BY MARVIN DUMON:
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) convened at the Home of FIFA in Zurich today, Saturday, 6 March, for the 124th Annual General Meeting.
A presentation was provided on the experiment with additional assistant referees in the 2009/2010 UEFA Europa League, following the 144 matches played so far.

Thats a f**king lot of swearwords!

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Wayne Rooney will find his temperament under even greater scrutiny in England's opening World Cup fixture on Saturday.

Union/Local

Click on the image to the left to vote for your favorite Union players to play in the 2010 MLS All-Star Game against Manchester United on July 28 on ESPN2. If that doesn't work, click here.

Sebastien Le Toux talks to Goal.com about how excited he is that Henry might be coming to MLS.

I appeared on a CBC TV news program in Canada Monday night and was asked to defend the theatrics of soccer. The diving and the cheating that are so woven into the fabric of soccer and are most evident to the public when the World Cup takes center stage every four years. To be fair, the diving and cheating is indefensible other than the fact that this is what countries often do to gain a edge in soccer.

Controversial Refereeing Decisions Unlikely To Repeat Themselves After New UEFA Initiatives.

An experiment that was first tried in the Europa League both this year and last will now graduate to Europe's elite competition. Two extra referees will be present in all Champions League ties coming up next season.

Almost all of the content of our previous postings during the WC have discussed the referee and what can be learned from their performances, both positive and negative. I had been contemplating a short piece focusing on the assistant referees...

FIFA President Sepp Blatter said "it would be a nonsense not to reopen the file on goal line technology" after Frank Lampard's shot crossed the German goal line at the 2010 World Cup but was not awarded. However, soccer's rulemakers -- the International Football Association Board (IFAB) - will not discuss goal line technology when it meets Wednesday in Cardiff.

*Pasadena's Rose Bowl will host the 2011 Gold Cup final June 25 for the first time since 2002, CONCACAF announced Wednesday.

The 12-nation tournament opens June 5. Mexico beat the U.S. 5-0 in the 2009 final and is the defending champion.

*FIFA is going with extra bodies on the field to halt officiating howlers rather than use cameras:

LONDON (AP) -- The group that determines soccer rules has expanded the experimental use of two extra assistant referees into this season's European Champions League, a move made following a series of mistakes during the World Cup.

Every year, football fans complain about the quality of the refereeing. This holiday, you have the chance to give your favorite (or least favorite) referee the gift of effectiveness...

FIFA Laws of the Game

Because if we aren't going to give fans video replays, we definitely need the referees to be up on how the game should be played.

After a good weekend for the Premier League assistant referees last weekend, the refs will be looking to impress this week. Want to know whose taking charge of your game? Then now you can as I give you information on the men in black and how they will do in your team's matches.

Saturday

Arsenal vs.

No United States referees will be involved in the 2010 World Cup either as match official or assistant referee. FIFA released the list of 30 referees for the tournament with two assistants per official, representing 28 countries. US official Jair Marrufo was the only American submitted on the provisional list of 38 referees, but he didn't make the final list.

You know the old football chant "You're not fit to referee"? Fans will sing that at an official having who's having a particularly bad or biased game, but FIFA has said it quite literally to two refereeing trios who had been selected for World Cup duty, but then failed the pre-World Cup (and Alex Ferguson approved?

Argentina Doctor Green Lights Sex During The World Cup

The question on everyone's mind for months has finally been answered. According to team physician Dr. Donato Vallani, Argetina's players can have sex during the World Cup.

"The players can have sex with their wives and girlfriends during the World Cup," he said on Radio Del Plata.

This is not a baseball conversation, despite the fact that a bad call ruined a perfect game, this conversation is about what MLS, USSF and even FIFA can do to improve refereeing in the game. Whether a two-handed shove in the back is used to gain possession of the ball is a foul is not in doubt, what is in doubt is should it be called?

England was cheated of a blatant Frank Lampard goal Sunday against Germany when the Chelsea midfielder's shot hit the crossbar, bounced 2-3 feet inside the goal and back out of the goal. But incredibly, the referee decided that it wasn't a goal which allowed Germany to go into half-time 2-1 ahead.

