Some viewers may have done a double-take early Saturday while watching the replay of Liverpool's first goal against Wolverhampton Wanderers to see if Fernando Torres was offside or not. With hair bobbing up and down, it was a female assistant referee who made the critical decision to keep her flag down, allowing Torres to run on and take a pass from Raul Meireles and for Torres to slide the ball into the back of the net.

Regular readers of these pages will recall that I wrote an article in October of last year about the concept and use of the Additional Assistant Referees in the UEFA Champions and the Europa Leagues. At the time I pointed...

Everyone knows this is an issue. Don Garber talks about it. Coaches talk about it. Owners talk about it. General Mangers talk about it. Players talk about it. Fans talk about it.

The steps to improving things seem to be very slow. One change has been that the old USSF reviewer of referees is now working for MLS, and so the full-time pros are reviewing themselves.

Skysportsclub@bskyb.com.

That is the email address SkySports offers if you want to contact football expert Andy Gray. And you should.

I know I am prone to the odd rant or two on PSP, but I try to steer clear of giving advice. Not this time.

Tell Gray what you think of the comments he made about Sian Massey, a female linesman working the Liverpool/Wolverhampton match on Saturday.

Like you, I'm proud to live in a country where ignorant, worthless loudmouths could never trash an assistant referee purely on the basis of her gender.
Unfortunately, that's because, unlike England, MLS doesn't have female assistant referees running the sidelines, and hasn't since WUSA started.

FIFA has announced the referees list for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. There are three Americans on the list -- one long-time referee (Kari Seitz) and two assistant referees -- as well as three Mexicans and one each from Canada, El Salvador, and Trinidad & Tobago. Here's the list: Referees Kari Seitz (USA) Carol Anne Chenard (Canada) Quetzalli Alvarado Godíñez (Mexico) Assistant Referees Emperatríz Ivonne Ayala López (El Salvador) Mayte Ivonne Chávez García (Mexico) Marlene Duffy (USA) Cindy Mohammed (Trinidad & Tobago) Rita Muñoz (Mexico) Veronica Pérez (USA)

U.S. referee Kari Seitz will officiate the Third Place match at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup on Saturday between Sweden and France in Sinsheim, Germany. Assistant Referees Marlene Duffy and Veronica Perez comprise the other parts of the referee crew, and Seitz will be refereeing her third game of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Cologne and Mainz top flight Bundesliga game was called after 41 year old Banker Babak Rafati who had been due to referee the tie attempted suicide in his Hotel room.

Rafati's assistants new there was something a miss when the referee of over 200 top flight games including Champions League ties was unusually late and not answering his phone.

Ref saved by assistants The Bundesliga match between Cologne and Mainz had to be called off at the weekend after the referee attempted to take his own life hours before kick-off. Babak Rafati was due to officiate the game and was expected to meet with the other match officals at 1.30pm. The assistant referees and [.

For the tournament I'm doing Outside Pack Reffing. There's a minor problem with roller derby - it's not that outside pack reffing isn't important; it's just that it could be said that the other positions are just "more equal" than OPR - honestly, it's much like Assistant Referees in soccer; when you have good OPRs things can go absolutely awesome, and the inside refs appreciate the heck out of them and it can turn a well-reffed bout into an awesomely reffed-bout.