believe any fan shares that view after seeing his team get the wrong end of a call. We are now in the year 2012 and NCAA Football and Basketball use instant replay. Heck, even Major League Baseball uses instant replay and that sport has been around just as long as fútbol and has its own share of purists. Yet, I never heard any of them complain about it when it has been used to get the call right. Now some argue how can we rely on instant replay when the NFL can’t seem to get calls right with the use of replay? Valid point but the NFL is a different sport where they can challenge for many things unlike football where we want it just for a few things such as off sides, hand balls, did the ball cross the goal line and foul or dive for a penalty. I prefer we compare it to NHL’s use of instant replay since the NHL and fútbol share many similarities.

NHL’s instant replay applies to only goals. There are basically eight things they can review and guess what, I can’t think of many instances where they got a goal wrong with the minor exception of the Dallas Stars Buffalo Sabres series clinching goal involving Brett Hull skate in the crease during overtime in the Finals controversy. Other than that, they have gotten it right and if I am wrong, please let me know. Now, for fútbol, it would be used for the following reasons. Did the ball cross the goal line? Was it a handball to score or deny a goal?; Was the player onside or not and was it a foul or a dive inside the box? You can also make the argument for off the ball decisions like Zidane’s head butt. I can’t believe that fans would rather see a game be decided by a blown call. Maradona’s Hand of God anyone? Instant replay is the way of the future and FIFA needs to get the ball rolling on it quickly. Every sport seems to have it now except our beloved sport. Of course, this would mean more cameras, more camera angles and even a video goal judge so the referee doesn’t have to go through the peep show booth that NFL referees go through. Let someone upstairs review it like they do in the NHL.

The problem though is that this issue has to be brought up by the players. Players whining to the media about bad calls is not enough. They have to demand it. Barcastuff made the argument that players union have other concerns such as protecting the players. I beg to differ and think the players and their unions have to make their voices heard along with the league presidents. It’s a win-win situation for everybody. Clubs and fans no longer have to witness their team suffer a bad call. Leagues and teams can make money from the TV time used during the instant replay. I don’t buy into the argument that it stalls games by affecting continuity and momentum since we go through that already from players wasting time for injuries or protesting a bad call.

Until then, we have to sit back and watch referees make horrible calls such as the missed handball in the Barcelona derby or the wrong call on the disallowed Mallorca goal for off sides or the missed Sergio Ramos handball near the end of the game.  We cannot continue to live at a time where teams could get relegated or lose its chance at winning a trophy from a bad referee’s decision. Eduardo made the point that he didn’t think the Spanish league has been decided by refereeing mistakes. I agree with him when he said that there will be tons of ref mistakes after 38 matches but ultimately, the best side always wins. He detests this sort of debate and made the obvious claim that both Real Madrid and Barcelona get way too many calls to complain about it. I concur and think that’s the case in all the leagues when it comes to big teams getting the benefit of the calls against the smaller teams.  In case you didn’t know, Eduardo is a Real Madrid fan who is very fair and level headed in my opinion.

I agreed with him about the best side always wins and that’s why I don’t blame the referees for Barça being in second place. Much of the blame lies with their away from albeit some of the referee calls have not helped either. With that said, we should not accept incompetence from non-fulltime referees that affect the outcomes of close games that could lead to teams being relegated or hindering teams from winning a title when there is video technology available. So I hope that the push for video technology grows stronger. Please make it happen FIFA!

Fútbol coverage in America has to improve.

Belated Happy New Year to you all. 2012 is upon us and sadly, I already have to whine about something. I was enjoying my wonderful Christmas break and should have been in a happy festive mood. Yet, my mood quickly turned sour. The Old Firm was being played but low and behold, not one TV station was carrying it live in the US. Not FSC. Not GolTV and not ESPN. What gives? As if that wasn’t enough for me to be upset, I grew more bitter when I realized that yet another edition of the Africa Cup of Nations will also not be aired on any of those stations. With all these extra outlets for football coverage, why is it that we always seem to miss out on football action?

I could waste your time listing what all these channels have the rights to and what they show on the TV and what they stream online. The big issue is that we should have all these games on TV. Of course, I don’t mean on the big three networks. Let’s face it, we all know that they don’t care about the sport that much. So we are left with cable TV which usually means buying the sports package channels. However, not all the leagues are played. This of course brings me back to the Old Firm game that I mentioned above. When I discovered that there was going to be a midweek Old Firm match, I quickly checked to see what channel would be showing it.

Low and behold, not one of the big three soccer channels were showing it. What gives? One of the most important rivalries in the world and it’s not on TV. I don’t know who shows the Scottish League and it seems like no one does. This is a pity since Celtic and Rangers have a lot of fans in this country and you would expect this game to at least be aired for the masses. This quickly made me look into who owned the rights for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations and my Old Firm disappointment was compounded by additional misery. There is no free TV coverage for the African Cup of Nations whatsoever.

I remember the first time watching the African Cup of Nations back in 1994. I was in Lebanon enjoying an entertaining tournament that made become a fan of Nigeria’s national team for future African Cup of Nations. It become harder to watch when I moved to the States soon afterwards since no one showed it in America. I didn’t get to watch another edition till next decade when I discovered that the Arabic package on Dish Network. They were showing the competition and I got to watch it a few more times.

Sadly, we are into the new days of 2012 and still face the same dilemma. No coverage of African Cup of Nations in America. We also don’t have coverage of other big games from other leagues. No Old Firm. No PSG against Olympique Marseilles. No Ajax v PSV. I know ESPN 3 streams some of these games but that’s the problem; we get these games online free or through other means that is not approved by the league and TV big wigs.

I am not asking for every league game from every league to be played. No, far from it. But I would like for the big games of the big leagues to be played on TV. I sure would wake up early to see a clash between Ajax against Feyenoord or the Old Firm or Olympiakos against Panathinaikos over an early kickoff of Sunderland hosting Bolton or at least show games featuring one of the top teams of the league too. The leagues and the sports networks need to sort something out because I can watch all those games online for free by other means. I am not the one losing out; they are.

Sure watching the games online is not the same as watching it on your big TV screen but when they are not even on the TV screen, you have no other choice. That’s why things need to change. When you can watch games online for free, then what incentive do you have to order those channels later on via cable or paid online channel service? Hopefully things change in the near future because I am tired of being stuck in the 90’s when it comes to coverage of football in America.