Netherlands consider scrapping offside in amateur football to end violent rows

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https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...side-for-amateur-football-to-end-violent-rows

Netherlands consider scrapping offside in amateur football to end violent rows​

  • Almost 2,000 matches were stopped last season
  • ‘We have a problem and we want to eradicate it’
The Dutch football association (KNVB) is considering doing away with the offside law in the amateur game to limit the rising number of matches halted because of aggression over disputed decisions.

The KNVB said abolishing offsides at the lower levels of the game, where there are no KNVB officials and matches are flagged by club members, could lead to an end to the threats and violence in amateur football in the country.

Dutch amateur football about to turn into hoofball
 
Best way to avoid drama at grassroots is ban the parents. It really is that simple.
 
Pughnichi said:
Best way to avoid drama at grassroots is ban the parents. It really is that simple.
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so i’m supposed to just go and have a scrap in asda or something instead? bloody immigrants coming over here to take my jobs and benefit monies, and now you’re telling me i can’t even have a fight at the kid’s football of a weekend?
 
Pughnichi said:
Best way to avoid drama at grassroots is ban the parents. It really is that simple.
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This isnt really about kids games. It's about adult amateur football. Whether that's more or less pathetic, I'm not sure really.
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
They should just scrap goals, then everyone would be equally unhappy.
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iu
 
I sometimes officiate for my sons team here in the Netherlands, angry parents/teenagers are really a scourge and it is really difficult to find volunteers for linesmen. However, abolishing offsides is fecking daft!
 
Having played probably hundreds of amateur games as an adult I've always maintained that I have no idea why anyone would want to be a referee at that level, and particularly at the level just below where you get linesmen. Two teams who think you are supporting the other team and a bunch of pricks in the audience who thinks it's fair game abusing someone who's just trying to facilitate a game of football.
 
Pughnichi said:
Best way to avoid drama at grassroots is ban the parents. It really is that simple.
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KirkDuyt said:
This isnt really about kids games. It's about adult amateur football. Whether that's more or less pathetic, I'm not sure really.
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Exactly. I don't know how sports are organized elsewhere, but the Dutch FA organizes leagues until the lowest of the lowest levels of adult football. It's not very expensive to be a club member, so if you like playing football with some friends, you just join a club and you get your weekly competitive matches. Officiating those is done by a club referee (some volunteer provided by the club with very basic refereeing training), while the linesman are people from either team - often just a substitute, cause most teams don't have a coach or any non-players coming along. I've been linesman various times myself as well.

It's the same on the lower youth levels and the violence issues exist there as well, but they are worse with adult matches.

I'll add that, yes, you want to people to behave better rather than changing the game because they can't. But until someone actually has concrete ways to increase behaviour, it sounds like a good idea to remove a serious point of contention; otherwise it will become even harder to find referees and linesmen, and matches might increasingly end up being cancelled altogether - and that's a realistic prospect.
 
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Hugh Jass said:
If only everything was simple.
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I know right. Not suggesting it’d be easy to roll out. So much resistance. And I don’t imagine it will ever happen.

But, remove the parents and the incidents will drop significantly

Acknowledge as a previous poster has suggested, this in Holland is more aimed at open age football and not so much for the 9s - 16s
 
Cheimoon said:
Exactly. I don't know how sports are organized elsewhere, but the Dutch FA organizes leagues until the lowest of the lowest levels of adult football. It's not very expensive to be a club member, so if you like playing football with some friends, you just join a club and you get your weekly competitive matches. Officiating those is done by a club referee (some volunteer provided by the club with very basic refereeing training), while the linesman are people from either team - often just a substitute, cause most teams don't have a coach or any non-players coming along. I've been linesman various times myself as well.

It's the same on the lower youth levels and the violence issues exist there as well, but they are worse with adult matches.

I'll add that, yes, you want to people to behave better rather than changing the game because they can't. But until someone actually has concrete ways to increase behaviour, it sounds like a good idea to remove a serious point of contention; otherwise it will become even harder to find referees and linesmen, and matches might increasingly end up being cancelled altogether - and that's a realistic prospect.
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Could bore you for hrs about this.

