4 Assistant referees...

[ChalkyWhiteIsGod]

yes because forgein refs are soooooo much better

[Div]

scenario....player dives in the box in front of the town end in the first minute and extra ref/official/assistant/linesman gives a penalty, that bloke has to stand five yards away from people abusing his very existance on the planet...probably throwing all sorts of objects at him for the rest of the game.

even taking those sorts of situations out of the equation....its a shit idea and doesnt solve anything. nice idea platini you cunt.

Yes, well done to you for a) noticing platini put it into place & requested it to be trialled and b) the extra officials will spot infringments (which is what they are put there to do)

Unfortunetley for you , Platini doesn't run the FA, or any of the FA's competitions so what happens on the european scale has no affect what-so-ever on English football until the FA say 'It's worked well, we'll do it'. If it ever gets that far into english football, which i doubt because of the amount of referees it would take, i'm pretty sure and fan's behaving like a dick towards an official (as would happen now) would get ejected, banned and may face criminal charges; the club will also be fined.

 The FA could even bring in more legislations about the distance from the pitch markings to the terraces...

[reeves4england]

If it's anything like the Fulham game, you will hardly notice anything.

Agreed. They haven't done anything worthwhile.

As for the point that they would only be used in the Premier League: on a Saturday where only 6 Premier League games are taking place, that's 12 officials that have to be moved up from officiating in the Championship that day. 12 officials then have to be moved up from League One to replace them, and we end up with League Two officials just so that Arsene Wenger can't moan about Ricardo Fuller going down a bit easily in the box. I think it's ridiculous, especially given how very very few decisions in a match will involve the extra officials

[ChalkyWhiteIsGod]

i dont think the everton game tonight did anything to convince people this is a good idea.

and i really wasn't pretending that Swindon has the most intimidating atmosheric end in world football, just merely trying to put it into words people could relate to

[Bennett]

they're on about it being rolled out to the top leagues in europe, us lesser footballing teams will have to struggle with two retards with flags

[Nemo]

us lesser footballing teams will have to struggle with two retards with flags

Is that the Linesmen or the Crowd?

[Bennett]

Is that the Linesmen or the Crowd?

referee's assistants dear boy

[richt1976]

 The FA could even bring in more legislations about the distance from the pitch markings to the terraces...

So how is that going to work?! Are they going to have to knock down all the new stadia built in the country, or eimply play on 5-a-side pitches?!!

[Div]

So how is that going to work?! Are they going to have to knock down all the new stadia built in the country, or eimply play on 5-a-side pitches?!!

yes, every team will have to have a complete revamp, most will maybe leave their current ground...

I'm being sarcy, and that was a sarcy comment. Of course stadium won't be changed, that's one of the main reasons it won't get given the go-ahead in this country, there isn't enough space around the pitch for them at most grounds, and i don't think making pitches shorter will make people very happy!

[ibelieveinmrreeves]

Plus, Mr. Biscuit, if we increase the distance from pitch to stand, we risk losing atmosphere in grounds (obviously not at the CG, there isn't much to lose;)), but ala Brighton or I imagine the Don Valley, with their running tracks.

I didn't really want to comment on this. I just wanted to call you Mr. Biscuit.

[richt1976]

I've been called far worse!! Normally every day!!

Oh, Div, obviously you didnt read that my entire comment was made in an exceedingly sarcastic tone!!!

[jonny72]

I'm all in favour of extra referee's but I'm not sure putting them behind the goal is the best place.

I'd go for putting an extra assistant ref in each half to cover the penalty area and just outside, with the main ref covering the centre of the pitch and being in overall charge of the game. I'd also allow the current 4th ref to give input to the ref as well, it's just crazy they're not allowed to at the moment.

I'm not convinced any number of ref's is going to result in better decisions about whether the ball has crossed the line or not as the ball is often moving so fast no one can call it correctly all the time. If the technology is there to do it then we should be using it in the top matches, not sure it needs to be 100% accurate either - it just needs to be 100% consistent.

[reeves4england]

I'm all in favour of extra referee's but I'm not sure putting them behind the goal is the best place.

I'd go for putting an extra assistant ref in each half to cover the penalty area and just outside, with the main ref covering the centre of the pitch and being in overall charge of the game. I'd also allow the current 4th ref to give input to the ref as well, it's just crazy they're not allowed to at the moment.

I'm not convinced any number of ref's is going to result in better decisions about whether the ball has crossed the line or not as the ball is often moving so fast no one can call it correctly all the time. If the technology is there to do it then we should be using it in the top matches, not sure it needs to be 100% accurate either - it just needs to be 100% consistent.

So you want technology that is consistently 90% accurate?

[jonny72]

So you want technology that is consistently 90% accurate?

I never said 90%. I was just making the point that there is likely to be some incidents that would be borderline even with the best technology in the world, but those incidents would be far and few between. I'm not sure how accurate the technology is but it is guaranteed to be better than the ref / linesman making the call, and would definitely have got the worst decisions in high profile games over the last 10 years right. Plus it would be consistent and every incident judged to the same standard.

[donkey]

We don't want technology.  At the moment the WC Final is played to the same rules as a game in the Shetland Sunday League, Division 6.  We should keep it that way.  Sky TV do not need any more power in the game (which is basically why Sky always go on about it).