Did you just see that? If you were an American, it’s just another stock footage of one of our favorite past times – raging debates over inches (centimeters). If, however, you are from a land that calls “soccer” “football,” then you probably tuned out around the ten second mark. I don’t want to frighten you, but imagine if that same event occurred several times in the course of a single game. Would said game still be worth watching? This is not my impassioned plea to ban all debate on replays. Rather, I want to articulate an intangible quality of soccer viewing.

The Henry handball, Arsene Wenger’s ruminations, the entire world is alight with calls for changes to the game. After last year’s Chelsea exit, with a porous refereeing performance only overshadowed by grown men behaving like six years, similar trumpets sounded. In America, we take for granted television replay in our “football” and in goal decision for hockey. But how much can we stomach? And why can’t we stomach it?

Fundamentally, for me, soccer is a game of rhythm and crescendos and staccatos. When a player is injured, do we stop the clock? No, we add injury time. Why? Because in a game involving 22 interchanging parts, the capacity to generate offense requires extended periods of coordination and movement. If golf is a sport of individual concentration, then soccer is the oasis of collective understanding.

I rue your utilitarian justifications and squabbles. I believe in an intrinsic Kantian value to watching uninterrupted sport, and that this value should be cherished, not banished.

The practicalities of proposed alternatives proliferates into a protracted series of talking points. Should we only allow instant replay after a goal is awarded? But what about the incorrect offsides which leads to a goal? How about a third side official to monitor the 18 yard box? And what happens when he gets the call wrong?

I normally gag at standard “slippery slope” arguments, but allowing for replay would toss the sport of soccer into a treacherous river. I shudder to think of just how this current could take it. Because make no mistake – once the corporate interests seize on that ten-second-goal-decision-lapse to plug a product and turn a buck, pandora’s box will never be closed again.

I know your response: the technology will solve itself. The new and improved HDtv and wireless headsets will allow officials to instantly view and make almost snap decisions. But even if we assume the technology greatly reduces human error, won’t you just want a more exacting and precise decision? And then won’t we need better technology? And, and, and…

Maybe you cannot accept human error. Maybe the stakes are too high. Maybe, just maybe, the following excites you…

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