Of course he was to say that. I will believe it is happening when I see the laws actually get changed. (Sorry, but Blatter brings out the cynicism in a lot of soccer fans.)

It seems to me that Sepp is the Bud Selig of international soccer.

What do you not buy... Football has less space and more officials than soccer. Not sure what there is there not to buy.

Yes, you watch all 22 because they are all near each other. If you put these 22 all over the field, and then make it so that the ball action could move 50-70 yards in a couple of seconds, 7 wouldn't be nearly enough... but you've hit on my reason for needing more right there. IF the referee is in good position at a good angle within 10 yards... Problem is ... with just 1, he VERY often is not - neither good position, good angle, nor within 10 yards. None of the above - hence the awful calls. With as much movement and space as soccer has, there's NO chance for a referee to stay in good position and angle, and straightlines will happen. Often.

I would say more than "nice". Required, I believe. An official there would make a HUGE difference, not just on goals but on penalties and hand-balls close to the goal. I agree with the last sentence as well... and yes, only at the high levels - but we're talking about the World Cup - doesn't get much higher than that.

In American football, you watch all 22 players because all 22 can hit or be hit every play. In soccer, you only have to watch 5-7 players at a time.

And the days of one, omnipotent referee in the center of the field are long since gone. In the last decade AR's have become more and more active in calling fouls, awarding penalties, and even giving cards. There's a reason they aren't called "linesmen" anymore. Now there's even a fourth official who can tell the center referee anything he sees.

The big issue seems to be in the nature of this particular tournament. Since goals are so rare, and since World Cup Finals games are "do or die" (less so in group play, but still) the consequences of every mistake are that much higher. (Remember, the 16-team knock-out format didn't come about until 1986, with the advent of the first American network TV deal.) The lower the margin for error for the players, the lower the error margin is for the officials.

"One and done" might make for exciting basketball, but it's lousy for soccer.

I disagree 100%. The officials for any sport need to be able to observe ALL of the players ALL of the time. There is always a potential for a situation to occur away from the main action.

Or perhaps you feel that the referee crew didn't need to watch these two at this time.

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Collectively, yes, but I believe we're talking about each individual official, and I've yet to meet anyone with complete, panoramic eyesight.

Your example actually proves my point.

The case the previous poster was trying to make was that there needed to be 5 or 7 or more officials on the field. In this case, three officials saw all they needed to see to get the call right. Notice that the head butt happened while the referee was twenty yards away and chasing the play away from the incident. The AR saw it, called it, and the referee pulled the red card. Problem solved.

Everything that needed to happen happened, and without seven or more extra bodies on the field clogging up the playing space.

The point is, if you have competent AR's -- and you trust them -- a qualified center referee can focus on the 5-7 players nearest the ball and still keep control of the match.

That said, MLB adds two umpires to the field for the play-offs. If you want to put an extra set of eyes behind each goal line just for the World Cup, fine. But overhauling the process to the point of the kind of hyper-officiating we see in football and basketball seems like an overreaction.

Zidane's headbutt was actually spotted by the 4th official...at least officially. :D

What do you mean by "hyper officiating"?

OF COURSE. You just made our point. 1 isn't enough.

Interesting revisionist history there... Do you actually remember this situation? It was NOT as you described it.

True, one official is never enough. However, World Cup matches have four officials.

Why would "What the he(ck) is with..." or "How the he(ck) can you expect" imply that I don't care about answers? WTH :) would you think that? (And I only said WTH 2 times... not every single supposed question...)

Sigh. I'm not going to wordsmith with you, nor repeat things I've said in previous posts just so the wordsmiths out there can pick it apart. My point all along has been that you can't cover the field with only 1 official ON THE FIELD.

And I will NEVER comprehend not having someone at each goal. Perhaps those 2 guys are the junior guys with low responsibility working their way up - but having a guy there just to watch IN vs NOT IN and handballs in the box would be a huge help.

"Hyper-officiated" sports are those in which the participants and spectators expect some kind of official intervention whenever any rule or custom or protocol is violated, no matter how trifling or irrelevant to the outcome of the play or the game.

Football is the most notorious example. If an offensive player's alignment is off by a few inches either way at the snap, then no matter what else happens the play is coming back with a 5-yard penalty. Defenders initiating contact 5 1/2 yards from scrimmage are penalized, but 4 1/2 yards away is fine. And don't get me started on pass interference.

No wonder it takes a crew the size of the Supreme Court to get all the calls right. There are just too many calls to make.

Basketball is almost as bad, though referees tend to get a bit more leeway there. I read on the forums that referees have to worry about things like uniform colors, where people stand for free throws, and what time the score book gets filled out.

Come on, people.

At least in basketball there is some discretion over whether something is or isn't a foul. As I understand it, to be a foul the contact has to give the person who initiated it an advantage. That rule, by the way, came from soccer. As did the rule about not stopping the clock every time somebody scores.

You're welcome.