Friday, 15 June - Donetsk - 12:00 EST Ukraine : France Referee: Björn KUIPERS (NED) Assistant Referees: Sander van Roekel (NED) , Erwin Zeinstra (NED) Additional Assistant Referees: Pol van Boekel (NED) , Richard Liesveld (NED) Fourth official: Tom Harald Hagen (NOR) Reserve official: Damien MacGraith (IRL) UEFA Delegate: Armen Minasyan (ARM) UEFA Referee: observer Vladimir Sajn (SVN) This thread is for all pre-, play-by-play, and post-match discussion of the referee and other officials on the match. Only news and analysis or other facts/information related to the referees and the officiating should be posted here. This is not a team or rivalry thread and will be heavily moderated to ensure it remains that way. Please read the stickied thread at the top of this forum if you have further questions. Thank you.
I am definitely interested in this one. It could be argued that Kuipers had the worst performance in the tournament so far.
It dawns on me that this argument would, in fact, be a legitimate one to have. Nonetheless, he still had a pretty passable performance with no real major controversies other than the non-penalty to Keane. It does say something about how smooth things have gone in the tournament thus far.
I was more looking at it from how he will handle it. If we know he had one of the poorer performances, he knows he had one of the poorer performances even if it wasn't all that poor. I've never handled a match this big or had millions watching. I was really wondering if he will have it in his head.
Doubt it would be in his head at all. I mean, there really was nothing poor about his performance at all. You can't worry about what the other referees do, just like you (or he, in this case) can't worry about what the Netherlands does Sunday--which is something that could play the biggest role in his future participation at this tournament. Velasco Carballo, given how badly his performance got panned, might be a different story. But what UEFA said privately might have a bigger role.
From the distant camera angle, it almost looks foggy. Then you get to the closer shots - it's still so wet - and now we're suspending the match....
I was about to ask if the Match Delegate might play a role tonight. I do wonder if he was told to start the match on time to see if it would pass. Very interesting. It's not his decision completely pre-match, but it is his decision once he starts. Total speculation, but regardless of how it's happened, he's done the right thing.
Numerous twittersphere comments say it was lightening. Curious as to the UEFA guidlelines (if any) on a minimum time period to wait now.
Right now they are waiting for one of the players' Dads to look it up on his iPhone nad tell them which way it is moving.
I don't think there are any guidelines about weather or lightning relative specifically to EURO 2012. This is what I've found so far. Seems deliberately vague, which makes sense. The last thing you want to do when dealing with a competition like this is box yourself into a corner:
And to come tell the ref its probably safe to continue... In all seriousness, the next time someone gives me grief because I stop a game for lightning, I'm pointing to this tournament.
Just to be clear, that's straight from the EURO 2012 regulations. I'm sure there are instructions given to referees about how to handle weather-related matters at UEFA events. It just seems that they are not published (or perhaps not even written down!).
Just in case anyone was wondering, UEFA has a 67-page document outlining kit regulations: http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/Tech/uefaorg/General/01/75/63/78/1756378_DOWNLOAD.pdf
Any guidance on this in that 67 pager ?? http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.ne...S1C6gxICgkxjBjB-J-llI8veoITFMW9lBk0FH2HbZ~Zk_
No, just happened to see it in the online UEFA library while I was looking for weather regulations. Admittedly, I did just skim through it. Some of the stuff I knew about, but some of it is nuts (they regulate the "quality control" logos that aren't even visible on the uniforms among other things).