- [Ryan] Joe, have you ever been at a sporting event
where you saw a beach ball start to get bopped around?
- [Joe] I have, and I did a little bit
of the bopping myself.
It's fun to bop a ball.
- [Ryan] What happened to that beach ball?
- [Joe] It was at a high school football game
and the Principal grabbed it and gave us a mean look.
She just held onto it and walked away.
- But she left it intact. - She did leave it intact.
She didn't stomp on it or anything.
That would have been very bad-ass of her to do.
- Joe, I'm here to tell you,
not only would it have been bad-ass,
it would have been the responsible thing to do
because in the wrong hands,
or in this case, in the wrong feet,
a beach ball is a dangerous
and potentially game-changing soccer weapon,
and I'd like to tell you a little bit about why.
- Let's hear it.
- So one of the many tasks
that a soccer referee is responsible for
is dealing with what's called outside interference.
And normally that means things
like fans running onto the field
or somebody blowing a whistle in the stands
that's meant to sound like the referee's whistle,
but it also includes non-human objects on the field
that aren't supposed to be there.
- Do they have a list of these non-human objects?
'Cause that could mean anything.
- Joe, I'm so glad you asked.
It's maybe not as fulsome a list as you or I might like,
but according to FIFA Law of the Game Five, Section Three,
if an extra ball, other object,
or animal enters the field of play during the match,
the referee must do one of two things.
Stop play, and restart it with a dropped ball,
only if it interferes with play,
or allow play to continue if it does not interfere with play
and have it removed at the earliest possible opportunity.
But yeah, extra ball, other object, or animal.
- I love how they broke that down
into these three separate categories.
How often are animals popping up?
- So you say that,
but we both went to SEC schools
and if Auburn could get the War Eagle to block a kick,
Auburn would absolutely do that.
- That's fair, that's fair.
I'm just imagining Uga lazily roaming out on the field,
laying, not moving at all. - Yeah, do something about it.
Do something about it, you can't.
The trickiest part of this rule, in my opinion,
is that it doesn't say
if something's on the field, stop the game.
It says stop the game if it interferes with play.
What qualifies in your mind as interference?
- I'm just gonna put myself in the shoes
of that of a player.
I wouldn't want to be running through shit
and falling all over the place,
so anything that's interfering in my path.
- You're thinking like a "Home Alone" scenario.
- I am thinking like a "Home Alone" scenario.
- FC Kevin McCallister throws a bunch of ball-bearings
onto the field.
- Or a grease trap somehow pops up on the field,
I would imagine the referee should probably stop that?
- Let me give you a couple of scenarios
to test your interpretation skills.
- Let's hear 'em.
- What I will mathematically call a shitload of balloons,
it's enough balloons that if I brought them to you
for your birthday, you'd be like this is a little much,
we're not that close.
Some of them the same color as the ball are randomly strewn
in front of the goal.
Because of the presence of these balloons,
a defender attempting to stop a cross misses completely,
does successfully hit one of the balloons,
and by missing allows his opponent to score
what ends up being a very easy goal.
- Yo, that's not fair.
The defender just absolutely whiffs
and he looks pretty bad doing it, is the thing.
I would be furious.
That is very clear interference.
- The commentators on here basically argued
that a balloon couldn't possibly change the direction
of a shot on goal.
And yes, it's distracting,
but a distraction, I think they're implying,
is not the same thing as interference.
They want more of a physics problem,
A collides with B, causing C.
I don't think that's the right call,
but there is enough room in the rule book
that it's sort of like maybe?
It definitely stood though.
It definitely counted.
- The ref swallowed his whistle on that one.
- Or maybe he was just like,
let's see what happens here.
Worst case is it's gonna be very funny.
- So this is just totally all up
to the referee's discretion, huh?
- Yes, yes, yes,
and part of the problem is the last part of the rule
as I read it to you is that if the object or the animal
or the extra ball is not interfering with play,
the officials are supposed to remove it
at the earliest possible opportunity.
But interference is something
that it doesn't sort of happen slowly over time.
It isn't interfering until it super is.
Let's talk about scenario two.
A beach ball, that's why I started here,
winds up in front of the goal, but it's just sitting still
and nobody does anything about it.
This beach ball ends up deflecting a shot on goal,
such that it looks like the shot's gonna go
to the keeper's right.
It bounces off the beach ball and goes to the keeper's left.
- That is unfortunate.
(Ryan laughs)
Holy shit, that is unfortunate.
- Yeah. - Wow.
- Yeah, I mean, the balloon situation,
you can say it's a distraction,
but it's not like you attempted to kick the ball
and the balloon headed it back into net.
- Honestly, I'm even more impressed
'cause I feel like the dude purposely kicked the ball
towards the beach ball so it could deflect
and go a different way and switch up the angle.
'Cause he hit it perfectly
right in front of the beach ball-
- Oh, it's like a billiard shot.
It's like watching somebody do a really cool billiard shot.
- He's like beach ball, corner pocket.
(Ryan laughs)
I think it for sure should have been overturned
'cause you can see the trajectory of the ball
literally going away from where it was shot
because it hit the beach ball.
Did they overturn this?
I doubt they did, did they?
- Joe, they did not.
This happened in a Sunderland-Liverpool match.
Again, very early in the game.
This ends up being the only goal of the entire match.
- The only goal?
- Yes, a one-nil Sunderland victory.
Everyone's so pissed.
Even Darren Bent, who theoretically scores this goal
(I think the credit should go to the beach ball),
he at one point goes over to the ref
and is like, should that have counted?
Was that okay?
The ref is like, did it hit the beach ball?
And Darren Bent's like, yeah man, it super did.
But at that point, he's already awarded the goal
and he's just decided to move on with his life
and the lives of everyone else.
Or so he thought,
because this referee definitely got demoted after this match
and that kid who put the ball on the field
in the first place said that he got death threats
because, much like our first example, Joe, this ball is red
and that's because it was purchased
at the Liverpool gift shop.
So a Liverpool fan was responsible for this being in place
and causing a Liverpool loss.
- That is extremely unfortunate.
- The beach ball is in the National Football Museum.
- (Joe laughs) It's in the National Football Museum?
- That's right, it has a place of honor and enshrinement.
- My pride would be so shot
if I had to go in there as a player and no plaque for me,
but there's this beach ball just enshrined
and it's the main attraction.
Everybody's taking pictures of the beach ball.
They're like forget the trophies and everything.
It's just the beach ball's the main attraction
of the museum.
- Here's my question.
Because it's a Liverpool beach ball, was this an own goal?
- At that point, yeah, it has to be, right?
It has to be an own goal, it has to be.
Soccer's great.
- I think the two things about soccer
that everybody agrees is that it's fun
and it's not controversial in any way.
- It's not at all.
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