FIFA to consider adding officials
JOHANNESBURG — The Associated PressPublished on Monday, Nov. 30, 2009 10:28AM EST
FIFA will consider having extra match officials on the field to help referees at next year's World Cup in South Africa.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter says Thierry Henry's hand ball, which led to the goal that sent France to the World Cup at the expense of Ireland, showed that referees needed more help on the field.
The FIFA executive committee will hold an emergency meeting in Cape Town on Wednesday, two days ahead of the draw for the World Cup, to discuss whether to recommend extra match officials.
If they agree, the proposal will go before football's rule-making International Board in Zurich in March for a final decision.
Blatter was speaking Monday at the opening of the Soccerex business conference in Johannesburg.
“There is a lack of discipline and respect in the game by the players because they are cheating,” Blatter said.
“This is human beings trying to get an advantage and this is not good and we have to fight against that. We have only one man on the field of play who shall intervene in this matter. He has two assistants for the time being, perhaps more in the future. He has to make an immediate decision. He has only two eyes. So match control is now is on the agenda. How shall we avoid such situations as we have seen in this very specific match?”
Henry's clear hand ball, first with his arm and then with his left hand, stopped the ball from going out of play before he crossed to teammate William Gallas to score an equalizer for a 1-1 draw with Ireland at Stade de France. That remained the score and France, which had won 1-0 in Dublin, qualified 2-1 on aggregate.
Blatter said the Irish were unhappy to go out of the competition in that way and had written to FIFA to be allowed into the competition as a 33rd team. That will also be discussed at the executive committee meeting on Wednesday.
Because of the clamour for FIFA to take action to help the match officials, the debate is likely to be between using TV technology or extra referees.
As an experiment in the Europa League, UEFA uses five officials, one standing at each end of the field, to help the referee settle disputes in the area, including whether the ball has crossed the line.
Blatter said he was not in favour of using TV technology to settle such disputes.
“With technology, you have to stop a match. You have a look at cameras,” he said. “Now I think there should be some additional (assistants), if they can see or not see.
“We have to maintain the human face of football and not go into technology. I think that goal-line technology, when accurate, we can accept it in international football.”
Blatter said this year's World Cup playoffs led to several disputes which would be discussed at the executive committee meeting. There was concern that such playoffs, where one team gets an advantage of playing the second legs at home, are unfair.
2 comments:
I wonder why Blatter is so afraid of technology. In Tennis and Hockey, camera technology has made it easier for the referees to make fair decisions in hard situations. I would like to see cameras in professional-level football, such as the big leagues and the world cup. Since they are being broadcasted on television, referees do not see things as the TV audience see. With help from cameras, referees would have an easier job, and maybe they would get more respect both from players and from the audience, and the results may be more fair.
In the particular case with Henry's hand ball, I do not think cameras are necessary (and that is not because I am Swedish). The cameras shall help the referee to see if the ball is in the net or not. It is very unfortunate that the referee, who happened to be a swede, did not see the incident, but that is just the way it is sometimes. Most of the time the referee see those things, at least with help from assistant referees. What the referees have problem with, is to see if the ball has crossed the line or not, and that is where we need help from cameras.
Yeah, I'm not so sure that resisting technology at this point in time makes much sense, other than for the fact that it inevitably does interrupt the "flow" of the game (for players and spectators), but soccer has been behind the times for quite some time in this regard anyway. Basketball went to three officials ages ago. Hockey to two referees. It only makes sense to get some more eyeballs working on the field at the higher levels of the game.
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