Hasta La Ideas

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pLife is inherently unfair. It’s true in business, it’s true in love and it’s damn sure true in sports. But that doesn’t stop us from trying to apply technology and a little design to help even the odds; the original Blackberry and Match.com were ways to stack the odds in users’ favor, and much of American-style football is occupied with the review of instant replay./p

pBut the World Cup, as mandated by FIFA, allows no such thing./p

pThis year’s World Cup is seeing its fair share of refereeing controversy; U.S. sports coverage was awash with cries of Malian ref A HREF=”http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/worldcup/story/US-robbed-of-World-Cup-win-over-Slovenia-by-awful-referee-call?GT1=39011″ Koman Coulibaly “robbing” our boys of a gamechanging goal/A, and German press can’t be happy about the overly officious Yellow Card Mania that was the Germany vs. Serbia game. It’s even more frustrating when fans can clearly see the error of calls on the replay; the bar I watched Brazil vs. Ivory Coast at yesterday erupted into derisive jeers after Kaka’s send-off, when the slow-mo clearly showed Kader Keita pretending he had been hit in the face when no such thing had happened. (Watch the replay below, starting at about 0:15. It’s pretty egregious.)/p

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pBut the refs can’t see the replays, and ever since A HREF=”http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football-fifa-rejects-video-replays-for-referees-1270737.html” their 1997 ruling/A, FIFA has been clear: Video replays will not be allowed to determine referee calls./p

pWhy? One answer provided is that soccer/football is inherently a game of flow, and they don’t want to interrupt matches to have the ref running off-field to review a TV after every foul; indeed, one of the reasons I enjoy watching World Cup matches is that a 45-minute half is pretty much 45 actual minutes, as opposed to the four-hour slog of an American Superbowl./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/design_technology_and_televised_sports_part_1_bring_me_an_iref_16779.asp”(more…)/a
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