Additional
assistants
The Group 5 mini-tournament in Slovenia features the hosts,
Norway, Slovakia and Armenia, beginning today and continuing
until Wednesday. It will see � in addition to the match
referee and two assistant referees on the touchline � two
extra assistants placed behind the goal line, with the
mission of focusing on incidents which happen in the penalty
area, such as fouls or misconduct. Further trials are
planned later this year in the U19 qualifying round, in
Groups 1 and 7, in Hungary and Cyprus.
IFAB-approved
An experiment with five match officials � one referee and
four assistants � comes after football's lawmakers, the
International Football Association Board (IFAB) approved the
conducting of such a test at its meeting in Scotland last
March. The IFAB, the custodian of the Laws of the Game, is
composed of England's Football Association, the Scottish
Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, the
Irish Football Association and world football's governing
body FIFA.
Goalline
technology
The use of five referees for a game, to facilitate the match
officials' decision-making process, is independent from
another proposal which has been put forward in recent
times � the use of goalline technology. The two unrelated
items were discussed as separate agenda points at the IFAB
meeting in Scotland. While the IFAB agreed that experiments
with five referees should be undertaken, the issue of
goalline technology was put on ice and tests in this area
were halted until further notice. On the latter point the
IFAB discussed, among other things, elements such as the
human aspect of the game and its relation to referees'
decision-making, as well as the simplicity of the technology
in question.