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Extra officials for Champions League

22 July 2010 02:50 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The experiment of extra match officials will be extended to Europe’s top club competition and several other tournaments around the world, APA reports quoting CNN.
Football’s governing body FIFA will allow the use of two additional assistant referees in the UEFA Champions League for the next two seasons and the Asian Football Confederation’s President’s Cup in September, as well as competitions in Brazil, France and Mexico.
The experiment, which involves an assistant behind the goal at either end of the pitch, was first tried at youth level and then last season in UEFA’s second-tier Europa League.
The confirmation came after a meeting of the International Football Association Board’s technical sub-committee in Wales on Wednesday, which also announced that goal-line technology will be discussed in October.
FIFA has been under increasing pressure to change its current system of match officiating following controversial incidents at the 2010 World Cup that saw England wrongly denied a goal against Germany and Argentina incorrectly awarded a score against Mexico.
The IFAB, which includes representatives from FIFA and the four British associations, ruled out employing goal-line technology at a meeting in March.
FIFA said in a statement on its website on Wednesday that the extra officials will be used until 2012, when a decision will be made whether to establish them as a fulltime feature of the game.
It said the relevant member associations would have to fund the extra costs involved.