If we all would now some storys that I have heard from some referees… you can only hope this things don’t happen in the UK because you would stop going to games.
Unfortunatly not every person is honest and does the right thing all the time.

Wikipedia has a short article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Zheyun

It seems to remain a bit of an open case, especially because Ye has more or less disappeared.

I was hoping you might have something to add to this?

There was confusion about the penalty but in the end referee got it right. I did not watch the entire first half though. In the penalty I think you saw what the extra referees mean. The referees positioning changes when ball goes to the area, he does not have to be so close and gets a better overall view.

If I understood it correctly, the extra ref called the penalty (correctly), but the referee who was a bit further, carded Hangeland who did not commit the foul. After lots of hand waving and moaning from the players and probably a little chat with the extra ref, he then showed the card to the correct player. The extra refs talk through the headset so I can’t be sure.

What do you think of the experiment so far Walter? I think it has potential but it’s early days so the jury is still out.

You have to feel for Fulham, they defended bravely and worked really hard and Roma missed a penalty. Not often you can say that it was a good penalty and still the keeper got to it. And such last minute equalizer. You can’t blame Paintsil for heading the ball instinctively, but can’t help to think that Schwarzer would have got that one without his interfering.

De Bleeckere seriously had a bad game, there I agree. Also whoever was the ref in the Lazio-Villarreal yesterday made a few bad decisions.

Btw, yesterday in one of the Europa League games we saw a rare occasion were rules are a bit strange and some referees don’t remember the rule, many players don’t remember it and most fans don’t know it. As you know, in a penalty, the player who takes it, may not touch the ball second time before another player has done so. From this comes a bit strange conclusion: If you hit the crossbar (or the post) and the ball comes straight back to you and you score from it, the goal does not count because no player touched it. This happened in one of the games yesterday, the player instinctively went for the deflection and headed in. The goal was disallowed and some players looked a bit confused but seemed to remember it quickly.

And now that we talk of that kind of players: Keane is a person who I would put in the same list. If you go in a tackle with the purpose of ending someones career and when you succeed in it and then later on admit you did it with that intention…. than you are a criminal.
Every time I hear his name I have to throw up and even when Wenger said some good things of him as a manager … well this was one of the rare occasions I totaly disagreed with our manager.

“Down at the Emirates, Liam Ridgewell flew into a challenge on Theo Walcott and, yes, played the ball first. But he then wiped out the Arsenal winger.

The speed at which Ridgewell went into the tackle and the angle of his approach made it impossible for him to avoid Walcott. The challenge endangered the safety of the opponent and therefore should have been punished.

Referee Lee Probert played on, Walcott was stretchered off and now faces a scan on his knee. When will pundits stop condoning such challenges by saying that the tackler played the ball?

Later in the same game, Birmingham scored a goal to get themselves back into the game for a while. Watch the footage of that goal and you will see a blatant foul on the Arsenal goalkeeper Vito Mannone by Sebastian Larsson. The giveaway is when Larsson looks over his shoulder to spot Mannone in order to impede him.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1221244/GRAHAM-POLL-Darren-Bents-beach-ball-winner-Liverpool-wasnt-farce-nightmare-weekend-Premier-League-refs.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0UgmTVCNF

And your view confirmed my point: a clean tackle from the front and back will most likely be the one that only touch the ball without any ‘real’ physical contact to the receiving player. And when does tackling the ball ever break someone’s leg or hurt cruciate ligaments? People like to think that this is a tough and physical game but they overlook things and blindly think that touching the ball grant the players rights to call a bad tackle a clean one.

Thanks anyway, it’s not often they we get a fair view from a real referee with real brain and common sense.

What annoys me even more is that there is now this idea that there was a more manly time in football when you could go right through your man (whether you got the ball or not) as Ridgewell did. It’s been against the rules of the game for all of my lifetime.

I come close to exploding when people tell me that by booking a player for bad tackles we’re risking removing contact from the game. Bollocks to the degree of nonsense.

In the old days, the hard men of the game didn’t whine about getting booked. Players made nasty tackles and didn’t even look at the referee as they got booked. They just got on with it.

Why do the public think players getting booked for bad tackles is death? No, you get booked and you get on with it.

Whatever we feel about Graham Poll, he at least comes out with the truth in a sensible way this time. Kudos to him.

