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Monday, June 28, 2010

Transparency is Bad?

FIFA--the world soccer organization--is going to solve its referee problem by limiting the replays of controversial calls.  Yep, rather than fixing the problem of having referees make poor, game-changing calls, they are going to limit the exposure of the mistakes.  Well, limit it to the live audience in attendance.  It is always better to cover things up than develop some new system or improve accountability, I always say.  Or not.

The problem is that since soccer is such a low-scoring game, getting just one call wrong is very much likely going to change the outcome.  And it seems to happen every other game during this World Cup.  Sure, controversy is good if it stimulates debate and interest, but if it turns off fans that begin to think that the game is a lottery which depends on which team a referee is going to punish, that might not be good for the game.

So, let's just not let folks know what is going on.  What a great solution!

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