Fouling at Corners, A Risk Worth Taking?

Every weekend in amateur leagues across the country, doddery old refs are given the job to spot any foul in a packed penalty area full of players doing anything they can to either score, or stop their opponent from scoring.

Unfortunately, players have worked out that most grass-roots referees aren’t able to see much of what’s going on during that second whilst the ball is travelling in the air from the corner flag towards the centre of the penalty area. The chances are, if you are able to stop your player getting anywhere near the ball, the referee won’t have a clue what you’ve done.

Unless you’re trying (and probably failing) to apply the infamous Zonal Marking tactic whilst defending a corner, it’s likely every defender will have one man they must stop scoring, by any means, as long as the referee doesn’t give a penalty. Alternatively, if you can trip up or somehow knock-over a player who’s marking you, you could get an opportunity to score without being challenged.

A Form of Cheating

Such a foul is, of course, a form of cheating. I can’t see any reason why stopping someone from scoring by throwing them onto the floor is better than throwing yourself onto the floor in order to win a penalty. It does seem to be an accepted form of cheating though (just like diving is an accepted form of cheating in other parts of the world), as you never hear about players being angry at other players because they’ve pulled their shirt at a corner. Whilst at Chelsea, Ricardo Carvalho was hailed as a genius, rather than a cheat, for his ‘clever’ defensive tactics.

Why is it so accepted in the British game? Perhaps because such fouls have always been so hard for a lone referee to spot? One thing’s for sure, players have grown up knowing that fouling, at least in some circumstances, works.

The Professional Side

In professional football, the problem is probably even worse. Although there is at least potential for change here. The world class referees in the Premier League with help from their linesmen, are much more likely to spot infringements by the players.

Whenever such a penalty is given in the Premier League, you hear calls from an aggrieved manager that if penalties like that are given; you’d have 8 penalties every game. To say such a thing is an insult to the intelligence of the standard footballer – that they simply wouldn’t be able to respond to a change in refereeing behaviour and carry on fouling?!

If referees clamped down hard and consistently on the issue, it would not take long for managers and players to react. Say, if a public statement was released at the start of a season stating the referees’ new objective, and that referees were then able to see and correctly award fouls at corner kicks (perhaps even with the help of video technology, although I’ll save that argument for another day) – I think you might have no more than the first 45 minutes of the season with an obvious increase in penalties. After this, managers would make sure defenders didn’t make the same mistakes and the penalty area would become a fairer place whenever a corner was taken.

Unfortunately for the likes of Ricardo Carvalho and other ‘intelligent’ players who consistently use dirty tricks in order to stop opponents from scoring, they might start to get shown up for their real footballing ability (or lack of), and not so much for their clever, yet cheating behaviour.

And who knows, if things change for the better in the Professional game, cheating grass roots footballers might just take notice and begin to change their ways.

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