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European Football Championship 2021: This is all new for the referees

2021-06-11T06:54:55.381Z


A woman on the sidelines, more leeway with the handball rules and a curious emergency plan for corona cases: all of this is new to the referees for the European Championship.


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Stéphanie Frappart, here in the Supercup final between Liverpool and Chelsea in 2019, will be the first woman on a referee team at a men's soccer championship

Photo:

Emrah Gurel / AP

"I feel that this is a real recognition of my competence and my work," said Stéphanie Frappart.

"It also shows all girls what is possible when you work hard and are completely committed to something." That was in 2019. Frappart, a French referee, was the first woman to whistle the European men's Supercup final between Liverpool and Liverpool Chelsea FC.

It has also been used in the men's Champions League.

Now it should be another big stage for the 37-year-old - if only as a supporting actress.

Frappart will be the fourth official to lead the European Football Championship starting on Friday.

She is the first woman in a referee team at a European Championship for men.

But this is not the only premiere at the EM.

At the tournament, which is taking place in eleven countries for the first time, a lot will change for the referees.

A "Cologne cellar" for Europe

A novelty for the EM is the use of video assistants (VAR).

The nominated VAR have already been able to gain experience in games in European club competitions.

Unlike in the Champions League and the Europa League, however, they do not follow the games in an OB van on site.

Uefa relies on a central solution for the EM - and has set up two large rooms with screen stations at its headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

There it looks a lot like the German Video-Assist-Center, better known as "Kölner Keller".

At the EM, however, the workforce is much greater: the VAR has two additional assistants available for each game.

If the video assistant is busy with a review, one of them can follow up on the game in progress and the other watch out for recognizing and assessing potential offside situations.

There are also three so-called replay operators who, as technical helpers during checks and reviews, select the most meaningful camera perspectives.

The seven-person team is completed by the VAR Support Assistant, who acts as a coordinator.

For comparison: In the Bundesliga, in addition to the VAR, there is an assistant and two operators at one station, i.e. a total of four people.

At the Men's World Cup in Russia 2018, each VAR even had one more assistant by their side than at the EM.

More leeway in handball

There are only a few rule changes at the tournament.

One concerns the "enlargement of the body surface" in hand games: In future, the player's previous sequence of movements will be more important than the position of the arm when the ball is in contact with the hand or arm.

In other words, anyone who, for example, spreads their arms to gain momentum with a header and then accidentally plays a handball, should no longer be punished for doing so.

Overall, the discretion of the referees in the evaluation of hand games is to be increased again.

It remains to be seen whether this will actually lead to noticeable changes in the interpretation of the rules.

Argentinians are also on duty

In addition to the 18 main referees from 14 European countries, there are 36 assistant referees, 22 video assistants and twelve so-called support match officials, who are appointed as fourth officials or reserve assistants.

These referees will be complemented for the first time by a team of referees from South America: the Argentinian Fernando Rapallini will also lead some matches with his two assistants.

In return, the Spanish referee Jesús Gil Manzano will be used at the Copa América in Brazil, which is taking place at the same time.

The exchange is part of a cooperation between Uefa and the South American association Conmebol.

For the first time since 1996 two German referees

Felix Brych and Daniel Siebert from Germany take part in the EM.

This is not a complete novelty, but it is the first time since 1996 that the German Football Association (DFB) has again provided two referees for the tournament.

At that time Hellmut Krug and Bernd Heynemann were working in England.

While it is already the fourth major tournament for 45-year-old Brych after the 2014 and 2018 World Championships and the Euro 2016, 37-year-old Siebert will be taking part in a competition of this magnitude for the first time.

The two are reinforced by four DFB referees who are deployed as video assistants or as assistants to the VAR.

Replacement in case of corona

While the video assistants stay in Nyon all the time, the referees and their assistants are initially stationed in Istanbul before those of them who are still there after the quarter-finals move to London.

If a member of a referee team tests positive for Corona and has to be replaced at short notice, the association reserves the right to call on referees on site who are only active at national level or even come from one of the countries involved in the game.

Such an exception will not affect the main referee because he will be replaced by the fourth official in the event of sudden illness or injury. But it would be conceivable, for example, that a German assistant referee would be appointed for a preliminary round match of the German team in Munich if one of the assigned assistants becomes infected with Covid-19 and it is no longer possible to get a replacement from the headquarters in Istanbul in good time send. That would be a curious premiere.

Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2021-06-11

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