Information concerning the Submitted Abstract Errors in Judging Offside in Association Football: Comparison between the 2002 and 2006 Fifa World Cup

Helsen et al. (2006) observed that during the 2002 FIFA World Cup 26.2% of all the offside situations were assessed incorrectly. For this reason, FIFA made a lot of efforts to decrease the errors when judging offside. The aim of the present study was to analyse all the offside situations during the 2006 World Cup and to make a comparison with the 2002 World Cup. Across the 64 matches, we analysed 474 offside situations (7.4 per match). The results of the present study revealed a significant decrease in the number of errors during the 2006 compared to the 2002 World Cup of 14.1%. This decrease was mainly due to a decrease in the number of flag errors, 10.0% versus 26.1% during the 2006 and 2002 World Cup, respectively. In conclusion, the investments of FIFA from a structural and an educational point of view resulted in less decision-making errors in offside situations during the 2006 World Cup. INTRODUCTION Helsen et al. (2006) analysed the correctness of the offside judgments during the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan and Korea. These authors revealed that 26.2% of the offside situations were assessed incorrectly. Based on these results, FIFA decided to take some initiatives to improve the performances of the assistant referees and to decrease the errors in judging offside. First, the contents of the offside law were refined. Specifically, the elements regarding the involvement in active play of the players were clarified as well as the definition of an offside position. In this latter case, " nearer to his opponents' goal line " means that any part of his head, body or feet is nearer to his opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second last opponent. In this definition, the arms are not included. Second, during the 2002 World Cup, the referee and the two assistant referees were appointed for a game, although in some cases, they never refereed a match together. This may have had also an impact on the performances of the match officials. Therefore, after the 2002 World Cup, FIFA decided to appoint a refereeing trio, consisting of one referee and two assistant referees, who worked together in national and international matches. Third, specific training programmes for assistant referees were designed, based on some major underlying mechanisms mediating offside decision-making errors. According to the optical error hypothesis, as proposed by Oudejans et al. (2000, 2005) the assistant …