Soccer is by far the most popular sport in the world. But there are still two massive continents in this world (Asia and North America) as well as other regions where the sport could be much more popular and where the populations are burgeoning.

However, FIFA continues to make cataclysmic mistakes that severely ruin the chances of new sports fans being attracted to the sport of soccer.

FIFA recently put out a press release that:

The Technical Sub-Committee of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) will meet on Wednesday, 21 July 2010 in Cardiff (Wales). The only point on the agenda will be the review and eventual approval of the requests made by various confederations and member associations of FIFA to implement the experiments with two additional assistant referees for competitions of the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 seasons.

For more than thirty years I have been teaching linesmen, and subsequently assistant referees, to hesitate a moment or two before raising the flag to indicate an offside infringement. Only by hesitating, I taught, could you be sure that the...

After the success of adding extra refs in the Europa League UEFA has elected to move an additional referee behind each goal. The adding assistance will help with identify questionable goals and goal-box fouls. The move comes after a very controversial run in the 2010 World Cup which saw goals dis-allowed that had either crossed the line or were called back due to errant fouls.

Following up on a previous story, FIFA released the names of the competitions that will be using additional assistant referees today. Here's the list:

Asian Football Confederation (AFC): AFC President's Cup 2010 (24-26 September)
Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (CBF): Campeonato Baiano de Futebol Feminino 2010 (Sept-Dec 2010), Campeonato Carioca de 2011
Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Asociación (FMF): Torneo Clausura 2011, Torneo Apertura 2011 and Torneo Clausura 2012
Fédération Française de Football (FFF): Coupe de la Ligue 2010/2011 (League Cup)
Union des associations européennes de football (UEFA): UEFA Champions League 2010/2011 and 2011/2012, UEFA Europa League 2010/2011 and 2011/2012, and UEFA Super Cup 2010 and 2011.

Two extra assistant referees will be used in the Champions League this season after UEFA's satisfactory Europa League experiment in the previous campaign.

Champions League matches next season will feature two extra assistant referees after the experiment was approved by Wednesday's meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB). The additional assistant referees system was used in the Europa League last season and has now been brought into Europe's elite club competition, as well as a handful of other competitions around the world.

SOURCE: REPUBLICA

KATHMANDU, Sept 1: Generally, All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) organizes football tournaments and matches and referees and assistant referees conduct the matches. But on Wednesday, a football match featured referees playing against ANFA officials and coaches.

It was a subtle little bit of news that was in a Grant Wahl tweet, but it deserves so much more.

CONCACAF's Chuck Blazer tells me Mexican league to be 1st domestic league in world to add 2 goal-line referees per game (starts in January).

This new change has been used in the Group Stage of the Europa League last season, and in the UEFA Champions League this year.

The Match Officials have been announced for Saturday's match against Lincoln City.

Yorkshireman Robert Madley will be the man in charge on Saturday, when Stockport County travel to Sincil Bank

Alongside Mr Madley on Saturday afternoon will be his two assistants, Mr Artis and Mr Yates

The 4th Official for Saturday's League 2 clash is Mr Russell

Below is an interview from Mr Madley:

How did you get introduced into refereeing?

A 2-1 defeat to current FIFA World Cup winners Germany is certainly not a bad thing, but I think the most interesting point to come from this is just how different it was from playing in Asia. Cue Kate Gill's comments,
"The football here is very different to Asian Football. They are more physical in Europe," she said.

Edited 11/8/10 to correct fine to Adam Braz to $300.00. The original figure IMS published of $1.500.00 was a typo by U.S. Soccer.

On October 17th, 2010, the Montreal Impact played the Carolina RailHawks at WakeMed Park in Cary, NC. for the second leg of the USSF D2 Pro League semifinals.

This weekend was possibly the most exciting one ever for Premier League football with numbers of records being broken in what was a mixed few days for the men in the middle.

Firstly, this weekend's matches saw a record number of goals scored, 41 in total including eight in Manchester United's demolition of Blackburn Rovers and also for the first time ever since it's inauguration in 1992, every team managed to score a goal.