For the Integrity of Soccer

Master of the Whistle (from Ed)

An interesting article on the referee Abraham Klein was recently published in The Guardian, a British newspaper. You can read it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/b...-klein-referee

We found this article be very revealing about the politics (that we always knew about anyway!) that go into the selection of referees for World Cups and for matches during those tournaments. The article also included accounts of the strenuous efforts Klein went to in order to keep fit, back in the days without personal trainers and all the other high-tech equipment, monitoring and supervision that present day top-level referees enjoy.

Too Many Cards? (from Ed)

Many of the articles and subjects we write about on this site concern events that occur at the higher levels of the game, i.e. professional leagues and International competitions. However we surmise that many of our readers never will referee at these levels, and most of their games are in youth soccer.

The article I wrote a few weeks ago about an incident in the Dallas Cup jogged my memory about another match I had observed at the Dallas Cup. This was in the  U-14 division and it occurred to me that writing about it might be helpful to the readers I mentioned above.

Goal-line Decision, Redux. (From Ed)

Regular readers of this blog will recall that we have discussed the issue of goal line decisions in two previous articles, posted on October 28, 2010, and May 18, 2011. We are now induced to revisit the subject due to an incident in the Bolton v. Queens Park Rangers match in the EPL yesterday.

 

This was a very critical match since both teams are facing the dire prospect of relegation and the consequent loss of millions of pounds in revenue should relegation occur.

In this match, as can be seen from the photo, QPR (red shirts) had the ball over the line legitimately for what should have been a goal. However no goal was given because neither the referee nor the AR was able to see and verify that the ball had indeed crossed the line. This was crucial incident since it directly affected the outcome of the match, which was won by Bolton 2-1.  As expected, this incident has brought up the thorny concept of some sort of goal line technology to assist the match officials in incidents of this type, which was discussed at the most recent meeting of the IFAB earlier this month.

But is it really needed? Let's examine the particulars of this incident.

One Season Too Late! (from Ed)

The Dallas Cup is a prestigious international youth soccer tournament (U13 to U19) held every year since 1980 in Dallas, Texas. Founded by Ron Griffith and the Texas Longhorns Soccer Club, it has grown in stature over the years, and has featured teams from the World’s top clubs such as Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Sao Paulo, Eintract Frankfurt to name just a few. Many now- famous players have participated in previous Dallas Cups, including David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Landon Donovan.

(Actually it is not in the City of Dallas any longer, the games are played in Frisco at Pizza Hut Park, the home of MLS team FC Dallas, and in Richardson, but that is neither here nor there.)