NFR - Zat Knight Creates An Interesting Test Case

[White Noise]

Why Zat Knight treatment farce showed Fifa must change football's injury laws


By David Maddock

Published 11:28 15/02/11

Recommend (6)


For almost six, interminable minutes at the Reebok Stadium on Sunday, we were provided with the most compelling evidence of the need for an important rule change in football.

In a rare dangerous moment, Everton striker Victor Anichebe dashed free of the defensive line, and unleashed a powerful shot, blocked only by the desperate, and impressive, intervention of the Bolton centre half Zat Knight.

Both players were injured in the challenge, requiring physios to scurry onto the field to administer the magic sponge. After a lengthy stoppage, play resumed, and as is the current regulation, both players were eventually waved back onto the field of play.

Knight stepped across the white line, took three strides forward, and promptly crashed to the turf once more. Further consultation was required, further scratching of the heads, and further numbing delay, before finally a stretcher was summoned and he was carted off the pitch.
 
In all, the episode took around six minutes, and any momentum Everton may have built with the attack and the subsequent corner was lost...for the rest of the game, as it happened.

Predictably, despite the length of the stoppage, the referee only added three minutes at the end of the first period, meaning that the paying customers both within the stadium and watching at home on TV, were criminally short-changed.

Knight was clearly injured, and with that there can be no complaint. But was the injury serious enough to warrant such lengthy on-field treatment? Twice!

Where was the sense in the referee allowing him come back on again to instantly collapse once more...and be treated while play was again held up?! It was a senseless, insulting delay to the fans.

It is unlikely that any of Fifa's notorious carpet-baggers were at the Reebok, or indeed, at any football match outside a showcase final, but had the game's governing body actually bothered to watch their sport in recent years, they would have realised by now how much change is required.

Too often, incidents like the one described above, are allowed to happen in football, shortening dramatically the length of time any football is actually played. And it has gone too far.

Injuries, and their subsequent treatment, are now used tactically, to break up play, and waste time at crucial moments in the contest. So many games in the Premier League are made tedious in the extreme by such antics. Watch La Liga, for instance, and the problem is even worse there.

Yet other sports show there is a simple way to stop what is effectively cheating, and cheating of the worst kind. In both rugby codes, when a player is injured, physios are allowed onto the pitch while play continues.

If the injury is deemed serious enough, then play stops and the match official calls for the clock to be stopped, to allow the unfortunate victim to be removed.

If it works in such contact sports as League and Union, who both have offside lines, then why not football? With one small change of the rules, an odious form of cheating could be wiped out, and supporters could get more value for their hard-earned money.

It needn't stop there, either. Time-wasting is another intensely irritating malaise of the modern game, but this too could be made redundant by the use of a match clock, and the officials' sensible judgement of when to stop it, just as in rugby.

Imagine a game where feigning injury would penalise a side, not reward their cheating? Such justice would be wonderfully poetic, and would wipe out the practice swiftly.

Games would be allowed to flow more, and sides would be able to build pressure on a more sustained level, without recourse to time-wasting antics.

Before Bolton fans start complaining, I'm not suggesting that Knight or their team were cheating, but merely that the introduction of such a sensible rule would have eliminated the six minute delay they were forced to endure in the miserable rain of Sunday afternoon.

It is change the game requires desperately, and one that Fifa could implement quickly, without fuss, given the precedent in other similar sports.

If only we could get their delegates out of the free bar long enough to witness the need for change.



Read more: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/david-maddock/David-Maddock-Why-Bolton-Everton-Zat-Knight-treatment-farce-showed-Fifa-must-change-footballs-injury-laws-article698081.html#ixzz1E6UUhl2T

[BalDrick]

Thoughts I have every time I watch a rugby match on TV, along with the respect the players show the referee. Not sure you'll ever change football in some ways though...

[AlFayedsChequebook]

Whilst I agree they should just stop the clock, Zat had a pretty horrific Knee ligament injury and is not out for 6 mnths, so maybe not the best person to claim has 'cheated'.

[BalDrick]

Whilst I agree they should just stop the clock, Zat had a pretty horrific Knee ligament injury and is not out for 6 mnths, so maybe not the best person to claim has 'cheated'.

I didn't read that as accusing Zat of cheating, more just divagating on an incident to make a wider point, one well worth making.

[Lighthouse]

Not sure allowing a Physio on during a game would work in our sport. The speed of pass, unlike Rugby would mean the real danger of players passing into the area where he is working could cause problems. Either by accident or design.

The latest thing is forwards  going down in the area and staying there causing problems for defenders during attacks. So players gind ways of gaining an advantage anyway.

The only solution is for referees to simply add on the correct injury time. Or for us to have a referee physio to assess a player during treatment. If the referee thinks a player is cheating then  he should take the correct action. Sadly though the game is partly about cheating now. What we need are better referees.

[duffbeer]

In American college football (soccer) they stop the clock and I quite like it.  No worrying that my team will be cheated out of valuable minutes.  Takes power away from the referee which I think is needed in the game today.  Another option would be to make the injured player stay out of the match for an amount of time equal to the time they wasted, but that would be problematic I think.

I saw this match and it was so clear Knight was injured that I couldnt believe they didnt know better than to let him back on the pitch.  I dont think they did it on purpose, but it seemed very uswise.  And the second time he should've been carted off immediately

[Jimpav]

I would say that the amount of time added on also depends on the result.

Bolton were 2-0 up and the match was as good as won. Six minutes of injury time would not realistically be enough to change this scoreline given the way Bolton had dominated in the rest of the match.

If it has been 2-1 and Everton were still in with a shout then it would have made sense to keep playing.

Secondly the seriousness of the injury also seems to have an affect. For example if a player is knocked unconcious or has a very obvious breakage then the stoppage does seem to take this into account and it's not uncommon to see 6-7 minutes of injury time.

[The Bronsons]

Not sure about physios on the pitch during play. But 100% behind taking the watch away from the referree and putting a big game clock in the ground that stops, visibly, every time the ball is out of play - including throw-ins (Delap), goalkeepers poncing around in their penalty box, and badgers breakdancing on the pitch.

[HatterDon]

The 800 lb gorilla in the corner is the two-hour time slots these matches have around the world. Too much injury time means incomplete matches for those who record them. That, more than anything else, contributes to the amount.

Another, somewhat related, conundrum is the fact that one often sees 1 or even 0 minutes added to the end of a first half where there's no injury or bother, yet I'm hard pressed to remember as few as 2 minutes added on to the second 45 under the same circumstances.