The German Bundesliga has announced: A fourth official will be introduced into Germany's 1. Bundesliga on a temporary basis when the season resumes on 25 January. For details, see: http://www.uefa.com/trainingground/...wsId=50479.html This has been around for awhile, but I couldn't find a reference to it. Any one know how it's going?
link didn't work, but correct if i'm wrong but doesn't the 4th official just hang on the side and chat with players before they get substiuted, calm coaches and wait to die? was this it? http://www.uefa.com/trainingground/News/Kind=512/newsId=50479.html I don't think the Budesliga coaches get that livid, thus no need for them. Or the refs worse than any others. Only for biggies like the World Cup. The EPL is the one withe the mangers kicking boots at star players, do they use the 4th?
The Bundesliga is one of the few major European leagues that do not use fourth officials. They are used in La Liga, the EPL and Serie A. I believe Le Championat and the Eredivise also use fourth officials and of course domestically our own MLS and the A league along with D3 use fourths.
thanks, i thought is was a common thing to use the 4th, so i really don't know why they need to experiment with it, it's not like the ref is robot, or hes in a bunker with a gun ponited at the field ( headline calls them peace keepers) or something. It's either you use it or not, and who would know.
The reason for introducing the 4th official was that their were extremely many wrong offside calls by the assistants on the side of the coaches. They thought that the assistant is too much involved with caring for the coaches and control their permanent complains. The officiating really was horrible in the first season half, but we'll have to see if it improves now. In general I got the impression that it got a little better, but still there were some games that usually would have ended differently. The positive effect is that the coaches are much more calm as the fourth official is watching closely that they don't leave their zone - before they had their special coaches who complained and attacked the assistant in every critical situation (mainly Sammer and Stevens, Bayern used assistant coach Henke for that)