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.
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.
Wed Jul 07, 2010, 05:41pm
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