As you are no doubt aware, this season in UEFA competitions (The Champions League, and Europa League) extra officials are in place behind the goals to help the referees with penalty area decision making. A rather weak half measure designed to quiet the increasingly loud calls for video technology, these assistants (at least in the games I have seen) have had very little impact on decision making and are all in all a bit of a waste of space and money.
That however is not to say I am against extra officials – I just think that behind the goal is not the area they need to be. My idea (and I hope in the next few paragraphs to sell it to you) is to double up on the much maligned good old fashioned linesman.
At any one time there would, under my plan, be two linesman in line with play, one on either end of the pitch (another cheaper option, fitness probably not allowing, would be to have the linesmen run the full line, from end to end.) There are many reasons for this the first and foremost being offside decisions.
The reason I came up with this idea is that I didn’t see (unlike for instance, Goal line decisions) an easy way to implement technology for offside decisions. You would have to let the play go on even if there was a potential offside, because if the video proved it was not offside you would need to know what happened. This would mean you would have to play until the ball went out of play, the review decision. If it was offside, play would have to be brought back (even though many minutes may have gone past!) And if it wasn’t offside then the play that had gone through up till the ball going out would have stood. This is messy and completely would disrupt the flow of the game. And yet I think offside decisions are vital decisions and players deserve to have more correct offside decisions than they currently get.
Under my plan for a forward to be given offside BOTH linesmen would have to flag. If only one flagged play would continue. (Note: If video technology was introduced it could be that only partial decisions (ie where one linesman flagged) would be reviewed.) Even (as is more likely) there was no video replay introduced, this would give more “benefit of the doubt” to the forward (as is supposed to be the case, but hardly ever is in reality). As a forward there is nothing more frustrating than timing your run to perfection and being flagged, and I think nicely weighted through balls and well-timed runs are one of the best things to watch on a football pitch so it’s good for the fans, plus I think we would get more goals.
Often I think offside decisions are biased due to the side the linesman is on, i.e. based on whether the linesman is looking “through” a defender. Also whether the linesman is right up with play affects the accuracy of the decision, with two linesman it is more likely at least one of them will be right up with play and can give the best decision possible, if both linesman do what looks right to them, as linesmen tend to be cautious I think requiring both to flag for offside to be given would mean far more decisions would be given correctly. Also one linesman flagging might “remind” the other linesman who if in agreement could then raise his flag (although I’m not sure whether this is a positive or a negative!” Overall though surely we would get more goals, and that’s a good thing!
Of course these officials could also help out on goal line, and corner decisions, but offside would be the primary benefit, and I feel that offsides are a crucial decision that are getting little attention in the technology and refereeing debates that are going on at the moment. My plan isn’t perfect, but I feel the extra officials would do far more good on the side-lines than stuck behind the goals. Let me know what you think – especially about how to get more offside decisions correct and what decisions you think it would be easier to implement technology for.
No comments:
Post a Comment