Would Two World Cup Referees be better than one?

that was kewl. huhuhuh

somebody should make a law that makes it against the law to play soccer but soccer sucks

There will never be two referees because doing so would improve the game. As president of FEEFA it is my intention to make this game as pathetic and stupid as possible.
I am an old fart and an a**hole.

Why was m y post deleted? It was smart and stuff.

The referee already has two assistants, and then there is the fourth official, so it seems unclear to me how an additional man in the middle would help. Perhaps the role of the linesman and fourth official could be expanded. The linesman can already single to the center ref when they think a foul has been committed or a card should be given, so I’m not really sure what their expanded duties would be.

I’ve heard the fourth (or is a fifth official?) has access to a video monitor (but not instant replay) in this world cup and can relate what he sees to the center. Perhaps they should give him instant replay soon and he could quickly relate what he sees to the middle over the headsets.

I would like to hear from the referees themselves about these new headsets and if they think it has assited them in calling the game.

I think it is a great idea. Take the Brazil V Ghana game, Brazil were 1 -0 up and Ghana were trying extremely hard to get a goal.. Brazil breaks away and is definately off side, but the Ozy linesman is not even keeping up with the play and is way behind and the goal is counted.. that offside goal killed the game for me and put Ghana out of the WC.

AFRICANS are FUMING as being cheated by Referees. who are white people.

FIFA: Here is my ADVICE.:
Please keep Bad Referees out of the 2010 (Africa). There could be REAL RIOTS . I have heard it from Africans.
Or Cancel the GAMES!!!

This is what happened to Ghana the only hope of Africa in this World Cup:

(1)Michael Essien WRONGLY given a yellow card. That bared him from the match against Brazil.

(2)Then Africans think they saw two OFFSIDE Goals into Ghana by Brazil from which Ghana could never recover.

(3) Ghana coach bared from the Field for SPEAKLING OUT.

(4) The Referee of Brazil/Ghana match BEGGING RONALDO for his Jersey after the match in “Scratch my back and I Scratch your Back STYLE. One-hand-Washes-The-Other.”

I can see a REAL RIOT African Style. Worst than we have seen in the UK.

World Sports, please heed my warnings. I am serious. Nigeria, Ghana Cameroun have all had thier shares of bad Referees. They dont see it as BAD REFEREEING, but as RACISM since the Referees are always the white people dishing out the yellow and red card mostly to black players. Trouble is brewing. Dont say I did not warn you.

Good grief Ricky. As far as I know Ronaldo’s goal in the first 5 minutes was problem free. Since Ghana scored no goals they still would have lost 1-0. I have to say that I liked Ghana’s play and they sure looked the better team to my eyes. I really don’t appreciate this racism nonsense you are preaching. Have you been hanging out with the Rev. Jessie Jackson and his sidekick Al Sharpton? Yes, there are white racists but they are far outnumbered by black racists (at least in the USA).

Well, compare soccer to other sports.

Basketball: 10 players, 3 referees + video replay in special circumstances
Baseball: 10 to 13 players, 4 umpires (raises to 6 in the playoffs) + Questec electronic monitoring of pitch calls
American Football: 22 players, 7 referees + video replay
Hockey: 12 players, 2 referees, 2 linesmen, 2 goal judges + video replay

Soccer: 22 players, 1 referee, 2 linesmen, no use of video review or other electronic monitoring technology.

When you look at the difference in the number of eyes monitoring play plus given that a soccer field is much larger than any of those other sport it seems like an obvious result that a lot of calls are misjudged.

I remember an old saying, “When the ref is right, he’s right. When the ref is wrong, he’s right.” Good refereeing is not only about being right; it’s about being consistent. With a good refereeing team, the football players on both sides can feel confident that calls will be distributed fairly and to a slightly lesser degree accurately, because refereeing football will always be an inaccurate science. What refereeing lacks in accuracy can be made up in consistency. The ideal refereeing team has a high percentage of accurate calls (never reaching 100% because of limitations of human perception and interpretation), coupled with a consistency whereby both teams can know that they are equally hampered and aided by the human limitations of the referee and his linesmen. It is, after all, that certain ineffability that makes football, like life itself, a beautiful game, is it not?

Having watched cricket which is my Dad’s favourite sport I think that FIFA should adopt the third umpire idea. Where an umpire is not on the field but instead is sitting in a booth with replays of any fouls or whatever and when asked by the umpire on the field for his input the umpire in the booth can give the evidence a good look at.

