I’ve approached the situation of tackling in English football previously in two posts, in both instances it was (in my opinion) that the tacklers had been deemed ‘dirty’ because of the resulting injuries caused. So let’s delve into the mire once more with two much talked about tackles this week – one from Vincent Kompany and another from Glen Johnson.
The Rules As They Exist
Let’s start this with a FIFA definition of Serious Foul Play:
A player is guilty of serious foul play if he uses excessive force or brutality against an opponent when challenging for the ball when it is in play.
A tackle that endangers the safety of an opponent must be sanctioned as serious foul play.
The great problem with the rules as they currently stand is the perception of what is deemed as Serious Foul Play by any individual. If there are rules and guidelines covering two-footed tackles I couldn’t find them (and if you can please share!) – however it’s generally accepted in the Premier League that any tackle which is either two footed, off the ground or with studs showing is considered Serious Foul Play. The punishment for Serious Foul Play is a sending off.
So, given that review of the FIFA rules on Serious Foul Play and if we accept that two footed, off the ground, studs showing tackles are to be deemed as Serious Foul Play, then it’s fairly straight forward to assess both incidents, i.e they’re both examples of Serious Foul Play.
The Problem Injuries Cause
Again I’ve discussed this in previous posts, but I believe we often see the severity of a tackle measured against the resulting injury (or lack of injury) as a marker on how fair a tackle was, rather than a clear assessment based on the rules. My two previous examples were that of Ryan Shawcross on Aaron Ramsey and Nigel De Jong on Hatem Ben Arfa, in both situations those players tackled suffered terrible injuries and long periods of time out of the game, both tacklers were sent off and heavily criticised in the process, in my opinion both tackles were not cases of Serious Foul Play, but produced unfortunate injuries for the tackled player because of ever so slightly late timing and an awkward fall respectively.
The two tackles we’re looking at today follow this same pattern, the difference is that they’re both clear examples of Serious Foul Play, however this time no-one was injured in the process. That certainly played a part in the referee deeming that the tackle by Glen Johnson was not Serious Foul Play when by the FIFA laws it clearly was. On Soccer Saturday (Sky Sports 1) after the Vincent Kompany tackle the panel proceeded to put their case against the sending off of Kompany because he barely touched the player and there was no injury caused, I expect a similar reaction today to that of Glen Johnson, because he made even less contact.
Stamping Out Horror Tackles
When the discussion comes around about ‘Horror Tackles’ absolutely everyone demands action, I feel that in these two high profile cases, whilst both received different outcomes I believe the reaction to the tackles has been extremely poor. Rather than the debate surrounding why Glen Johnson wasn’t sent off, it’s been based around why Kompany was and how it can be a case of Serious Foul Play if no-one was injured. There’s somewhat of a contradiction here, it seems the footballing community want’s to stamp out bad tackles in order to avoid serious injuries, but to only send players off if a tackle results in an injury. This is not stamping out horror tackles.
My concern is that here we have had two prime opportunities to say that uncontrolled tackles, jumping in with both feet off the ground, studs showing, is entirely unacceptable. Let me put this to you, if Lescott is half a yard closer to the ball when Johnson dives in? Lescott almost certainly breaks his leg as a result – is the tackle by Johnson then deemed Serious Foul Play?
To Surmise My Rant
In my opinion the position of the player being tackled does not directly influence the severity and in both instances the tackles appeared to be clear cases of Serious Foul Play. Players are injured for the most innocuous of tackles, a straight 50:50 challenge, a clash when heading the ball, the most basic of tackles all cause the most terrible injuries – and when this happens those players are deemed to have committed Serious Foul Play, they’re attacked by the footballing community and in the case of Ryan Shawcross their careers suffer as a result.
In complete contrast the tackles discussed here are clearly the most basic cases of dangerous tackles which can cause terrible injuries, if both had resulted in broken bones for the tackled player then I guarantee both players are sent off, and the tackled players were very luckily that wasn’t the case.
English football needs to get off its high horse on a number of topics and this is one of those.
We want to see tackling in the game
Our game is physical and tackles are part of that
These are the traditional exclamations and I don’t disagree, but we need safe tackles and we need to be consistent about which types of tackles are dangerous, we need to stop sending players off for fair tackles that result in injuries – but more importantly than that, we need to start sending players off for dangerous tackles, clear instances of Serious Foul Play, regardless of the presence of injury.
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