Birdthistle on the World Cup—Release the Lawyers

Professor William Birdthistle continues his stint as a guest blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy with two new posts on World Cup soccer and sports law. In the first, “The World Cup stumbles out of the gate: Release the lawyers” (6/13), he explores the controversial ruling issues raised in the tournament’s rough beginning:

In the 71^st minute [of the opening match between Brazil and Croatia], referee Yuichi Nishimura enhanced the stench of FIFA’s match-fixing rumors with his atrocious award of a penalty from a very soft encounter between Fred and Lovren. Fred’s gentle tumble should have won him a Life Alert necklace, not a penalty. And so we arrived at our first legal opportunity of the new tournament: should managers have a challenge via television replay?

FIFA’s brother leader, Sepp Blatter, has proposed the idea of allowing managers to challenge two decisions per match. And this tournament’s first game clearly illustrated how pivotal such a rule could be: had Croatia been able to challenge that penalty, Nishimura’s decision would almost certainly have been overruled. The game would then have stood at 1-1, a precarious balance for the hosts that could easily have produced a wonderfully tense final 20 minutes. Instead, one awful and unreviewable judicial ruling altered the outcome of the entire game. (The third Brazil goal was a combination of Croatia’s desperation to equalize and their goalkeeper’s lead feet.)

Purists usually argue that reviews are antithetical to the free flow of the game. But when the referee’s ruling leads to a stoppage in play anyway — as in this instance — the marginal delay of a review could be minimal.

Continue reading at The Volokh Conspiracy→

In the second post, “Ten preliminary rulings on the World Cup” (6/16), Birdthistle reviews the “crests” and “troughs” of the World Cup after 11 games:

After our first 11 games and the World Cup’s inaugural weekend, we’ve seen some world-class crests and troughs in this initial wave of football.

The Troughs.

1. ESPN’s Conspiracy of Oafs.

Is there any greater blight upon the viewing of this World Cup than the smug buffoonery of Alexi Lalas?  For all the great pains ESPN has taken to import quality commentators to call the games (without mentioning the cursed auld onion bag), they are sending viewers lurching for the remote when Mike Tirico pretends he’s friends with Lalas back in the studio.  Bringing in true soccer giants like Ruud van Nistelrooy and Gilberto Gilberto Silva has potential — and Roberto Martinez is a proven expert of the game — but much of the guests’ footballing nous is impeded by their lack of English fluency.  Their modesty then leaves the least qualified person on the set free to bellow his inanities.  Despite the haircut and shave, Lalas never looks more than one beer away from giving Tirico a wedgie.

2. Officiating, specifically along the sidelines.

Ah, the deep question of this World Cup: what is offside?  And its companion: how do we transmit this information to the sidelines of Brazil?  At least three clear goals have incorrectly been ruled out by an atrocious ruling of a phantom offside.  Unlucky Mexico was brutalized by two of these calls from the same flag-happy nemesis in their first half against Cameroon.  Then Switzerland saw a beautiful dummy nullified by more uninformed guesswork from an assistant referee against Ecuador.  The offside call can, of course, be a close one if defender and attacker are even, but none of these three examples was terribly difficult to call.  In fact, the Mexico goal from a corner was so clearly good that the referee should have overruled the linesman.  Perhaps our officials can adopt a rule of lenity — better 10 questionable goals go in than one good goal be ruled out?

See all 10 at The Volokh Conspiracy→