ZURICH: Football’s law-makers will be addressing more than ‘just’ goal-line technology when they meet in Zurich on July 5 writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
Originally the ‘special meeting’ of the International Football Association Board had been scheduled for Kyiv on July 2, the day after the final of the European Championship. Logistical issues meant the meeting being shifted to world federtion FIFA’s headquarters later in the week.
The sense of expectation ahead of the meeting is greater than ever after the high-profile failure, during the Ukraine-England tie in Donetsk earlier this week, of the five-officials system preferred by Michel Platini.
UEFA’s French president has been a renegade on the issue of goal-line technology even though FIFA president Sepp Blatter underwent a volte-face after Frank Lampard’s ‘phantom goal’ at the 2010 World Cup.
Ironically IFAB is also scheduled to consider the five-officials system and whether to approve it for general use on the basis of trial results from the last few years in the Champions League and the Europa League.
A third agenda item for IFAB is the use of an approved headscarf for Muslim woman players at senior level. Supporters, led by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali of Jordan, has hoped this would be approved at the meeting but confusion between manufacturers and FIFA medical committee have threatened the time schedule.
IFAB comprises four representatives and one from each of the four British home nations. A three-quarters vote is required for any positive decision.
Theo Zwanziger, former president of the German federation and a FIFA executive member, wants the IFAB composition democratised. He has put forward that proposal under the FIFA reforms process and the board, in Zurich, will open an internal discussion on the issue.
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