FRIEZE ART FAIR NEW YORK 2012
MILAN 2012: SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE
MILAN 2012: SATELLITE EXHIBITIONS
MILAN 2012: BRERA DESIGN DISTRICT
Life is inherently unfair. It's true in business, it's true in love and it's damn sure true in sports. But that doesn't stop us from trying to apply technology and a little design to help even the odds; the original Blackberry and Match.com were ways to stack the odds in users' favor, and much of American-style football is occupied with the review of instant replay.
But the World Cup, as mandated by FIFA, allows no such thing.
This year's World Cup is seeing its fair share of refereeing controversy; U.S. sports coverage was awash with cries of Malian ref Koman Coulibaly "robbing" our boys of a gamechanging goal, and German press can't be happy about the overly officious Yellow Card Mania that was the Germany vs. Serbia game. It's even more frustrating when fans can clearly see the error of calls on the replay; the bar I watched Brazil vs. Ivory Coast at yesterday erupted into derisive jeers after Kaka's send-off, when the slow-mo clearly showed Kader Keita pretending he had been hit in the face when no such thing had happened. (Watch the replay below, starting at about 0:15. It's pretty egregious.)
But the refs can't see the replays, and ever since their 1997 ruling, FIFA has been clear: Video replays will not be allowed to determine referee calls.
Why? One answer provided is that soccer/football is inherently a game of flow, and they don't want to interrupt matches to have the ref running off-field to review a TV after every foul; indeed, one of the reasons I enjoy watching World Cup matches is that a 45-minute half is pretty much 45 actual minutes, as opposed to the four-hour slog of an American Superbowl.
But it's not inconceivable that the ref could carry some type of tablet device to instantly review different angles of specific plays, particularly important ones where players are writhing on the ground clutching their faces. Slow-mo replays are available to us fans at home almost instantaneously--couldn't they be beamed to a tablet on-field as well? For the sake of timeliness the ref could have a simple interface letting him choose between several different camera angles, so he could quickly make a determination without having to run off the field.
If done correctly it could all be done quite quickly, during the same time when players are busy stamping their feet and yelling bloody murder at the ref.
In reality I'm sure the tablet would have to be something bigger than an iPod Touch and smaller than an iPad, since the ref is running around. But that's a simple enough detail to work out, and the technology to make all of this work already exists. My guess is that the largest opposition would come from FIFA themselves, or those die-hard fans who claim that unfair calls and human error are just a part of the game. I can accept that, just as I can accept that life isn't fair; but I can't help thinking that a little judicious use of design and technology could help improve the experience for all of us.
Comments
Really, Is that our (designers) aproach to impacting a sport culture, a tablet. Common guys, great design has to have an understanding of culture.not just about a pretty product doing the right thing.
The beauty about "soccer", Futbol is It's controversy and passion. Sometimes it's in one's favor, sometimes it's not. This is part of the game, this is the game.
I never comment, but this time it was impossible to say nothing.
Cheers
I'm not necessarily in favor of this, but if you're thinking about it, it needn't be a thing the on-field official runs around with. There's a fourth official standing on the sidelines already, or there could be a fifth.
Nancy boys.. All of them
Hockey is a fast sport with a lot of flow. And it has survived the interoduction video review by officials very well.
The issue isn't that the ref would have to run off to view the video every time (the fourth official could do that), it's more to do with the minute to minute decision making of the ref.
for example:
The majority of decisions are made in the split second before a ref blows his whistle. A team could have scored in the time it took him to view the replay first. And if he blew the whistle and then checked to find out he was wrong - how does he reverse the decision?
A tablet would make things even more difficult for the ref in these situations. It's annoying but mistakes are here to stay.
And in reply to Joe's point:
they're not nancy boys - acting like a hard man gets your team punished (c.f. Vinnie Jones sent off in 5 seconds), so the incentives are in place to exploit this. If flopping to the ground could help you win in other sports I'm sure it would happen just as much. Sad but true!
Yah my point is the incentives should not be in place. Especially when you want the game to remain pure and not waste minutes. If a player is later found guilty of pretending to be hurt the team should be penalized heavily. No other sport lets such bs go on. If you want to act then go be in a play.
Nor does one have to act like Vinny Jones to not be a nancy boy.. Just play the game like a man.
The argument I have against instant feedback is that it boils down the ref's decision to minor details that have little to do with the play or the intention of the players.
The real power of the Ref is that if he believes that a player's action was dangerous in any way then that action can and must be sanctioned, even if a fault was never actually committed. An instant replay may show a hand ball, but if the hand ball is considered by the ref to be unintentional then it is irrelevant. That is where the instant video feedback would mess up the flow of the game and undermine the Ref's role in the field.