Super Injunction XI

"Love Rat" footballers are constantly providing the Tabloid papers with news, so much so that it is possible to put together quite a good team together. (only quite good due to the inclusion of the most famous Terry brother; Paul)

The team is managed of course by none other than Sven Goran Eriksson


                                                 Peter Shilton

    Jamie O'Hara      Paul Terry         John Terry        Ashley Cole

    Joe Cole           Ryan Giggs       Frank Lampard    George Best

                                                 

                           Wayne Rooney     Stan Collymore

Admittedly not every player is in their 'normal' position but we're sure they won't mind as they have been caught in far more compromising positions throughout their careers.


And yes, we know that not all the players featured bothered wasting their money on a super injunction.

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Are the rules there to be broken?

Written by David Richardson and The Hand of Blog

One thing that a lot of people seem to do is question rules and also break them; we’re talking about all rules here, from the Ten Commandments to diving in a football match. Funnily enough it seems a lot of footballers often manage to break all eleven of those at some point during their careers. For now, let’s just focus on the rule that concerns handling the ball and whether the fine line between intentional and unintentional handling needs to be clearer.

One of the most commonly heard phrases at a football match is; "HANDBALL!". This isn’t just when there is an actual handball of course, it happens whenever the ball goes near a players arm. But what really is handball? In FIFA's Laws of the Game 2005, Law 12 says a free-kick or penalty will be awarded if a player;

 "handles the ball deliberately (except for the goalkeeper within his own penalty area)".

‘Deliberately’ is the key word here. This suggests why a penalty was given against Manchester United's Patrice Evra during a match against West Ham earlier this season. Evra's arms were in an 'unnatural position' (at head height) when struck by the ball but Evra clearly didn't intentionally try and handle the ball.

However, former Premier League referee David Elleray has said the referee's interpretation depends on whether the hand or arm is in an "unnatural" position at the point of contact. This suggests why referee, Lee Mason, gave the penalty but the FIFA rule is that the player must deliberately handle the ball, which Evra didn't do. The rule doesn't state anything about the players arm being in an ''unnatural” position. Coincidently, in the same game, West Ham's Matthew Upson was penalised for handball inside the Hammers penalty area. Upson’s arms were by his side when United's full back, Fabio Da Silva, tried to cut the ball back. How could Upson have got his arm out of the way of the ball from 3 yards away? And this time the offending arm wasn't in an unnatural position.

It seems strange is that there is no clear rule set out by FIFA regarding unintentional handball. It is left up to the discretion of the referees. This can be seen from two completely viewpoints;

1. It’s good that the referees have more control over what are difficult and contentious decisions.
2. It’s bad because without a set rule or guidelines, a handball decision could completely change depending on which referee was officiating as they are left to come up with their own rules on when a handball is unintentional within a split second of the event occurring.

Handballs and the resulting decisions made by a referee can be incredibly controversial in football, especially when they occur inside the penalty area. So surely for such a difficult and often confusing thing, the best course of action for FIFA to take would be to clarify the rules surrounding unintentional handballs. But then again, how can you actually tell the difference between an intentional and unintentional handball….

All this then begs the question....should FIFA justify certain rules of the beautiful game?

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2011 South Pacific Games Football – Fiji

In the sporting world, Fiji are best known for rugby rather than football but the game is growing in popularity after some good results at the South Pacific Games and OFC Nations Cup in recent years.

Fiji were the silver medallists in the last South Pacific Games, losing narrowly to New Caledonia. Together with 2007’s winners, they have to be considered one of the favourites for Gold this time around.

The Fijians are currently ranked by FIFA at 156^th (04/05/11) in the World and although they have never qualified for a World Cup, they are a force to be reckoned with in the South Pacific and cannot be taken lightly later this summer. Since the Games began, Fiji have been in the medals no fewer than 7 times. However, they have only gone home with Gold medals twice in their 10 appearances at the Games. 

Roy Krishna

The man who can help make Fiji 3 time winners this year is Roy Krishna; their 23 year old star striker. Krishna plays his club football for Waitakere United in New Zealand and has scored 31 goals in his 58 appearances for the club. His performances have earned him the New Zealand Player of the Year award and he will be hoping he can be the man to guide Fiji to Gold in August.

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