Podolski, Aird and refs.

Day -448 WorldCup2018

I said I would, or that I maybe would, so here's a shorter version of what I wrote yesterday and cyberspace stole.

Old news now but Lukas Podolski played his last match for Germany yesterday and scored a stunning goal, the only one in the Germany-England friendly. I always enjoyed watching Podolski over the years. It feels like it was many, many years and I cant believe he is only 31.

Also, yesterday, Scotland played Canada. It was an embarrassing 1-1 draw. Before you think I'm going to make a joke about how Canada should be ashamed for not being able to beat one of Europe's minnows, it was Scotland I meant who should be embarrassed. But the story was about Fraser Aird who scored Canada's goal. Aird's parents are Rangers fans who moved to Canada from Scotland. It was a dream come true for Fraser, and his parents, when he signed for Rangers when he was 16. There must be some irony in him scoring against the country where he grew up as a footballer.

I also had referees in my head. A couple of days ago Fifa announced that they had banned Ghanaian referee from football for life. He was found guilty of breaching an articles of the Fifa Disciplinary Code, "unlawfully influencing match results." Lamptey was the ref of the South Africa-Senegal World Cup qualifier last November. He awarded a penalty to South Africa for handball when replays clearly showed the ball hit the defender's knee. South Africa won 2-1 and are now in joint first place in their group, a point ahead of Senegal. Fifa will announce later if the match result will stand. If Lamptey "influenced" the match result, then it only seems fair that the players should have the opportunity to set it straight.

It reminded me of a story at the other end of the spectrum of referee's behaviour. Earlier this month two thousand amateur refs in England went on strike to protest against the abuse they receive from players, parents and fans, and the lack of support from the English FA. The strike campaign was started by an 18 year old who said he has been "headbutted, spat at and punched".

A couple of weeks ago a fight broke out in an Under 19 match in Malta between Gzira and Swieqi. It became more violent than a scuffle and one of the Swieqi players was knocked unconscious when he was kicked in the face. This brings up the argument of sporting discipline versus criminal charges and where the boundaries lie. But that's an argument for another day. Look up Duncan Ferguson for reference.

After the incident the president of Swieqi, in an interview with Tim Diacono in the Malta Today, said that this type of violence is a regular occurrence in youth football in Malta.

"Fenech said that an Under-17 game had to be abandoned last week after a player attacked the referee."

"Elsewhere, an entire team chased the referee off the pitch after he sent their goalkeeper off for foul language. Fenech said that the referee had to lock himself up in the ground’s bar and that the players only stopped in their tracks after he personally took a video of them and warned them to stop."

In Italy the head of the Italian Refereeing Association has pleaded with the media to stop over-analysing every refereeing decision that might be seen to influence a match result. He said all the critics think "of their own interests and not about the good of the game" and "they hurt the image of Italian football."

Ok, that was a longer version than yesterday. And it's still all here!