Extra Officials Added to Champions League

The powers running the various soccer leagues and international competitions across the globe will never be mistaken for a group of progressive politicians. The status quo is more than all right for Sepp Blatter et al.

Yet the billions of worldwide eyeballs watching the World Cup in South Africa saw a tournament fraught with officiating mistakes, notably mistakes on the goal line. In fact, Frank Lampard's goal that bounced under the cross bar and over the goal line forced some kind of reactionary change all by itself.

Wednesday the Technical Sub-Committee of the International Football Association Board -- a.k.a. the rules committee -- approved the use of two extra officials positioned behind the goal line in a couple different competitions, most notably the UEFA Champions League, on a two-year experiment.
The extra officials were already in place for Europe's second-tier club competition, the Europa League, last season. The experiment seemed to go off without much incident probably since it wasn't at the forefront of people's minds like it is now post-World Cup.

With this experiment in place, a total of six officials are now required to call a Champions League match. You have the referee, the two linesman, the two goal line assistants and the off-field fourth official.

One of the reasons FIFA has been against changes is because in a dream world, they'd like the World Cup final officiated by the same rules as a seventh division game in Sweden. So you'd have to wonder if a silly issue, namely paying two extra officials, might hinder this experiment from being adopted across the board.

Ultimately two extra officials should help.

Today's modern game is filled with big bodies bouncing around inside the penalty area. Maurice Edu's disallowed goal for the United States in their 2-2 draw with Slovenia in the World Cup typifies this play. A referee positioned next to the goal post, assigned to keep an eye on the box, especially on set plays should help, assuming the communication exists between him and the actual referee.

If anything, the fifth and sixth officials should put the issue of balls going over the line for goals to rest. There are those rare occurrences when the physical angles on the field make it difficult for the referee or linesman to judge if the ball actually went over the line. You'd hope with an official positioned next to the goal the kind of gaffes like we saw in the England/Germany match or Carlos Tevez's goal from an offside position against Mexico never happen again.

Still, human error is involved and with the speed of the game mistakes could still happen, which only get compounded when millions of viewers at home on their couch can see the mistake on replay as clear as day.

On the plus side, FIFA did confirm that goal-line technology is on its agenda for its next business meeting in October.

Considering FIFA's normally narrow-minded stance on just about everything, it's doubtful they'll agree to any form of instant replay.

At least with today's announcement about adding officials to the Champions League, the powers running the game acknowledge there is a problem and they're exploring options to avoid a similar Lampard-induced egg on their face come Brazil 2014.