Is football becoming a non-contact sport?

Tackles use to come flying in, left, right and centre. Players got up and got on with it, without rolling around and complaining to the ref, trying to get the other play booked. Football has changed since then.
We are seeing refs give teams free kicks for tackles which the older generation would class as ‘acceptable’. A fair hard tackle now is classed as ‘borderline’ foul. Is this because refs are becoming more protection or players making over the top reactions?

I little brush of shoulders with a player and someone will usually go down looking for a free kick. Can’t you go shoulder to shoulder anymore without someone going down to easily? The same could be said when you challenge for the ball. When a ball gets hoofed up field you usually see the striker and defender go up for the ball. If the defender doesn’t win the header they get the free kick, for what? Because the ref thinks the striker leant into him, or something similar.

You do see the odd ‘hard’ player liking to slide tackle and go in hard, but can they do it without being called a dirty player? No. The only time there are hard tackles where you can get away with it more are local derbies because of the rivalry and intensity of the game and fans.

Continental referees and players making it more of a basketball style game, in terms on contact and are they affecting the way our refs look at the game. In Europe players go down fairly easily and this has come across to the UK around 5 years ago. When you see a CL game you notice players will go down a lot easier than normal. The referees usually give them the decisions as well, not letting the game to flow. This is slowly ruining the beautiful game and the flow of some games.

Some teams rely on playing a physical style of game, Stoke and Blackburn. Sooner or later they will have to adapt their playing style as it may be to physical for the game. Barcelona and (modern)Arsenal on the other hand are more of the fluent style of football. Get the ball and keep it.

This is my first blog, I hope you liked it.

Thank you for reading.


Last edited by moscowmadeit3 on Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:18 pm; edited 1 time in total