THE latest attempt to crack down on cheating and reduce human error will make its debut in senior football on Thursday evening.
When the Europa League group matches get under way there will be a referee positioned behind each goal as well as the match referee, his two assistants running the line and a fourth official. It's hoped that the presence of the extra men in black wi
ll have the effect of eliminating (or at least spotting and punishing) diving a la Eduardo. It's also expected that shirt-tugging and barging inside the penalty area will decrease as a result of their presence, while there should be fewer cases of goals not being awarded when the ball has clearly crossed the line.
Celtic will become the first Scottish club to experience the new set-up when they take on Hapoel Tel Aviv in the Bloomfield Stadium. Hugh Dallas, who is the Scottish Football Association's referee development officer as well as being a member of UEFA's referee certification panel, helped bring this initiative to fruition.
"I've been involved with this from the beginning and helped organise the first trials for UEFA at Under-19 European Championship qualifying ties in Cyprus, Hungary and Slovenia," he said.
"Some people have said we should simply introduce goal-line technology, like they have in tennis. However, while that works perfectly well for that sport it wouldn't be as useful for football because the ball is in the air as often as it is on the ground when contentious issues arise.
"The referees behind the goal aren't there as a replacement for goal-line technology: rather, they'll operate as a human camera, situated on the opposite side of the goal from the assistant referee.
"During a normal match, when a forward and a defender run into the 18-yard box together the referee will be behind them. Now he will have a colleague who can view any resulting challenge head-on.
"From the initial trials the presence of the extra officials also acts as a deterrent to pushing and shoving at corners and free-kicks."
Dougie McDonald will be the first Scottish referee to participate in this experiment when he handles Sparta Prague's tie against PSV Eindhoven in the Czech Republic this week.