Later in the same game, Birmingham scored a goal to get themselves back into the game for a while. Watch the footage of that goal and you will see a blatant foul on the Arsenal goalkeeper Vito Mannone by Sebastian Larsson. The giveaway is when Larsson looks over his shoulder to spot Mannone in order to impede him.

Personnaly I would introduce the following rules to solve a lot of problem with referee.

1) Fourth Referee to be in charge of time keeping.

2) Change the card system and set a more precise type of fouls: involuntary/clumsy fouls, technical fouls, cynical fouls, violent foul counts.

3) Introduce Sin Bin: the current red card is often seen as the nuke option and therefore second card is less given despite being deserved.

4) Only allow the captain to talk to the referee: any chat back is given either 10 yards loss at a free-kick or an extra technical foul.

5) Punish any violent and cynical fouls with a penalty and/or a sin bin wherever it takes place. Often you see the cynical fould stopping a move to develop or a counter-attack to take place. Often the offense take place in their own half and the refere judges as minor offense when really they are stopping a potential goal scoring opportunity.

I would also introduce the following technologies:

6) Goal detection bound technology: iw we can detec with GPS where we lost our mobile phine within 10 cm (military precision), we can detect if a ball has cross the line with pretty much enough eccuracy.

7) Video referee: The technology is there to introduce videa camero in the goal post, above the corners, above the half way line and quarter half line. The idea that will introduce delay is ridiculous as players arguing with the referee introduce more delay.

Spray paint: Most teams cheat at Free-kick. The refere put the ball at one place and teams systematically push the ball forward to gain an advantage. In one of the South American league, the referees have been given a spray paint to mark the free-kick and the wall. After a couple of minutes the paint dissolve itself. With the line visible for all, if you try cheating it is as visible as a bright orange point ot line on a green grass.

9) Distance measurer: Again at Free kick, no team retreat at the distance. They all seems to assume that the refere is incorrect in the distance. if the referee have a sonic length measurer and use the spray paint to indicate where the wall should be no argument possible.

10) Offside tracker: put a chip in avery player shirt or shoes, use a radio controlled laptop to chart in real time where everybody is. With the chip in the ball sensing when it has been kicked, you have a real time offside tracker.

On the game itself, I would change the following rules.

11) Four quarters: Instead of having 2 halves I would have 4 quarters of maybe 1/2 hours each.

12) Allow more changes: with the longer play time, more risk of injury or tireness. That would also mean that fringe player would have more opportunities.

13) Stop coaching staff to communicate with the players during play-time: Ban the manager and the coaching staff from the pitch side during play time and only allow physios, kit man and replacement players in today’s technical area. Communication is allowed only at the end of each quarter. by Removing the influence of the manager during the field of play, that will force players to think by themselves instead of having automatons. At International level in Rugby that is already the case, the manager is not allowed on the pitch except at half time. That why we keep having image of them in their little booth.

I know that some purist will tell me that it does not looks like Football anymore. I would response with the new backpass rule and the new offside rule todays’s football is failry different from 1970′s football.

Tackles from the side or even from behind can be safe, if the player making the challenge is good enough. Unfortunately the culture of the game has encouraged people like Ridgewell to make tackles, where basically they are out of control of their own bodies. The intent and focus therefore is/was not to play the ball.

I tried to find a clip of my favourite tackle, Bobby Moore on Pele: Moore tackles from the side/behind, but always in control, studs away from the striker, he wins control of the ball, cushions a fall by Pele onto to his own leg, a colleague plays on, and both striker and defender get up, and shake hands.
Unfortunately most defenders don’t have such ability, and most of the time are/were happy to actually hit the striker as well as the ball, and so such tackles needed to reduced by legislation. Maybe my memory, or the old footage (I wasn’t born then!) is deceiving me, but I thought that tackle was in this
game, where Moore also made this delightful toe poke challenge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMTL9Dm-nYo&feature=player_embedded

This is almost a frontal tackle, the difference being (with say a certain Martin Taylor), that the defender (Moore) was again completely in control of his movements, his feet glide along the turf and take the ball without endangering the striker, and he wins the ball!

Defenders such as Taylor/Ridgewell are cowards for the challenges they make.

Song tackles a little like Moore, sometimes he even reminds me of Beckenbauer with his little pirouettes. I sometimes feel sad that he doesn’t play as a CB, but in our fluid formation, he does play there anyway when Tommy or Willy go on a rampage, so all is well…