Sarhan runs on the green rectangle... from the referee's whistle to the player's shirt.
about 3 hours ago
Sport
Sarhan runs on the green rectangle... from the referee's whistle to the player's shirt.
Hesspress Sports·
Before the 1870s, football was played without a referee to blow a whistle. When the two teams contested the ball with their feet, the result was similar to any dispute, leading to arbitration by the elder of one side and the elder of the other, just as conflicts were resolved in ancient times between tribes.
Even when the central referee appeared, he was not equipped, as he is now, with tools that allow him to enforce the law. His equipment consisted only of his voice to shout in certain situations and a white handkerchief to wave in others. We can estimate the ratio of compliance to the ratio of ignoring his decisions to understand how difficult his task was; it required not only more effective tools but also additional human resources. This was achieved after many decades, as matches began to be managed by a team of referees: the central referee now sought equipment in his pocket, mouth, ear, and wrist.
Just three years after its invention by the Englishman Joseph Hudson as a tool to assist the police, the whistle made its first appearance in football stadiums in 1878 as a substitute for shouting and waving, becoming thereafter the referee's greatest assistant. Due to its importance, the whistle was surrounded by a series of laws by FIFA in 1936 that granted it powers that made the ball obey its command and the players take it into account.
However, there was a dilemma that the whistle could not solve. It was a language dilemma, as referees faced significant difficulties in warning or expelling players in a language they did not understand. This was most evident in the quarter-finals of the 1966 World Cup between England and Argentina. After that match, Ken Aston, a referee and FIFA-accredited observer, was returning home under the influence of its events, and at a traffic light, the idea of yellow and red cards flashed in his mind, which would be officially adopted starting from the 1970 World Cup.
The white handkerchief left the green rectangle and became a colored flag in the hands of the assistant referee, the whistle was replaced by shouting, and the confusion of language was replaced by the firmness of yellow cards and the decisiveness of red cards, along with the resulting fines and suspensions... Nevertheless, stadium problems are not completely resolved on the field, as they are often bypassed by resorting to the structures of federations and sports courts.
While the traffic signal reminds of warnings and expulsions, the policeman standing behind his whistle reminds of the referee, except that he does not carry a gun, a baton, or handcuffs, which I believe should be part of his equipment. It is unreasonable for someone to leave the field carried on a stretcher resembling a hunchbacked machine, without the one who injured him being taken away, with premeditation and surveillance, handcuffed to the detention center that should be established not far from the changing rooms, awaiting prosecution under the harshest chapters of criminal law.
In a football stadium, the field referee is the chief judge, the assistant referees are his aides, and the fourth official is the court clerk, thus completing the pillars of the court. Is it any wonder that the field and the court share the same name in French, "la cour," as in English, "the court"?
What about Moroccan refereeing?
While Morocco has its glory in football, refereeing has its share embodied in the late exceptional Saïd Belqola, who efficiently officiated the final match of the 1998 World Cup between Brazil and France.
No matter how fair the referee is, he is unjust in the eyes of a large segment of the audience. To ensure that their punishment of him matches his actions, they rain down a barrage of whistles from the stands as an expression of their discontent with his decisions, especially if they feel that he is both the opponent and the referee.
In relation to discontent, and because Morocco has suffered greatly from the injustice of referees, I will conclude with this amusing incident from its contemporary history. In the late 1970s, the Moroccan national team suffered a crushing defeat in Casablanca, prompting the then Minister of Youth and Sports to suggest to the late Hassan II to suspend the league and reorganize the football house. The king replied: "And on Sunday, who will the audience say 'Oh, the referee, son of a cursed mother'?"
The football player brought to the game what he wore and what he stepped into, wherever available and as much as possible; it was not common to talk about what is now known as sports equipment. This remained the case until the 19th century when the enjoyment of the spectacle was added to the passion for the game. The shirt emerged as a procedural tool allowing the player to distinguish between a teammate and an opponent, enabling the spectator to differentiate between the two, and facilitating the referee's task... Thus, it was the first to organize the game on the field and regulate emotions outside of it, as it brought colors to the feelings of the spectators.
Wool and cotton are the righteous ancestors of today's football shirts, not only due to the lack of alternatives but also because of the game's requirements and the surrounding conditions of heat, cold, rain, wind, and sweat... With the development of textile industries and the introduction of polyester into production, shirts underwent successive leaps until they became what they are now: lightweight, comfortable for the player, and aesthetically pleasing for the spectator.
In the late 1920s, shirts began to feature numbers, and in the early 1990s, they began to display names. Thus, the shirt was no longer just worn but also became a bearer. While the player physically wears the shirt and strives with it on the field, reaping the rewards of his sweat, the shirt metaphorically carries the player and takes him across the vast land of God, allowing him to reap the rewards of his name.
In addition to the number and name, the shirt carries the logo of the producing company, the team's emblem, the sponsors' logos, and the stars of titles... If all of this is surrounded by FIFA regulations and contracts with clauses for the rights holders, it is still free from the constraints of study. I think specifically of semiotics, as it is more deserving than others of this marvelous manuscript. It is truly unfortunate that Umberto Eco passed away without having written about the shirt, as it would not have harmed our esteemed world to do so, adding to the name of the rose and Foucault's pendulum the shirt of Maradona.
Due to their limited number, the numbers indicated the positions of their bearers among the players, and over time, they approached one hundred, thus becoming, in turn, a field for maneuvering. For instance, Zamorano relinquished the number 9 to Ronaldo, wearing the number 1+8 instead, and the late Hicham Zerouali wore the number 0, which in French pronunciation refers to the beginning of his name. Ramos wore the number 94, reminding his previous team of the minute he scored in the Champions League final, and Cruyff, one of the legends of number 10, returned from injury quickly only to find his number on the back of a teammate, so he wore a shirt with the number 11-1, as the number 10 will always remain the king of numbers; it is the symbol of perfection, and whoever wore it was close to glory.
With the emergence of numbers, football shirts became an economy in their own right. We only need to review the sales figures of this star or that to see firsthand how rampant the madness of the game has become.
And since madness knows no ceiling, Maradona's shirt, with which he scored the goal of the century in '86, was sold for about ten million dollars, making it the most expensive sports item of all time. To clarify, this amount is equivalent to the price of the World Cup itself at today's rates, exceeding the price at which the Olympic manifesto was sold, and, ironically, even surpassing the amount that the player transferred to Napoli while at the peak of his performance: the giant departed, leaving his soul in the bottle, so it is no wonder that the soul is more valuable than the body.
Therefore, anyone among you who owns a shirt of one of the football legends bearing his signature should know that it is forever exempt from homelessness, as its price could buy an entire neighborhood with its facilities.
With many contradictions, the football shirt now seeks:
To relieve pressure and sharpen ambitions
To enhance the feeling of belonging
To distract the people and attract nations
And it may be a nightmare on the night of dreams.
As for those like me who watch matches from home, the appearance of numbers and names on the screen is the most exciting part of the match's generic introduction, as the promise of enjoyable viewing begins with knowing the heroes of the show.
