Sunday, June 27, 2010

How About More Officials?

In the wake of the horrendous call in today's England-Germany match, everyone is talking about instituting "goal-line technology," by which they mean (I think) some kind of video camera/computer setup similar to that at Wimbledon. But how about this: have more officials on the field!

There are only two referees on the field, which is huge (64 m x 100 m). By contrast, an American football field is  53 1/3 yd x 100 yd (48.8 m x 91.4 m), or only 70% as big. For important matches why doesn't FIFA include a couple of extra referees, especially one positioned near each goal?

It must be very difficult to be a soccer referee and be running up and down the field, expected to make important calls while you're doing it. Even the Americans put two extra umpires on the field for playoff and World Series games.

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