More officials = more eyes ! go-UEFA

[2wheels]

UEFA experimented recently (oct08, U19 Championships) with 2 Goal-line Assistants, and which was queried here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/7753134.stm).

Looks like having extra eyes has increased the referee's visual coverage, especially in the PA. Even though the results of this expt need to be analysed carefully, I wonder if other associations and regional leagues will readily adopt them.

It is my strong feeling that as players are much faster and with technological advancements in propelling the ball faster, many (more than several tens of %ages) CRs in the leagues (recreational onward) are not able to keep up. Perhaps it will be good for leagues to utilise the experience of such referees who have seen it all to be goal-line assts. Although it may become necessary for them to adroitly avoid miscues and wild-shots just around the goal-posts.

Best posish for the goal-line asst: at the end of the CR quadrant.

Proponents of the human angle on the beautiful game will be thrilled to see that correct offside calls are made and granted, and all the funny business in the PA reduced to negligible numbers. What is more, the CR remains the sole arbitrator and adjudicator, and reliance on the assisting team members increase. Looks like a good thing in the making.

[ThreeCards]

This sounds good, but with the referee shortage that is being experienced in many parts of the world, I don't think this will ever move beyond the professional level.

[IASocFan]

Yahoo also reports on the trial: UEFA promotes 5-official plan after trial success (http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_ylt=AgVafbO5yBPG.NORy8EhQKAmw7YF?slug=ap-uefa-refereeexperiment&prov=ap&type=lgns)

[Ref Flunkie]

No way this makes it to anything below "professional" matches.

[campbed]

Well, at least the goalies will have someone to chat with when the ball is on the other end of the pitch. :rolleyes:

Hey ref, that's MY water bottle....

[andymoss]

Six officials shirley?

And this will just continue to widen the gulf between grass roots football and what you see on telly.

[boylanj64]

Six officials shirley?

And this will just continue to widen the gulf between grass roots football and what you see on telly.

Actually, seven, considering World Cup games already have five, a spare CR and a spare AR. Would this make eight, as they would need a spare goal judge as well? Soon enough our officiating teams will be bigger than (American) football

[Englishref]

As usual, FIFA pretend to care more about the grassroots of football, but in reality, will steam roller over it to improve where the big money lies... :rolleyes:

[Alberto]

As usual, FIFA pretend to care more about the grassroots of football, but in reality, will steam roller over it to improve where the big money lies... :rolleyes:

Yes, it's all about the money, but it is completely impractical from a logistical and financial perspective to implement that number of officials in anything other than the top flight professional leagues. This might prove to be impractical for the Nationwide League or former 1st Division.

[code1390]

Even a lot of the top flights would probably struggle. I doubt the FA has 20 to 25 more refs that they feel comfortable putting in the Premier League.

[Englishref]

Here's how this scheme would affect England...

At present, I think there are about 40 ARs on the SG. To cover a weekend of PL action, they'd need 40 ARs. Clearly, we don't currently need 40 ARs a weekend, so when those 20 aren't on the line, they are refereeing in the lower leagues (Panel or Contrib). That means, if FIFA give this idea the go-ahead, those Panel or Contrib games will be short. They'll then have to call up more L2s (for the Panel) but they would be lining in the FL, so can't really do that, or more L3s, who would be lining in the BSP, which again, is difficult.

The only way to do that is to promote a whole wrath of extra L2s and L3s, which means they'd have to promote a load more L4s, who will come from grassroots football (reffed by L5s to L7s), and it'll ultimately be the grassroots that will suffer. There's a chronic shortage in England at the moment of grassroots referees (hence the Respect Programme), and this would make the situation critical for the whole future of football in England.

And this isn't even accounting for the additional ARs that would be needed if this was filtered down to the Football League!!! (an extra 72, so 92 EXTRA ARs all together!!)

It's utterly ridiculous and unworkable, and belongs in the same bin as the 2-referee codswallop FIFA came up with in the past.

[Falc]

Well if the eyesight is still working, why not use emeritus referees (those forced into retiring from the pro game) at the goal area. It is not as if these officials will be running.

[ctreferee]

Im just going to take a stab at this but i think UEFA's intention is going to be to use older (ie over 45) officials as goal judges, thus not affecting the lower levels in the catastrophic way we are imagining.

[Sachsen]

Pretty demeaning for a Collina to just sit on the goal line like a tennis judge in his lawn chair.

Cameras and instant replay would do the job better and probably cheaper over the long haul.

[MassachusettsRef]

Im just going to take a stab at this but i think UEFA's intention is going to be to use older (ie over 45) officials as goal judges, thus not affecting the lower levels in the catastrophic way we are imagining.Based on the trials thus far, this doesn't seem to be the actual plan. To start, who would become the assessors ("UEFA Observers")?

My guess is that, should the powers that be find this useful (and, thus far, it seems they do), it will only be used at FIFA-level and some/most continental level championships. Extra ARs will be employed (or maybe not even too many "extra" ones--just off-days in the tournaments will be scrapped for ARs). I doubt you'll see domestic leagues try to emulate this, though there are obviously a few (England, Spain, Italy) that might take a stab.

[Sachsen]

There's a baseball parallel to this, of course - the playoffs get extra outfield umps to watch the foul lines and fences that aren't used during the regular season.