A few days ago I wrote that I have some ideas about how FIFA (and the various national football governing federations) can go about cleaning up the beautiful game, which lately hasn’t been so beautiful. Diving, flopping, “simulation” and bad melodrama defined way too many games in Copa 2006, and I can think of at least three or four places where cynical acting on the part of various players – and here, let’s just call it cheating, which is what it is, shall we? – dramatically altered the shape and course of games and ultimately of the tournament itself (the French goal in the final came off a dive, for instance).

Bad mojo all around, and now a lot of people are pondering what can be done. Beckenbauer wants a summit to talk about the problem. Henry has again raised the possibility of using video replay (although that might not have been to his advantage against Spain, huh?). And Sepp Blatter is thinking about trotting out a second ref.

These are interesting ideas, but I’m not convinced they solve more problems than they create. Replay can help you get the call right (sometimes, anyway – the NFL has proven conclusively that definitive, clear-cut, unarguable, unambiguous footage from multiple angles doesn’t guarantee that a zebra will correct a blown call, which demonstrates that stupid trumps technology every time). But it also destroys the flow of the game, because it takes time to review the video. It’s bad enough in a sport like football, which has no flow to start with, but its impact on soccer, which is all about the flow of the game, could be quite ugly.

Blatter’s second ref idea? Well, maybe. But my sense is that right now you have four sets of eyeballs on the pitch and they’re linked by instant voice communication. The problem in soccer isn’t that you don’t have enough officials, it’s that the officials usually suck. And if ref quality is the problem, then upping the ref quantity will make it worse, not better. I mean, would the Portugal/Holland game have been improved by the addition of another incompetent ref with another set of cards?

However, there are some steps that perhaps FIFA and the FAs could benefit from considering. Here’s some items I might put on the table at the next meeting were I a FIFA official.

1: Post-match video review coupled with post-hoc sanctions. After each match, officials review match footage. If the video shows that the refs got it wrong, officials act to correct the error. Say a hypothetical player – let’s call him “Malouda Ronaldo” – executes a perfect swan dive in the box. He’s awarded a penalty and converts. Replay shows that he wasn’t touched, however. If the penalty wasn’t the deciding factor in the game, then the FA suspends him for two matches. If the penalty was the only goal or the deciding goal, however, he sits three or four matches. Maybe more, if he’s a recidivist.

It works the other way, too. Say Malouda Ronaldo is carded for a brutal tackle that replay shows was pretty minor. The FA can then rescind the card.

In cases where replay shows grave miscarriages of justice as a result of player or team simulation, the FA would have the power to scrub the result and order a replay, or perhaps they might even, in severe cases, reverse the result by ordering a forfeit.

This is a fairly heavy-handed approach, but I guarantee you that within a year you’d see marked improvements in players’ ability to stay on their feet. You’d see more players fighting to stay afoot and on the ball and fewer drama queens looking for any excuse to go down.

2: Improved use of in-game discretion by referees. Say I’m in the middle for a match and I begin to suspect that a team (or both teams) are gaming me. Taking advantage of me. Exaggerating injuries, etc. Malouda Ronaldo gets dinged by a defender, goes down like he’s been shot, and lays there screaming like a little girl who’s had her liver ripped out without anesthesia. On comes the trainer. On comes the magic spray. MR takes a ride on the magic stretcher. Etc.

Three seconds later I look over and Malouda Ronaldo has made a remarkable recovery – he’s up, he’s a marvel of the healing powers of the human body and spirit, and he’s waving to come back on the pitch. But as the official, I choose when he can come back on. And this guy was on the verge of death eight seconds ago. It’s important that I secure the health and well-being of the players on the pitch. So just to make sure, I give him time to recover. And how much time he gets to recover depends on how badly he was hurt. Maybe in this case I decide that under the best of circumstances a player would need a couple minutes. So I let him stand there for a couple minutes while his team plays short-handed.

Is it a little passive-aggressive? Maybe. But players quickly learn about ref tendencies and adjust their games to them. Again, I guarantee, this sort of approach would have an effect on play-acting.

3: Player accountability. The players are the offenders, but the players are also the victims. Each FA should establish a review committee comprised of elected player representatives and these players should be empowered to clean up their own acts. I’m not entirely sure what the laws of the organizations allow for – do footballers even have anything like the US player unions (which unfortunately tend to act in defense of the worst 1% of their memberships instead of the 99% majority…)? But an important step would involve the players taking an active role in the solution. Now they’re the problem and are in an adversarial relationship with the various governing bodies.

I can’t promise that all your dreams will come true if you enact these measures, but it’s a good place to start the conversation…

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