Martin O'Neill and objective reality

Yesterday's Aston Villa-Liverpool game raised a question about the nature of reality.
Villa boss Martin O'Neill said of the clash between Steven Gerrard and Stiliyan Petrov that led to Liverpool's winning goal: "I don't think it was a foul."
This suggests he subscribes to some version of the correspondence theory of truth. There are external facts - fouls - and the job of the referee is to make claims - "that's a freekick" - that correspond to these facts. The referee can therefore be wrong.
But there's an alternative view - that the referee doesn't perceive facts, but rather constructs them. On this view, fouls exist (or not) only if he blows his whistle or not, and referees cannot be wrong, because the truth doesn't exist until the ref calls it.
Which view is right? The laws of the game admit both possibilities. Law 12 begins:

A direct free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a player commits any of the following six offences in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force...(emphasis added)

This suggests a constructivist view of fouls.
But the law continues:

A direct free kick is also awarded to the opposing team if a player commits any of the following four offences...

With no reference to the ref's opinion, this suggests a correspondence theory.
Worse still, many contacts between players could fall into either category. Was Petrov attempting to trip Gerrard - a constructivist offence - or was he holding him, which is a correspondence theory offence?
Although there's an ambiguity here, I suspect it's far better for their blood pressure if managers adopt the constructivist theory. Such a view will stop them being driven barmy by bad refs.
This, though, is not to deny that there are objective, unassailable facts in football. One is that S****s are shite.

Comments

[Bob Piper]

Never mind the philosophical bollocks. It wasn't a f****** foul. That's a fact, just like the fact that Mike Riley is a useless twat!

[Chris]

Reminds me of this...

"Socrates scores, got a beautiful cross from Archimedes. The Germans are disputing it. Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside."

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=79vdlEcWxvM

[Matt Munro]

Intent is also important, i.e an accidental handball in the box isn't generally a penalty, but a deliberate one is. This means that the referee has to make a judgement call, not only about the physical reality of the ball hitting the hand but also the state of mind of the offending player, often from some distance. Mind you, given the lack of cognitive sophistication of the average player, maybe that isn't as hard as it sounds.

Definition of premiership football:
"22 millionaires kicking a ball around whilst wondering whether a Ferrari has better road holding than a Lambourghini"

[dave heasman]

I've never understood the hostility Arsenal fans have for Spurs. Or vice-versa. It's not religious any more, is it? Irish against Scots? None on either side any more. They're both Jewish-owned, only just in the Arse case, but Dein may be back. So why? Noone's died lately, but there are real fights and the odd hospitalisation, yet neither fanbase can possibly honestly claim a genuine connection to the clubs any more, can they? So it's an adolescent pose. With knives, every now and then.

[dave heasman]

Sorry, there is one Irish player. But he's on the traditionally-Scotch team. So why?

[dearieme]

dave, perhaps it's explained by "there are no law-like generalisations in the social sciences that we can use to predict or control the world".

[dave heasman]

It suddenly (!) strikes me that it's more likely explained by following the money. A state of permanent hostility maintaining loyalty. "Buy the fifteenth away strip released in the last 5 years or those Arse/Spurs bastards will gain some fleeting advantage".

[Peter Hornby]

This is reminiscent of the old baseball story.

Three baseball umpires were discussing how they made their decisions.

The first one said, "Some's balls and some's strikes and I calls 'em as they is."

The second umpire said, "Some's balls and some's strikes and I calls 'em as I sees 'em."

Then the third umpire said, "Some's balls and some's strikes but they ain't nothin' till I calls 'em."

-- As told by the psychologist Hadley Cantril, from "Perspective on the English Language" by Allen Walker Read, in Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language.