Essay on Football Rules

Football has the most outdated, ineffective, and inept rules amongst professional sports. Firstly, football rules do not protect players well enough. Creative, technical players can be fouled constantly with little or no prejudice for defenders. Free kicks and yellow cards, the most usual punishment, are little deterrent. In fact, most times defenders get away with it. On the other hand, red cards and penalties are extreme punishments. A penalty shot has over 50% chances of being converted in goal while a red card, depending on the time left to play, can put a team in a huge disadvantage. Therefore, the rules are designed to punish harshly or almost not punish at all.

This would not be a big problem if rules were strongly enforced. Unfortunately, that does not happen and errors in football abound. The limited number of referees and the lack of professionalism by many referees implies that errors are common in football. Unfortunately, referee errors in football can be extremely costly since the punishments can be extreme. In basketball, for instance, an error by a referee may cost one or two points. In football, an error may cost a goal or make a team play outnumbered for half a game.

Other professional sports such as basketball, rugby, futsal, and ice hockey have already evolved to deal with these situations. On one hand, some sports already feature video referees and benefit from new technologies. Moreover, most of these sports have balanced punishments such as blue cards, free throws, etc. Certainly, all of these sports lack the nearly "orgasmic" nature of football, which is part of football's passion. Nevertheless, the laws of football must evolve in the same way other sports have evolved in recent