All these officials - and they still get it wrong!

Well, good for England. They beat Ukraine and won the Group!

It wasn't entirely convincing, but not many teams are convincing all the way through a tournament. Quarter-final opponents Italy, for example, have been particularly adept over the years at sneaking through the group phase without, in some cases, even winning a game!

But England will have to get better to stand a chance of progressing in this tournament.

England have played Italy only twice before in tournament matches and, strangely enough, they have both been IN Italy. The first was in 1980 in the European Championship when they lost 1-0 in Turin. The second time was in the third and fourth place play-off match of Italia '90 when Italy won 2-1 in Bari.

Going back to the Ukraine v England match and it is astonishing that we still have to suffer from goals not being given when the ball is over the line. This time luck favoured England as John Terry's clearance was of a ball that had crossed the line. The fourth (fifth or sixth or seventh?) official was standing less than ten yards away, but failed to see the ball had crossed the line (or, at least, failed to signal it).

WHAT DO THESE OFFICIALS DO? No one at the BBC or ITV seem to know and surely they would have found out by now. And why do they patrol the goal line on the same side of the pitch as the assistant referee (linesman in old money)? Maybe the goal line official was told NOT to signal for goal line decisions (which would be madness), as that is the assistant referee's decision, but the latter's view would be obscured by the former! (At least it would have been if the assistant referee had been able to keep up with play - he was five yards short!)

In addition, this same assistant referee missed a blatant offisde in the build-up to the phantom "goal", which would have avoided all this goal line fiasco. (I note that a furious Oleg Blokhin didn't complain about that decision not being given.)

Come on, even without goal-line technology, surely the now huge number of officials can get key decisions right.

FIFA's refereeing changes are long overdue

Let’s hope FIFA mean what they say when they announced yesterday that this would be the last World Cup with the current refereeing system. It needs a change, and not just for scandalously erroneous decisions like Frank Lampard’s non-goal for England in the second round against Germany.

That failed decision, though, was the thrust of the comments made by FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke, who said: “We're talking about a goal not seen by the referee which is why we are talking about new technology.” He suggested that two extra goal-line referees (as trialled by the Europa Cup last season, and to be used in the Champions League this season) could be used in future World Cups.

“Let's see if this system will help or whether giving the referee an additional four eyes will give him the comfort and make duty easier to perform,” added Valcke. “I would say that it is the final World Cup with the current refereeing system.”

“The game is so fast, the ball is flying so quickly, we have to help them and we have to do something and that's why I say it is the last World Cup under the current system,” Valcke said.

Opponents to goal-line technology have pointed to concerns over universality - that all levels of the game will not be able to use the same rules and methods of refereeing.

As someone who has been involved in football at the lowest level, let me tell them that most park games have reluctant “linesmen” from each side – sometimes substitutes. The thought of trying to raise an extra linesman per side to man the goal lines is difficult to conceive. So the game is different at different levels already.

The fact is that park football bears little relation to games at the World Cup. How can multi-million pound games be subject to the same errors that a park referee might get pilloried for? Surely the point at the highest level should be to get the correct decision.

IFAB is the body that makes the game’s rules. It consists of representatives of the English, Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh FAs as well as four representatives from FIFA. Due to hold a meeting on 21 July, it is certain these issues will be discussed, but decisions may not be reached until future meetings.

Changes are long overdue.

Some ways to change football for the better

A friend of mine, frustrated and angry at England's demise from the World Cup on Sunday, sent me an email about what he thought was wrong with football, and some solutions to fix these wrongs. This is a summary of what he said:

"These are some of the changes I would like to see in football or I'm in danger of switching off completely.


1. Kicking the ball out of play any time anyone goes down. No one has ever been killed in football in over a century of playing (it's health and safety gone mad as usual). Get on with it, you pathetic babies. Someone gets hit in the head with a ball - so what? It hurts; we've all had it, of course it hurts. Maybe stop for head clashes, but that's it. GET ON WITH IT.

2. Goal line technology and one decision challenge per half per team made by each coach.

3. Stop trying to take contact out of football Mr Blatter. It's a man's game, or was. The minutest of contact is now a foul and it results in constant whistle.

