Uefa president - Platini
Using video replays during games would kill the flow of
football matches and end traditional refereeing forever, UEFA
president Michel Platini warned on Thursday. However, Platini
backed plans for extra goalmouth officials, an idea which the world
ruling body FIFA is to experiment with at the Club World Cup in
Japan in December.
The head of European soccer's governing body who championed the new
initiative when chairing this week's meeting of FIFA's new
Strategic Committee made it clear he opposed the use of video
evidence during games. "Video referees would destroy football,"
Platini told Reuters Television in an interview. "If we had this,
in 10 years' time, we would no longer have any referees, refereeing
would be over forever and we would have to use a video," he
said.
"Video is a big problem for me. You would have to stop the game
every 10 seconds, for every decision that is questioned. "Football
is a human game and the mistakes are human. We need to help solve
the mistakes, but we must not lose the human feeling of our sport,"
Platini added.
Though unknown in soccer, the use of video replays during matches
has become well-established in rugby as a way of making key
decisions. Platini was in favour of adding match officials to the
key areas of the pitch.
"We need to help referees to stop making mistakes and these two
extra referees will focus on the two 18-yard boxes, so this will
help solve this.
"Ten eyes are certainly better than six."
The tournament in Japan will also be used to continue tests on
goal-line technology developed by ball manufacturer adidas, using a
chip in the match ball to determine whether shots had crossed the
line.
