Football: The injury vs pandering margin
During the World Cup, I keep seeing images like the following.
It is interesting, there is a lot of play acting in the masterful sport that is Football. It is a pity, as if players just got on with the game we would see longer periods of amazing skill and tactical insights.
However, people play act as they believe that the expected benefit of doing so exceeds the cost, the chance of getting a fake penalty, or getting another player sent off is greater than the expected cost of not doing so. Yes these are often spur of the moment decisions in of themselves, but these players train and build up a knowledge of doing this BECAUSE they expect the benefits to be greater than the costs.
This is a function of what the referees do. For players to be unfairly sent off, or an unfair penalty to be put in place, the referees must sometimes give those. This isn’t their fault, even for professional referees it is impossible to make the perfectly right call. However, given the uncertainty refs do have a choice – they can be more lenient of tackles or stronger on giving cards for tackles.
If they are more lenient, then they will give less “wrong decisions” too divers, but they will also let tacklers get away with rough tackles. As a result, a more lenient ref will increase the chance of injury for a player which can end up in a claim with the Personal Injury Lawyers Philadelphia Pennsylvania for an act of negligence!
This is the choice that has to be made when training refs and setting rules – where along the “injury” vs “diving” scale is FIFA and the national authorities willing to set things? Greater number of brain injuries mean famous players being out for longer, and lower revenue for these organization, so they have to seek compensation by hiring an expert traumatic brain injury lawyer near me.
Of course, there is a possible way to lower the benefit from diving and reduce the chance of injury – improving referee calls. This is where technology can come in. Let’s see if that happens at some point 😉
And check how Cohen Law Group can help you in similar situations.
Call me when they’ve fixed this and I’ll then consider watching soccer.
Sure, the players are just responding to the incentives the refs and the rules set out. And so was that Australian who bowled underarm. In a real sport, with players of character, crap like that draws strong informal sanction even if it is consistent with the rules and incentives. A sport so depraved that all players reduce to freaking 5 year olds whining for mummy… intolerable.
http://lockerdome.com/menshumor/6169672236142657/6786337063964692
Toby Manhire managed to sum up my feelings on this nicely – “Feigned injuries at the World Cup are annoying. But not as annoying as the moaning about it from people who become sudden experts in football for a month every four years.”