4. Turn intelligent lower league players into well paid professional referees instead of becoming plumbers etc. They understand the game and would be far better than many of the referees we have now. ITS COMMON SENSE.

5. Any diving cheating as decided by a panel after all games should result in a 10 match ban and £x,000 fine. It will stop overnight and the panel can be disbanded and brought back if it starts again.

6. Any arguing with a referee should be an immediate red card and £25,000 fine and 10 match ban. End of. Again, it will stop overnight.

7. Cut the Premier League down to 16 teams and make all cups one game with penalties no draws, no two legged matches. Luck of the draw, get on with it. It's killing our international team with too many games.

That's what I'd like to see for starters. Any others?"

Poor refereeing backed by ineffective FIFA

Not all referees are as god as Pierluigi Collina of Italy who was renowned as one of the best referees of his generation. However, while much of the refereeing at the 2010 South Africa World Cup has been reasonable, some of it has been quite poor.

It may be a FIFA directive, but the overreaction of referees to supposed 'use of the elbow' has become almost epidemic. The sending-off, for example, of Brazil's Kaka last Sunday was ridiculous. All he tried to do was prevent himself from getting hurt by an onrushing Ivory Coast player, who then crashed to the floor in death throes with something apparently akin to a smashed skull - when in reality his head wasn't touched at all.

The real culpable player was the Ivorian, not Kaka, yet Kaka is banned for one game and the Ivorian goes unpunished.

The failure of referees to inists on supposedly less critical rules followed leads to players questioning the 'bigger' decisions. Hardly any referees has insisted on throw-ins and free-kicks being taken from the right place, yet the rules are quite clear that a re-start should take place where the infringement took place. In this World Cup tht has been the point at which trowers can start their walk forward to where they run to take the throw, or where the free-kick taker chucks the ball forward forom where he'll take the free-kick.

Howard Webb's failure to book the player from the wall (Spanish, I think) who nearly beat the free-kick taker to the ball (thus being way less than 10 yards from the free-kick) was shameful.

Thus getting away with minor rule breaches, the players move on.

There has been far too much 'simulation' of injury in the World Cup, yet the guilty go unpunished. As for holding in the penalty box by defenders when there are free-kicks of corners, it is, frankly, laughable.

Rather like the players who go unpunished, FIFA need to get a grip.

No change to refereeing for 2010 World Cup

Yesterday Sepp Blatter announced that there will be no change to the way games are refereed in the 2010 World Cup. Two further assistant referees (as used in the Europa Cup this season) will not be introduced in South Africa.

Blatter said: "We spoke about what to do with refereeing in future. It's clear that the main match official and his assistants cannot see everything that happens on the field of play. So, is it better to have more match officials or open the door to technology? We will have to evaluate this, though we did take one decision: even if the experiment with two additional match officials in the [UEFA] Europa League continues through to the latter stages (of the competition), there won't be any changes for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We will continue to use one main match official, two assistants and a fourth official. There's no discussion on this, (the finals) are too soon for us to evaluate other possibilities."

It seems pretty blinkered to me. The introduction of two more assistants - one behind each goal - would make it almost impossible for players to get away with hand balls in the penalty area, and goal line judgements would be improved. It seems an easy one.

Video technology - although quoted as being used in other sports (e.g. cricket, rugby) is a more difficult one. The nature of football is its flow and several interruptions per game for video reviews would not serve the game well. This, therefore, is not an easy decision to make, but at least they're looking into it.

Extra officials for the Europa League

Two more assistant referees were introduced into games in the Europa League last night (the Europa League is this season's replacement for the UEFA Cup and is a copy of the Champions League format).

It means there are now five officials helping to make decisions on the game, plus of course the 'fourth' official - now the sixth official!

The two additional assistant referees stand at each end, behind the goal line to the goalkeeper's right. Their duties are to help the referee rule on incidents in the penalty box. It could be an arduous duty for them on a cold winter's night in a dour midfield battle in Moscow, but a sound overcoat in fetching eggshell blue should do the trick.

Whether they will help cut down on shirt-tugging and the like in the box only time will tell, and one round of games is certainly too soon to make a judgement.

(Picture courtesy of TimesOnline)