In general…Teams that win, don’t make the complaints. Unless they’re of more serious nature. Racism, violence etc.

Winning managers seemingly happier to accept ill behaviour because they’re walking away with a win and that’s enough for them.

Volunteer Managers will also put a complaint in to the club which is then escalated to the league…in many cases because they know that a complaint is coming their way about their own teams behaviour and an early counter complaint is a good defence mechanism.

It’s all just hearsay. He said she said. Unless it’s in the ref report there’s not too much that ever happens

And the refs are reluctant to file full detailed information. Sometimes the refs (mostly young) are intimidated by grown men (managers) to not include incident x,y,z

The Fa aren’t really at all interested.

I’ve literally been in a situation where one player at full time made a premeditated attack on opponent at full time. Straight to him, grabbed behind the head and repeated headbutt. Incident even on Veo cam. Clear as day. Zero punishment.

Grass roots is a mess. The localised Fa are a joke. Granted they aren’t really supported and/or funded well enough but they spend too much time promoting rainbow laces, growing the girls game, being pc… and instead duck away from the real issues listed above that nobody really talks about
 
Pughnichi said:
Could bore you for hrs about this.

In general…Teams that win, don’t make the complaints. Unless they’re of more serious nature. Racism, violence etc.

Winning managers seemingly happier to accept ill behaviour because they’re walking away with a win and that’s enough for them.

Volunteer Managers will also put a complaint in to the club which is then escalated to the league…in many cases because they know that a complaint is coming their way about their own teams behaviour and an early counter complaint is a good defence mechanism.

It’s all just hearsay. He said she said. Unless it’s in the ref report there’s not too much that ever happens

And the refs are reluctant to file full detailed information. Sometimes the refs (mostly young) are intimidated by grown men (managers) to not include incident x,y,z

The Fa aren’t really at all interested.

I’ve literally been in a situation where one player at full time made a premeditated attack on opponent at full time. Straight to him, grabbed behind the head and repeated headbutt. Incident even on Veo cam. Clear as day. Zero punishment.

Grass roots is a mess. The localised Fa are a joke. Granted they aren’t really supported and/or funded well enough but they spend too much time promoting rainbow laces, growing the girls game, being pc… and instead duck away from the real issues listed above that nobody really talks about
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I'm sure those are issues where you play, but that's not what's at issue here. We're talking here about situations that cause matches to be suspended and sometimes require calling in the police; nothing to do with refs being afraid to dish out (red) cards or managers not making complaints. (Most teams anyway don't have managers, just a player taking care of administrative stuff like filling out the match form.) I also don't know what localized FAs are; is that a thing in the UK or wherever you are?

I'm not saying these things aren't issues in the Netherlands btw. But that's almost small beer compared to what's triggering this measure here.
 
I remember a match I played a few years ago. The game was tied, one all, and we were defending a corner near the very end of the game. They threw everything at us. All players up to try and grab a winner, with only their keeper at the back.

One of our players won the header and cleared the ball. Somehow he was first to the headed clearance himself, a few metres from the halfway line. Two opposition players trailing him, he kicked it well into their half, and ran for it.

Miraculously, he outran them, and beat the keeper to the ball. He lobbed the keeper elegantly and secured the win for us with one of the most spectacular goals I’ve ever witnessed on a green field. We were all up in arms, ecstatic!

Then we heard the ref’s whistle.

Offside.

We tried to explain. We tried to tell him. But, deep down, we all knew it was futile.

I don’t know. I just felt like sharing the story. This was in Norway, by the way, not The Netherlands.
 
Jed I. Knight said:
I remember a match I played a few years ago. The game was tied, one all, and we were defending a corner near the very end of the game. They threw everything at us. All players up to try and grab a winner, with only their keeper at the back.

One of our players won the header and cleared the ball. Somehow he was first to the headed clearance himself, a few metres from the halfway line. Two opposition players trailing him, he kicked it well into their half, and ran for it.

