It has been decided that, in the 2012 European football championships, which will be held in Poland and Ukraine, all matches will be controlled by six officials – a referee, two assistant referees, the fourth official and two line judges.
This follows the adoption of such a stand first in the Europa League and more recently in the Champions League.
Both the European football body, UEFA, and the world football body, FIFA, have agreed that goal-line technology is still to undergo more tests before it is introduced, if ever. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said that there is a possibility that goal-line technology is introduced for the World Cup to be held in Brazil in 2014.
Until then, football will have to make do with having two line judges at the opposite end of where the two assistant referees are placed.
The intention is to reduce the number of mistakes that take place in football matches, in particular in split-second decisions that need to be taken on whether the ball has crossed the goal-line or not.
Humans are humans, and mistakes will continue to take place no matter how many officials are on the field of play. The same happens in other sport disciplines – the difference is that, in games such as basketball, volleyball, water polo and others the number of goals or points scored are many, and as such refereeing mistakes do not have the same impact as happens in football.
In football, it is different because that one error – a goal or no-goal, even an offside given when a player is onside – could influence the outcome of the encounter.
Some sport disciplines, such as rugby and tennis, have made steps forward in terms of technology use to help officials make up their mind. Football is taking its time to decide on these matters. We have been talking about technological help for referees for many years now, but little has changed except that “experiments” are held, and are then either discarded or extended.
The addition of two more officials will help in reducing the number of mistakes, but this does not mean that they will be eliminated. Part of the fun in football is controversy, and making it a “perfect” game will probably have a negative effect.