First of all this article is somewhat of a rant, so take a deep breath...

For the past few years football/soccer referees have seemingly been getting more and more decisions wrong, affecting many important matches with incompitent decisions. FIFA and UEFA have decided therefore that they should employ 6 officials as a bit of a pilot run in this years Europa league aka the Uefa cup. This was supposed to be an improvement, with 1 referee, 2 lines men, a 4th official off the pitch near to the manages, and an extra "official" running behind each of the goals.

Well that was proved to be a bit of a waste of time last night when Roma took on Fulham at Craven cottage. I sat and watched that game in my living room aghast. In the 77th minute, with Fulham leading by 1 goal to 0, there was a contravercial foul by Fulham's Stephen Kelly in the Fulham penalty area. The referee was seemingly unaware of what had happened as was his linesman. The official behind the goal however proceeded to step forward, and encouraged the referee to send the player off as he was deemed the last man,,,unfortunately, despite having the best view in the house, the extra official had found the wrong man and continued to send off Fulham's 6 foot plus Norwegian international Brede Hangeland, instead of the 5 foot 12 (ish) Irish right back Stephen Kelly. It was only when the Fulham players told the officials that they had got totally the wrong man, that the referee recinded Hangeland's red and sent off the Irishman.

In the end the correct decision was reached, but only thanks to the efforts of the Fulham players, and incidently the game finished 1-1 as Roma equalised with literally the last kick of the game. This policy is only being used in the Europa league this year, and not in the major competitions, eg the Champions league, the world cup and the English premier league as UEFA weren't convinced it would work...Well it didn't so congratulations to Michel Platini-the head of UEFA

What a shambles!

The argument thus rages, that we should bring in video technology to avoid efforts like this, as the 6 official rule clearly does not work. Pretty much every major sport has video technology now, so why can't we...? I'm not entirely sure to what extent it should be brought in, but I'd be interested to hear what you all think