In other words don’t just rely on your eyes during the game. If need be use the replays to figure out what happened. It’ll save any bad decisions being made.

“There are simply too many referees who do not have the experience of officiating matches that are played at the pace of the World Cup. There are undoubtedly some fine referees from countries with smaller domestic leagues, but it is also evident that some of the officials selected are way out of their league.”
You are so wrong. The most controversial matches so far have all been officiated by highly regarded referees from top European leagues:
The dodgy last minute penalty in ITA-AUS was awarded by Spanish referee.
Top English referee showed 3 yellow cards to a Croatian player in AUS-CRO.
Top German referee presented inconsistent match reports for the Kewell incident and awarded a dodgy penalty to Ghana which sent USA home.
Ivanov was top Russian referee. (actually I don’t think he did anything wrong. The players asked for it)

Beavis you are a butthead!

Why not have 4 linesman, one for every side of the pitch. At least for the WC 2010.

More capable referees and more of them per game should definitely help. I don’t see the problem with having more eyes on the game. I’d also like to know what happened in the two refs ‘test’ in Italy that made this option unwelcome.
But regardless of whether they do eventually go to two refs or not, I agree with Martin 100%,… it comes down to being consitent whether it is for the better or for the worst. Spread the wealth or the damage evenly

Regarding the awful refereeing in this world cup….. I’m beside myself as to why FIFA does not use a 3rd umpire type system. That is the use of video replay when making CRUCIAL decisions….the kind that alters matches. Many sports such as Tennis, Rugby, American Football, Cricket etc. These sports make full use of this technology without great disruption to the flow of the game. Why then does the beautiful game not????

Let me be clear. I’m not preposing this be used for run-of-the-mill refereeing. This would be a nuisance, costly interruption, be subject to gamesmanship and would reduce viewer and player enjoyment. NO what I am referring to are those CRUCIAL game-changing decisions that alter matches. These decisions are too important to leave up to the referee’s discretion.

I do not blame the referees for making the mistakes they do. In the heat of play at high speed a well-timed dive genuinely does look like a penalty, offside players can look onside and handballs can look like headers…THAT’S FINE. After all they are only human. But their mortal imperfections shouldn’t be the difference between a win and a loss (eg Australia vs. Italy… and countless others).

I define crucial decisions as those that:
- Could result in a goal (eg incorrect offside calls)
- Do result in a goal (penalties in the box [handballs, tackles etc]
- Do result in Red cards (and second yellows).

These decisions are not the same as your run-of-the-mill penalties that have no bearing on the outcome of the match….rather they decide matches…. And as this and all other world cups have shown, the referees cannot be trusted to make the right decision, regardless of how good they are.

SO if instead of reaching for that read card or the whistle, the referee instead, called for a replay of the incident I think the unpredictability and fickleness of the game could be removed…

Also it would reduce the amount of diving players perform. If players thought their behaviour would come under careful scrutiny and observation they would surely rethink milking a penalties.

The fact that this just keeps on reoccurring time after time…And the fact that it so often goes on to alter matches of such great importance…It just seems ludicrous to me that FIFA allow this to continue when a this simple solution exists.

Too often the wrong team progresses due to incorrect refereeing decisions. For the progression of development of the game and for officiating to evolve into a more exact science, assisted video replay technology needs be used.

well,it will b a chaotic condition if 2 referees r employed.all the confusions of a game cannot b eliminated.but a rule may b imposed where each team may appeal against a certain number of decisions (say…3/4 decisions)made by the field officials.n these decisions may b scrutinized by another official outside the field with the help of tv replay.ofcourse these appeals can b made only in case of xtreme controversies,such as:disallowed goals,red cards,penalties etc.n ofcourse too many appeals should not b allowed 2 make(3/4times maximum)bcoz it will obstruct the flow of the game.at least some controversies may b resolved then.

