It is undeniable that football is the most fun and popular sport in the world. Everyone can play football anytime and anywhere, here or at home. If you play football in those places, you are free to set specific rules.
However, in an official football match, all requirements must be determined. There must be no exception with all the appropriate attributes on the field, such as goal nets, balls, referee whistles, and field lines. The existence of those attributes is very important and so does the existence of a flagpole in the corner of the field.
Now, do you know that in a professional football match, the match will not start if there are no 4 flagpoles on the field?
At the 1974 World Cup final, the referee who was at that time leading the match, Jack Taylor, did not start the match due to one missing flagpole. The match began after the commission brought in the substitute flagpole.
There is nothing wrong with what Jack Taylor did because it is written in FIFA game law.
On the Law Of The FIFA game, it is written that “A flagpole, 1.5 meters (5 feet) high, with peaks not pierced must be placed in every corner. Flagpoles can also be placed at each end of the centerline, at least 1 meter (1yd ) outside the added line/game line.”
But the question is, what is exactly the function of those flagpoles whose inexistence can put off the game?
The existence of flagpoles is indeed very important. It turns out that the origin of the flagpole already existed since the first time a football game was held. At that time, the field did not have a sideline. The referee often faced difficulties to determine whether the ball came out of the field or not.
Thus, flagpoles were placed in each corner of the field as a benchmark on the sidelines for the match referee. And until now, the flagpole attribute is a must for a match.
The flagpole at the corner of the field is also a marker point for players when they should do corner kicks. The corner kick itself was introduced to football as part of the Sheffield Regulations in 1868.
If the ball hits on the flagpole and bounces back to the field then the ball is still considered alive or called “play on”.
According to a referee, Joe Mchugh, footballers are not allowed to move the flagpole when they are about to do a corner kick. If the flag is accidentally touched by the players then that is okay.
Referee Keith Contarino added that the player could touch the flagpole like how they touch the goal net. However, moving the flag is prohibited unless it is accidentally. This rule is written in FIFA Game Law.
As the flagpole is one of the few attributes a player can find in the moments after he has scored a goal, it is not surprising that so many footballers sometimes take the flagpole as his celebration.
During the 1990 World Cup, Roger Milla scored a goal against Romania and immediately ran to the corner of the field, lifting the flagpole to celebrate. Milla even sometimes danced on a flag pole.
Another player who used a flagpole to celebrate their goals is Lee Sharpe, a 90s MU player who often celebrated his goals in the style of Elvis Presley. By making a flagpole in the corner of the field as a mic, Sharpe danced like “the King of Rock & Roll”.
The most famous is, of course, Tim Cahill, after scoring the goal of the Australian player who once supported Everton, he would run to the corner of the field and then punched a flagpole like a boxer who is hitting his opponent.
