Andy Wrote:And more to the point, why let them get away with it? If dissent became a sending-off offence, you'd have a fortnight of red card carnage, followed by a totally transformed game.
I know the question was meant to be rhetorical,
but . . .
Football is a pantomime. It has villains - Robbie Savage, Ronaldo - for the audience to boo and hiss; heroes like little Mickey Owen and Jamie salt-of-the Eeeerth Carragher; ogres like Wayne Rooney and Martin Keown, and pantomime dames like Big Ron Atkinson and latterly Old Puce Face. You have to allow the hissy fits, theatricals and tantrums to keep the crowd interested during the long periods of drudgery in between the 'dying fish' flopping about mentioned above.
Rugby is a sport played by men.
The bone-jarring, car-crash tackling is enthralling. All those homicidal maniacs charging about churning up the turf, yet the ref makes a decision - often an easily debatable one - and they all get on with it. They also take to knocking seven bells out of each other now and again but hey, nobody's perfect. Oh, and they have great Guinness ads.
You can tell I've got tickets for the All Blacks v France, can't you?
On a serious note, I absolutely agree with Andy on the ref-hounding.
Yesterday's Roy Keane is today's John Terry - the England Captain (sic) no less. Meet the new thug, same as the old thug. It seems the authorities have learned nothing and acheived less in the last ten years. Red cards . . . or docked points perhaps? Fiscal penalties would of course be a farce. It's mostly the rich clubs that seem to believe in their divine right to alter the ref's decision. They'd happily cough up a few sheckles to keep a firm grasp on the throat of equity and order.
[SIZE="1"]Climbs off soap box, trudges off mumbling darkly . . .[/SIZE]
Hopefully this has now been eradicated, at least for a short while.