Thetownend.com

...is apparently being trialled in the UEFA Cup games tonight, so being used at Goodison, for Everton v AEK Athens. Should be interesting.

Are there really enough officials out there to make this feasible on a wider scale?
It'll be interesting to see how/if this idea works in tonight's games

Absolutely, one of the main arguments for this over video technology is that they can't use Video screens at all levels of football- but good luck finding 5-6 officials for your Sunday league team.

I doubt the extra officials will do anything noteworthy, the only thing I can see this leading too apart from the occasionally rare line call is a clampdown on pushing at corners.

  I'm not sure you'll get too many controversial calls, from the persons charged with running up and down in front of some of the ends in English football.

 It's worth a trial, to see if it improves the referees decision making...the lower league argument is a bit spurious, insofar there aren't enough refs/assistants to go round anyway, so lacking more doesn't really matter.

David Moyes really is a cunt - he's already set his stall before the game, so if they don't win he can blame it on the extra officials. He's obviously thick as shit as well as he's said he doesn't understand it. What the fuck is so difficult to understand about two extra officials?


Except if the 4 assistant ref's idea is successful and implemented next season it will only be for the Champions League and the "elite" level in UEFA countries - so the Premier League but not the Championship.

Quite. The chap on the BBC couldn't understand why Moyes was confused and neither can I.

The two extra ref's are to stand by the goal. Surely that'll be off putting for the keeper? Personally don't think it'll work.

Watching the CSKA Sofia vs. Fulham match. The extra officials are a good distance away from the goal. Far enough to not effect the goalkeeper.

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.

Is the Everton game on TV? Might give it a watch as this sounds quite ammusing.

Fulham game is on itv4, everton is on ch5 i think later on.

sounds like a train wreck so should be good tv

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

Yeah I was thinking about that sort of thing earlier.

Alternative solution for UEFA to trial: Do not use British referees.

I like my idea best.

yes because forgein refs are soooooo much better

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...

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

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

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

Is that the Linesmen or the Crowd?

referee's assistants dear boy

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!

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.

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!!!

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?

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.

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).

The Hawk-Eye goal line technology has got absolutely nothing to do with Sky, it would have its own picture feeds and would send a message to the ref within half a second of the ball crossing the line. Sky (or whoever) might take a data feed from Hawk-Eye to show as part of their coverage, but they'd have nothing to do with any decisions.

Hmmm, not convinced.  I believe what you say, however, greater use of cameras, games shown on Sky...I'm not saying Sky would alter decisions, but they could influence them, given the money they put in.  What's the betting that at some point in the future Sky offer to pay for it in Premier League grounds?

As I said before, the Hawk-Eye goal line system is a closed system - the pictures (which have to come from special high speed cameras) go in to a box which then sends a signal direct to the ref on his ear piece. There is no way Sky could (or would want to) get involved with the decision.

Having said that, I'm sure Sky would help pay for the costs as the Hawk-Eye system pumps out a lot of data which broadcasters use to improve coverage - such as the ball path in cricket and analysis of a bowlers deliveries.

This would of been interesting in the Chelsea v Spurs game today,would a goal line judge gave the keane incident a penalty,oh hang on a minute he can't it's up to the referee.This idea is pointless in my eyes unless the goal line judge can inform the referee,going by what i saw and heard the other night it looked as if those judges are there as another pair of blind eyes only if the ref decides he needs them.