Miraculously, he outran them, and beat the keeper to the ball. He lobbed the keeper elegantly and secured the win for us with one of the most spectacular goals I’ve ever witnessed on a green field. We were all up in arms, ecstatic!

Then we heard the ref’s whistle.

Offside.

We tried to explain. We tried to tell him. But, deep down, we all knew it was futile.

I don’t know. I just felt like sharing the story. This was in Norway, by the way, not The Netherlands.
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So he headed the ball inside your own box, ran after it and caught it himself and got no-one else involved from your team before scoring the goal - and that was called offside?

Wow!
 
Cheimoon said:
So he headed the ball inside your own box, ran after it and caught it himself and got no-one else involved from your team before scoring the goal - and that was called offside?

Wow!
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I could've just written that, yes, as it is exactly what happened :lol: I don't think the ref hated us or didn't want us to win or anything like that, either. He just thought it looked like offside, somehow. I don't know how, but he must've, somehow.
 
If football is getting to the level where people think changing the rules will stop dickheads being dickheads then they may as well just cancel the whole thing.

Remove offside and it's just going to move onto freekicks, penalties, throws, corners etc... there's always going to be a decision to get them riled.
 
Pughnichi said:
Best way to avoid drama at grassroots is ban the parents. It really is that simple.
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No joke there was a double red card in a rugby match my son played in last night, then the parents started scrapping
 
Jed I. Knight said:
I could've just written that, yes, as it is exactly what happened :lol: I don't think the ref hated us or didn't want us to win or anything like that, either. He just thought it looked like offside, somehow. I don't know how, but he must've, somehow.
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Nah, the ref was receiving envelopes.
 
Anyone else think KNVB looks like KNOB?

In all seriousness I played in quite a few Sunday leagues and offsides were always contentious, and given solely by a referee. I then played in a league were a member of the oppo management gave them, which was mostly fine in the league inself but carnage in the county cups
 
DarkLord1984 said:
Why can't people just not be dickheads?
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Amateur football is full of dickheads and wannabe hard men who think their shite team winning is the most important thing in the world.

The other year a guy got sent off in a league near me, fecked off to his car, then came back with a meat cleaver with the intention of using it on the guy he'd tackled to receive the card.
 
Alex99 said:
Amateur football is full of dickheads and wannabe hard men who think their shite team winning is the most important thing in the world.

The other year a guy got sent off in a league near me, fecked off to his car, then came back with a meat cleaver with the intention of using it on the guy he'd tackled to receive the card.
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Holy shit. That's absolutely insane!
 
Alex99 said:
Amateur football is full of dickheads and wannabe hard men who think their shite team winning is the most important thing in the world.

The other year a guy got sent off in a league near me, fecked off to his car, then came back with a meat cleaver with the intention of using it on the guy he'd tackled to receive the card.
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What was it like playing with Roy Keane?
 
Hugh Jass said:
So its like the gaa in ireland.
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Think every club had those lads that can only point the flag one way for a sideline ball, or flag when the player is a yard away from the line. Umpires waving valid points wide etc etc etc.. sure isn't that just the way it is and sure it wouldn't be the same game without it.
 
Oranges038 said:
Think every club had those lads that can only point the flag one way for a sideline ball, or flag when the player is a yard away from the line. Umpires waving valid points wide etc etc etc.. sure isn't that just the way it is and sure it wouldn't be the same game without it.
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The cult that is the GAA.
 
Hugh Jass said:
The cult that is the GAA.
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Underage soccer isn't much better.

I've been to a few u10 girls tournaments with my daughter and her team. I've seen grown men at these things almost coming to blows over throw ins, it's ridiculous carry on.

But some people just can't help themselves.
 
In my last year playing in my little league they got rid of offsides and I had a fecking blast. Just goal hanged all game and we won the league. Also made the parents even more rowdy because they were getting pissy at our coach who was abusing the lack of offsides. Chav dickhead dads getting in our managers face saying how he was "cheating".
 
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