Two refs cannot co-exist on the same field, for the simple reason that just ONE person should decide the way he’s whistling. Two wouldn’t necessarilu have the same opinion, and EVEN if they did, the interpretation of events would not be the same.
4 linesmen would improve things a lot…
And the guy with the monitor outside of the field should help as well…

About Rivky David: I wouldn’t mind riots… not at all! Maybe FIFA officials would come than back to earth (from wherever they are right now) and realize that they’ve being destroying the game the last years…

Black racists outnumbering white racists in the USA? Do you have stats to back this claim up? What do you count as racism? Certainly Jese Jackson and Al Sharpton cannot be seen as racists except by the most ignorant of people who have no idea what racism actually is, and I am not referring simply to whites. The problem with commentators and many fans is they see Africa as some unified whole, almost like a country. So because Ghana is African all Africans are proud of what they did. This is sheer nonsense. Sure some Africans will see it this way but I doubt the majority cared about Ghana’s success. To suggest that there will be riotting in Africa in 2010 if calls go against African sides is ludicrous and even racist as it suggests Africans are predisposed to violent behaviour. Yet hasn’t been European fans that have been the most violent (ie. German-English fans clashing recently). Anyways, back to the main blog, the only way to resolve officiating incompetencies is through the institution of instant replays.

Adding another pair of human eyes won’t help, we need video replay!

But only on controversial goals and red cards so the game still flows but 4 years of effort are not wasted because of one bad referee call.

This will eliminate the conspiracy theories AND will clean up the play because on replay you can tell if a player is taking a dive, and if he knows he will get a yellow card when he is caught, the diving will stop.

I am a former referee (23 years) at all levels and have worked both 2 ref and 3 ref (diagonal system of control)systems.
I was also a referee instructor and assessor.
Based on my experience,
if anything, add a second ref at WC qualification and finals BUT keep the assistant referees. There would be provisions (electronic) for them to confer quickly during the match.
Most sports add officials during high level events.

Does Soccer Need Major Surgery or A Couple Stitches?

The Football kNuts put up a fairly detailed post filled with ideas on how to fix the fundamentally broken game of soccer. Many people have complained about the state of soccer in the 2006 World Cup and many have been upset over the number of bookings (…

No. One person has to ultimately be in charge. The last thing we need to see is more “competition” among refs. They should do their jobs and not seen or heard unless absolutely necessary.

football needs videoref. but bloody fifa will never allow it.
and there should be punition of things which the referee may have missed. for example, figo smashing the nose of some dutch with his head. the TV showed it clearly. how’s possible that he was not suspended?

Reading these posts makes me ill and angry. I absolutely agree with those who are for wholesale changes. the equation that Beau gives is SUPERB. The field is too big for one old man to cover precisely. But will FIFA ever care? Will those who think two refs or any other improvement is a bad thing care? No, because they are afraid that improvements will hurt the game.

This is like crime going up in your city and the mayor saying putting more cops on the beat, putting up more streetlights is a bad thing and that we should just trust that the criminals just behave themselves.

No! 2 refs is only going to add
more crowdedness to the field
despite the fact it looks big.

As I stated in anothe thread, the
better way to go is to have RED
card consequence carried into the
next match for the entire team
and not just the offending
player.

If a player gets a RED, not only
he will be out of the next match
the entire team will be penalised
for playing with 1 man less for
the next as well.

Now, that will sure clean up
some dirty act as a whole as
the offender will now be blamed
for dragging the whole team into
trouble for the next match!

Similarly, rule on YELLOW card
also needs to be tighten up.
If a player got 1 YELLOW from
last match and get another one
in current match, he should be
dismissed for current match
immediately and also suspended
for next match.

Technology could certainly help with refereeing decisions–perhaps a PDA (palm pilot) for the ref on the field with streaming video capabilities; the ref can view video feed of a last play if there is doubt. However, don’t fall into the trap of thinking in absolutes, i.e. either there is a foul or there isn’t and the ref just needs to make the call. If that is the case, a computer could referee a game. Football play is a series of relationships that must be interpreted by the ref and linesmen on a continual basis. When a particular set of circumstances of play crosses a threshold, the ref must act. And no amount of technology can make that decision for the ref because that threshold is not always a clear line (consider calling a foul that hurts the fouled team’s advantage i.e. about to set up an attack). Certainly some incidents are easy to interpret, but many are not; this is when emotion, style and professional experience of the ref influences a decision. WC referees and linesmen get to know teams and players over the years which influences their refereeing styles just as players develop styles amongst each other and against particular teams. Technology can help to stop extremes in refereeing, but there will always be a qualitative aspect to the game. And finally, the fan brings his or her additional interpretation to refereeing: When a ref doesn’t call an offside against your favourite team and it leads to a goal, you don’t think of that as ‘bad refereeing,’ do you? No, instead in that case it’s just a wee bit of good luck…could happen to anyone. Your team definitely deserved to win.