Referees all over the world - start counting!

First there was discussion between gentlemen.
Then there were Umpires with the impartial Timekeeper to refer to.
Then came one Referee with Linesmen.
Then there were four Officials.
Then there were six Officials.
Then there was Goal Line Technology.
Then there was Video Assisted Refereeing.
Then ...

The football rules and the way to implement them on the pitch have evolved both before and after the founding of The Football Association and (later) the International Football Association Board. Many of the changes have been made to adapt the rules to the growing seriousness of the game and the remarkable speeding up of the play. You would also probably question if the level of gentlemanliness in today´s football is on a level high enough to do without referees.

The last few years, technology has been introduced to help the officials. From the voice communication system between the referee and the assistants, via Goal Line Technology we have lately became acquainted with Video Assisted Refereeing. So you would think that this, combined with the growing number of officials surrounding a game, would make every call crisp and clear. Well, think again. No one can say that the debate over right or wrong calls has disappeared or even diminished. Rather the IFAB, who is responsible for the rules through the yearly revised "The Laws of the game", seems to have put itself in a situation of being forced even to change the rules during a World Cup tournament. Moreover, many feel that a lot of the joy disappears when neither the players or the audience can be sure that a goal made will stand, when everything can be scrutinized by the VAR team.

I realize that there might be no way back in using technology that in theory should make the refereeing more correct. However, in parallell with that, I strongly would like us to go back to some basics that would make the play flow smoother, with fewer longueurs. There is a debate about the delays of play that are so common and so often destroy the flow of the game. Should football use effective playing time as in ice hockey or something in-between as in handball? I think it´s not necessarily a matter of changing the rules. To start with, it´s really about some simple reading and counting.

In Law number 13, section 3 you can read:
"..an opponent who deliberately prevents a free kick being taken quickly must be cautioned for delaying the restart of play.".
Please read it again:
"...an opponent who deliberately prevents a free kick being taken quickly must be cautioned for delaying the restart of play."
"Cautioned" means a yellow card. How many yellow cards have been given this season following this offence? How many would it take before we always would see the defending player take the proper position directly?

Law 12, section 2 states:
"An indirect free kick is awarded if a goalkeeper, inside their penalty area ......controls the ball with the hand/arm for more than six seconds before releasing it." If you start counting you´ll find that in many, not to say the most, cases it usually takes 7-8 seconds, and it´s not that unusual to see the keeper hold on to the ball even 10 seconds. I don´t think I ever have seen a call against a goalkeeper breaking this rule. So, we have come to a point where we feel we need several video replays and an extra team of match officials to get more correct decisions about the whereabouts of a player´s nose in relation to another player´s chest, but we don´t care if the ref can´t count to six seconds.

A stricter interpretation of these two rules would of course not change anything when it comes to decide if a player has been in an offside position or if the ball has crossed the goal line, but it would certainly make the game more fun to watch. So, referees all over the world - start counting!