Spur of the moment
Frederic Kanoute
Surely it's time for the games' lawmakers to come up with a more effective way to address the issue of tactical fouling?
For the defending side, conceding an early free kick somewhere in the vicinity of the halfway line has always been the go-to way of nullifying a counter-attack when all else fails. Defenders will routinely pull the attacker to the ground before he can get away and have the chance to score.
As we know the resulting free kick from this type of tactical foul then allows the defending team to get all eleven players behind the ball, thus considerably reducing their chances of conceding.
And whilst the offender may indeed be penalised by a yellow, his manager knows that a second booking would equal a red card. So it's likely that managers are coaching their players to spread the dirty work around the team, with players being tasked to take turns in nobbling opponents when the need arises.
Each player is allowed to accumulate several bookings per half-season before it results in a ban, so sharing the bookings around is the obvious way to go.
All teams do it of course but it nowadays it seems much more prevalent amongst the elite teams, if only because they are the ones that regularly dominate possession and spend more of the game camped in the opponents half.
In fact it's hard to escape the conclusion that clubs such as Barca, RM, City and United are steadily and cynically pushing this particular ruse to the limit. The suspicion is that these clubs in particular specifically coach their players to exploit this glaring weakness in the rules on a more systematic basis because they are usually the ones that have the most to lose by not doing so.
They dominate possession so much they are at proportionately greater risk from the counter attack. Dropping points for these clubs may be much more costly than for say for a mid-table side because the top prizes are so much more critical to them. Teams near the bottom spend too much time desperately defending to indulge this type of tactical fouling.
An additional benefit to elite clubs is that by adopting these tactics on a routine basis they are also able to commit more of their players forward. They know that when the chips are down they can cheerfully take the hit of a free kick in a relatively safe area of the pitch.
As a result they appear to be ever more adept at illegally preventing opponents from getting anywhere near their goal. Thus it is that the existing punishment for a tactical foul routinely benefits the offending side rather than the victim.
Now it's tempting to suggest that a straight red might be all that's needed to put a stop to it once and for all, but how likely is it that refs will apply such a draconian sanction to what frequently appears to be relatively innocuous foul?
As @Raziel points out above, a lot of the time they are already allowing them to get away with it scot free anyway.
So the chances are that refs would end up resorting to such a radical solution in only the most extreme cases, where for example the tactical foul also involves serious foul play. Referees will naturally want to ensure that the game remains as competitive and entertaining as possible. Therefore their no 1 priority will continue to be to try and keep all 22 players on the pitch.
An alternative if equally drastic solution might be to punish all cynical and/or tactical fouls by awarding a penalty to the attacking REGARDLESS of where the offence takes place on the pitch.
Realistically though such a drastic remedy is just never going to happen.
All of which leaves us once again back where we started.
Unless someone has another more pragmatic solution?
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