Francesco Totti, the Italian playmaker who captains AS Roma and expects to play a key role for Italy during this year’s World Cup, has given us a cri de coeur, a warning that the sport of soccer must heed. Totti has a recurring ankle problem,and is concerned it might keep him out of the World Cup. “I keep getting kicked and have to receive physiotherapy constantly,” he said. “I don’t have time to train because we play every three days. I’m very worried that this is going to affect the lead up to the World Cup.”

A timely reminder that soccer’s attacking players – especially those with Totti’s superior ball-handling skills – live a perilous life in the modern game. Timely because within a couple of months, we shall be hearing from FIFA on the matter of refereeing at the World Cup.We shall learn which particular violation of the soccer rules has been selected for special attention, for a clampdown.

In the past, we’ve had clampdowns on tackling from behind, diving, time wasting, shirt grabbing, even on the wearing of jewelry and not tucking in one’s shirt.

I have no argument with any of these, but there is a built-in problem with clampdowns. They don’t last very long. Sometimes they disappear during the monthlong tournament itself! As the sport moves away from the glamour of the World Cup and back to regular league play, the zeal for the clampdown fades within six months and referees and the game return to “normal.”

Let’s take the tackle from behind, which is directly relevant to Totti’s problem.This was supposed to be banned during the 1994 World Cup. FIFA told the referees to immediately eject any player who committed the foul.The ban didn’t even make it past the opening game between Germany and Bolivia. Play had been under way for only 14 minutes when Thomas Hassler clattered into Luis Cristaldo from behind, and the pair went down in an ugly tangle of legs. All of that right in front of the Mexican referee Arturo Brizio Carter, hand-picked to set the tone of the tournament. It looked like a textbook example of the sort of foul FIFA wanted to stamp out.

But Brizio Carter not only failed to give Hassler the obligatory red card, he didn’t even give a yellow. During the tournament’s 52 games, only one red card was issued for a tackle from behind. An ambiguous statistic. You could protest that the referees were not enforcing the clampdown, or you could claim that the threat of expulsion worked so well that the tackle from behind had virtually been eliminated.

The foul had not been eliminated. In 1998, I pointed out to Sepp Blatter, newly elected as FIFA president, that tackling from behind was still much in evidence. He replied: “The idea is to ban it completely. I will work on that.”

Here we are, eight years on, with the tackle from behind still a feature of every game, and referees still hesitant to punish it with a red card.

Time, I’d say, for another clampdown – and this time it should be for real. Despite Blatter’s good intentions, one has to doubt whether the ban has ever been seriously considered, because soccer’s rules still make no mention of the tackle from behind as a specific offense.

For a referee to eject a player for such a tackle, he must rely on two “clarifications” issued by FIFA. These carry official weight, but they are not technically part of the rules. Firstly, there is the “decision” of the rule-making body, the International Football Association Board, that “a tackle which endangers the safety of an opponent must be sanctioned as serious foul play” – and the rules state that “serious foul play” is a red card offense. Second, appended to the rules are various “additional Instructions for Referees,” including this: “Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front,from the side,or from behind using one or both legs,with excessive force and endangering the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play.”

At last, the word “behind” puts in an appearance, but with no particular emphasis, meaning tackles from behind are evidently not seen as any more threatening than tackles from any angle.Yet they obviously are more dangerous, if only because the victim cannot see what is coming, and is therefore denied the chance of evading the tackle.

The result of not getting out of the way can be horrifying.

Blatter himself has often cited the case of Dutchman Marco Van Basten, who retired from soccer at age 28 with a ruined ankle.Van Basten was more inclined to blame poor medical treatment for his woes, but it can hardly be an acceptable state of affairs if soccer has to rely on expert surgery to keep its stars on the field. In 1983, Diego Maradona, then playing for Barcelona, was crunched from behind by Andoni Goikoetxea. He suffered ruptured ligaments on both sides of his ankle and a multiple fracture of the base of the fibula. A tricky two-hour operation saved the career of one of soccer’s all-time greats. In February 1998, also in Spain, the Brazilian Juninho suffered similar damage after being whacked from behind by Michel Salgado. The injury prevented Juninho from playing for Brazil in that year’s World Cup.

Now we have Totti, another skilled ball player, expressing his fear that the constant barrage of kicks he endures might prevent his playing in Germany. So far this season Totti has been fouled 99 times in 23 Italian league games. Only Mauro Esposito and Luca Toni – both goal-scoring forwards – have been fouled more frequently.

It is time for FIFA to stop dithering on this issue.As things stand, referees are asked to use their judgment, giving redcards only for tackles they judge to involve excessive force or to endanger the opponent. It should not surprise that, given such latitude, they too often opt out of showing the red card. But the sport gains nothing by being lenient to violent tacklers, while it stands to lose some of its most exciting players. What is required is a rule that unequivocally bans every tackle from behind, period.

pgardner@nysun.com