Goal for World Cup: Get It Right!

Argentina's controversial goal in its World Cup round-of-16 win over Mexico is another example of the difficulty officials have when the demands put on them exceed the abilities of normal human vision. This goal marked the third time in the past few days (the second today) that officials obviously were wrong on a goal scored/not scored call.

The goal-scorer in this instance, Carlos Tevez, was clearly closer to the goal than any opponent--offsides--when the ball was kicked by Lionel Messi. We know that because we can view the instant replay from the side. However, no official was so fortuitously located.

The play, as is often the case in soccer, unfolded quickly. The offsides could not have been anticipated, and so no official could have hoped to get into a spot where he could view the play from that side angle.

In fact two defenders had Tevez nearly bracketed at the moment Messi kicked the ball, and by the time it reached Tevez, they were dead-even with him. The officials were naturally looking at Messi when he kicked it, and their eyes followed the ball to where it reached Tevez--who by then was no longer offsides.

The offsides rule is a difficult one to enforce accurately because it is based on where player A is when player B kicks the ball. Humans have two eyes but they cannot focus separately. We must shift our eyes'collective focus back and forth. During that process, time lapses and things change.

We can clearly see the advantages of instant replay:  a choice of viewing angles, the ability to freeze the picture frame, repeat viewing.

So why not give each team the opportunity to challenge up to, say, two scoring/not scoring calls per game? In soccer, where every goal is critical, it makes sense to bring in the instant replay on goals scored/not scored calls.

Play is stopped for a while anyway after a goal while the scorers celebrate and then everyone moves to midfield area. Give the coach, say 30 seconds after goal is scored to protest it.

Have the fourth official hooked-up to review the instant replay immediately and if the call appears questionable, bring in the referee to decide it. The referee remains the final arbiter so his/her authority is not undermined.

If the call is upheld, the challenging team is one-and-done in that department. If the call is reversed, the challenging team can do so one more time.

It's a bit trickier with goals that should have been counted but were missed--like England's in loss to Germany or USA's in draw with Slovenia. That's partly because play ordinarily continues after the non-goal.

Perhaps an electronic monitor could be triggered whenever the plane of the goal is broken. But they'd need to be able to distinguish between the ball and a player (pattern recognition), and/or have "hits" referred to instant replay. Quickly flagging these possible missed goal calls would avoid interrupting fast breaks going the other way. They might take a cue from the National Hockey League's use of sirens.

This system would work in the cases like the English goal that wasn't seen by the referee. The electronic trigger would alert the fourth official who would check the videotape. If it looks like a score (ball completely over the goal line), the referee would be asked to make a determination. If, however, it's ultimately ruled no-goal, play would simply resume at the place the ball was last touched by the team last touching it.

Probably most difficult to correct are subjective situations such as the USA goal that was disallowed because the referee thought there was a foul by the Americans on the play. Since the ball went in the net, a point was taken off the scoreboard--so it should definitely be a challengeable call. The challenge should be restricted to the call that caused the goal to be disallowed.

The coach should be given 30 seconds from the time the goal is disallowed to challenge the call. The referee would then review the videotape to determine whether the disallowance should stand or a goal be tallied.

July 2, 2010
The headline question of the day is: Can Ghana Gana Again? (Or: Is Ghana Gonna Gana Again?)

Steven (Starjet) Kearney

World Government Democracy: Regional System Proposal

An Open Letter to Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Barack Obama, President of the USA (Both of whom have called for a stronger, more effective U.N.)

World Government Regional System Proposal

Gentlemen:

The recent Copenhagen climate talks struggled to arrive at any definitive agreement on a matter of great importance to the entire world. The proceedings were full of posturing, finger-pointing and half-hearted promises.

A simple way to form a world governing board would be to give equal weight to each major region of the world. This arrangement should balance the democratic flavor of the UN General Assembly with the leadership character of the UN Security Council.

To arrive at the delineation of regions, it's sensible to model after existing organizations of voluntary affiliation meant for economic, social, cultural, scientific, and diplomatic purposes These include: The African Union (AU), The League of Arab States (AL), The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), The Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARI-COM), The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), The European Union (EU), and The Organization of American States (OAS).

A careful balancing of a variety of factors leads to something like this for regional groupings of the Earth:

* AmericA—Canada, Greenland, the USA mainland, Bermuda and Mexico.

* LatinA--The Americas from Belize south through Ecuador, including Brazil, and the Islands of the Caribbean.

* ArgenticA--South America from Peru south through Chile/Argentina (all but Brazil), the Falklands and the continent of Antarctica.

* EuropA--Iceland, Scandinavia, The British Isles, most of mainland Europe, Turkey and the Canaries.

* UrsA—Most of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

* ArabianA--Coastal Africa from Mauritania east through Somalia, and the Sinai Peninsula north through Syria and Iraq.

* AfricA--The continent except for part in ArabianA, and Madagascar.

* WestAsiA--India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran and most of the "-stan" lands.

* EastAsiA--China and the members of ASEAN.

* OceaniA--Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.

* JaponicA--Japan, the Koreas, northeast Siberia and Alaska.

That's 11 regions, 6 votes for a majority.

Captain Countries
No individual country within any given region should have more than 50 percent of that region's vote input. The likely 50%ers are USA, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, India, China, Japan and Australia. The regions of AfricA, ArabianiA and EuropA would be coalition-oriented from the get-go. Beyond the 50% rule, the allotment of voting percentages within each region would be guided by formula involving population, land size and value, and other factors.


Such a world governing board would derive strength from the strength of its regions, and would serve as a stepping stone to Earth's inevitable entry into larger realms. If we're going to one day officially interface with extraterrestrials, it helps to have our terrestrial situation in decent order.
　
Demographics
(Aspects considered in delineating regions include: geography, economy, population, affiliation, ethnicity, belief systems, history, culture, language, geo-politics, diversity, leadership, etc.)