Sport Comment: Time to introduce instant justice in football
SEPP Blatter should be spending this morning examining a re-run of Stuart Hogg’s dismissal during Scotland’s Six Nations defeat in Cardiff at the weekend.
A late tackle on Wales’ Dan Biggar saw the Scot handed a yellow card, which was then upgraded to red when the referee saw the replay on the stadium’s big screen.
Why Sepp should be watching that is his and Fifa’s repeated inability to acknowledge that instant justice is the correct way to deal with similar incidents in football.
The game’s refusal to treat its customers as adults, by never showing replays within stadiums of even the mildest of contentious moments, is bad enough.
Not even considering the introduction of a sin-bin is worse, compounded by the outmoded retrospective judicial system of the totting up of yellow cards. The decision to send off two Chelsea players on Saturday cost them the game against Aston Villa and may have a major bearing on the destination of the championship.
Having finally embraced the concept of goal-line technology, what is stopping football from moving another step closer to the 21st century by introducing video referrals? Stop the clock when a bad tackle, which may or may not warrant a red card, is committed. Ask the man in the van if it’s a sending off offence. Show it on the big screen. The outcome of the match will be affected instantly.
It is a huge anachronism that the most powerful sport, football, is also the most conservative. What happened to Hogg on Saturday will doubtless happen to footballing miscreants in 20 years, but not before. In the meantime, other sports continue to show Sepp how it should be done.