Category: Soccer America Daily

The Chinese Olympic team and national team players were given crew cuts and put through a military-style boot camp, to “make the army’s spirit the national team’s soul,” said Chinese soccer federation co-director Nan Yong. The players practiced standing at attention, marching, running in formation and saluting. But two players ended up getting suspended from the Olympic team for asking an army officer a “lewd question.” Dai Lin, 19, and Jiang Chen, 21, had queried whether he had ever been with a prostitute.

During a Cameroon First Division game, Bamboutos FC’s coach calls Federal SC captain Nkoun a Rim to the sideline for a chat late in the second half after Federal tied the game, 2-2. Shortly afterward, Bamboutos captain Koss Roger hits the floor and acts injured. In full view of the spectators, already suspicious because of the sideline conference, Bamboutos’ trainer hands Roger an envelope. Roger returns to action and hands the envelope to Nkoun a Rim, who makes a lackluster effort in the play that leads to Bamboutos’ winning goal. Cameroon’s federation has relegated Bamboutos FC two divisions and has banned the officials and players involved in the incident for at least two years.

Cheating on the soccer field would decrease if we got rid of the referees, says Gijs van Oenen, a professor of ethics, legal philosophy and social philosophy at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. According to Ode magazine, van Oenen theorizes that in soccer-sans-refs there would be more arguments at first, “but soon players would realize those arguments were solvable.” Because officials are merely stand-ins for the rule books, players would in their absence begin following the rules, figures van Oenen.

Soccer’s 3-to-22 officials-to-player ratio is significantly lower than all major sports. Finally FIFA, the game’s world governing body, has approved an experiment with two additional referees. At the Club World Cup competition in Japan in December, two goalmouth referees will be used in addition to the referee and the two assistant referees (linesmen). FIFA’s new Strategic Committee, chaired by
UEFA president Michel Platini, confirmed the experiment during the first meeting of FIFA’s new Strategic Committee. What exact role the two goalmouth referees will play has not yet been determined.