Additional Official needed for soccer matches

[TDK1044]

The recent soccer game between France and Ireland pinpoints the necessity of adding an additional official in my view.

One French player making a poor decision to deliberately manipulate the ball with his hand doesn't brand the whole of the French team as cheats. This blatant hand ball was simply not spotted by the officials.

With the amount of skulduggery that now goes on in the penalty area in most games, especially during set pieces, I belive that an additional official is needed to be positioned to the left and or right of the goal net to specifically look for fouling and ball handling in the box.

We don't need to use replay technology which would slow the game down massively, we just need an additional Official to look for fouls, shirt tugging and hand balls in the box from a closer perspective than either the Referee or the Assistant Referee.

Each game should have a total of six officials:
Referee
2 x Assistant Referees
2 x Assistant Referees (Penalty Area)
6th Official

[Dowly]

Do we really need a 3rd thread about this? :O:

[TDK1044]

Do we really need a 3rd thread about this? :O:

Mine is a thread about the need for an additional official in the sport. The French game is just one of many examples of why such an official is needed in my view. The thread is not about that particular game.

Recently, there was a game between Liverpool and Birmingham, where the outcome was changed by a player deliberately diving in the penalty area without ever having been touched. A similar incident occurred with Eduardo diving during a recent Arsenal Champions League game.

In both cases, the additional official would have spotted the offense.

[Jimbuna]

I agree the need for additional officials, especially with regard to penalty area incidents, ball crossing the line etc.

I'm also in favour of video technology, provided the playback is fast enough so as not to cause unnecessary delays.

[TDK1044]

I think that once the players understand that there will now be an official whose sole purpose is to look for infractions within the penalty area, a lot of this shirt tugging and diving nonsense will end. It will just be too risky.

[AVGWarhawk]

I think the stadiums seating needs to be stronger. Man, every see the crowd bring down the seating?