July 21 -FIFA has approved the use of two additional assistant referees for the next two seasons of UEFA Champions League football.
UEFA experimented with two extra officials in the Europa League last season and this has now been expanded to include Europe’s premier club competition.
The role of the additional officials will be to help the referee and his assistants make decisions regarding incidents within the penalty areas.
At a previous meeting held in Zurich, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) reviewed the experiment of additional assistant referees and have decided to continue the trials at their meeting, which started in Cardiff today.
The extra officials will be introduced for the start of this season’s Champions League and the experiment will last for at least two years.
Meanwhile, FIFA has confirmed that goal-line technology will be on the agenda of the next Annual Business Meeting of the IFAB in October 2010.
Calls for the technology were renewed at this summer’s World Cup finals after a number of incidents, one of which was Frank Lampard’sshot that crossed the line that was missed by the officials.
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May 2010: Extra officials to be used in Champions League
March 2010: Fourth official and goal line technology on IFAB agenda
December 2009: Extra assistant referee experiment not working claim LMA