Brendan has contacted us to update us on his injury which has kept him sidelined. Following a further consultation with Doctors, surgery is now required and Brendan has said

"I am afraid to say that this will mean that I have blown my whistle for the last time and will not be flashing my yellow and red cards anymore."

IFK Gothenburg goalkeeper Kim Christensen could be in hot water after moving the posts during a Swedish first division game to make the goal smaller.

The Danish goalkeeper was caught by TV cameras pushing the posts toward each other before a match against Orebro.

Referee Stefan Johannesson spotted the posts had been moved a few centimetres about 20 minutes into the game and pushed them back into the right place.
Christensen later said he had done the same thing before several other games.
He was spotted using his feet to push the bottom of each post slightly inwards.

The Swedish Football Association is investigating the incident.
"I have never heard anything like this before," said Swedish FA's disciplinary chief Kheneth Tallinger. "It's unique."
IFK Gothenburg drew 0-0 with Orebro and top the table on goal difference with just a few weeks of the season to go.

Following the sale of RA Draw tickets one of the £50 prize winners was sold by our RA and won by Paul Howells from Liscard.

Please note the following new information regarding Supply League games and the 2009-10 Incentive Scheme. This overrides the recent information given out on the FAMOA e-newsletter.

Following feedback from various sources it has been decided to revise the criteria for claiming on the Incentive Scheme for season 2009-2010 to the following:

Assistant Referees and assessors may still  claim for games at Supply League level but the emphasis on the scheme remains at encouraging referees to referee games below this level. This still means that Level 4 Supply League Referees will be unable to claim for supply league games but may for other games they referee at a lower level.

The Wirral RA meet this Thursday (8th) at Lairds club 7:45pm.

Jack Blakemore will run through a interactive training session and Mike Dean will talk about the 6 Officials appointed to this season's UEFA Europa League.

New members are very welcome.

Alan Wiley, the official accused by Sir Alex Ferguson of not being fit enough to referee, ran farther than all but four Manchester United players during the 94 minutes of the game against Sunderland.

The FA has written to Ferguson asking him to explain his comments about Wiley by next Tuesday. The United manager could yet be charged with improper conduct.
Before he composes his reply, the Scot may want to consider that Wiley, The Times has learnt, outdistanced the average player in the 2-2 draw on Saturday by 205.8 metres. Refereeing officials believe that Wiley’s official ProZone statistics from the match at Old Trafford “100 per cent” disprove Ferguson’s claims that the Staffordshire referee “just wasn’t fit enough”.

Wiley covered 11,039.1 metres, the eighth farthest of any individual on the pitch. “Eighth is entirely credible,” a refereeing source said yesterday. “He had a bloody good game.” ProZone shows that only four United players and three from Sunderland ran farther than Wiley, 49. His average distance from the ball was 17.7 metres. Elite referees in England are allowed an average of up to 20 metres. Concern is growing among the close-knit refereeing fraternity about the long-term effects of constant criticism from managers, especially Ferguson. Several leading referees, including Graham Poll and Mike Riley, have retired in recent years in part because of the persistent sniping.

“They’re getting sick of it,” a senior refereeing source said last night. “Ferguson is the past master. It deflects any criticism from his team and players and he succeeds every time. Why doesn’t he just talk to the match delegate?”

The Times has also discovered that Wiley’s fitness was assessed more recently than most of his colleagues in the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) select group of referees. The officials take a challenging test of their fitness twice a year and if they fail either they are not permitted to referee.
Wiley was on holiday in July and was not tested until August. Since he passed, his level of fitness is, in theory, less questionable than those of younger referees, despite the fact that he is the oldest of the group.

Wiley had been “very upset” at first, according to Dermot Gallagher, the former referee who was his mentor when he joined the select group in 1999. “He is the most competitive guy that I have ever met in my life,” Gallagher said. “I used to think that I was one of the fittest Premier League referees and if he thought I could run a yard more than him in training it would break his heart.

“He really is the consummate professional. Of all the referees that someone could lay this criticism at, it really is the wrong one. It is a massive sting to your pride, especially for someone who really does pride himself on looking after himself. “I thought he had a fantastic game, I really did. I really do think it was a comment that can’t be substantiated.”

Expert evidence confirms the referees’ opinion. “Ferguson is creating a doubt in people’s minds over the fitness of Alan Wiley where none probably existed,” Dr Martin Roderick, a member of the sport, health and policy research group at the University of Durham and a former Kettering Town midfield player, said.
“One of the only givens we have about the body is that it does deteriorate with time; there is a well-understood age at which referees know their time is running out. But I don’t think there was anything in what Ferguson was saying.

“The game ebbs and flows and everybody on the pitch will be more or less exhausted at various times. Alan Wiley, like an older player such as Teddy Sheringham, will have learnt to play the game his way, to understand the patterns of the game — where they can take a breather and when he really needs to keep up. A younger, less experienced referee will tend to run more.”

Roderick’s view is supported by a study undertaken in 2008 by PGMOL and sport scientists in Italy and Switzerland, using data on the performance of 22 referees aged between 31 and 48 in 778 Premier League matches over four seasons. The findings suggested that older referees were able to use experience to cover for the loss of a yard or so of pace. Despite covering less ground and performing fewer sprints, referees in the 43-48 age group were able to maintain an average distance from fouls that was comparable to that recorded by the youngest referees.

Wiley has to pass the same strenuous pre and mid-season tests as Stuart Attwell, 26, the youngest of the elite referees. Stamina is tested by a 3,000-metre run that must be completed in less than 12 minutes. Capacity for coping with change of pace is assessed by a test in which referees alternately run 150 metres and walk 50 metres, repeating the sequence 20 times. The 150-metre runs must be completed in 30 seconds, with 35 seconds allowed for the 50-metre walk.
Six 40-metre sprints must be completed in less than 6.20sec each — assistant referees have only 6.00, with only a minute’s rest between sprints. Referees can repeat one sprint if they fail to complete it within the time, but only one.

Wiley's Prozone stats for Manchester United v Sunderland

Match facts

11,039.1 Distance covered (Metres)

740.5 High-intensity distance (metres)

91.4 Sprint distance (metres)

17 No of sprints

8.97 Top speed (metres per second)
 
17.7 Average distance from ball (metres)
 
15.6 Average distance from fouls (metres)

Wiley's total of 11,039.1m was 268m lower than the match
average for Premier League referees this season of 11,307m
Only four United players and three Sunderland players ran
farther than Wiley during the 94 minutes of Saturday’s match

Refereeing is highly demanding, both physically and mentally, and injury prevention is as important for referees as it is for players. A referee needs to be as fit as, if not fitter than, the players, since he or she may be up to 20 years older, is rarely a full-time professional and cannot be substituted during the match. On top of the physical stress, there is also the mental strain of being in control of the match for 90 minutes under the ever watchful eye of both the bench and the public.
With this in mind, the FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) has taken a close look at referee injuries and complaints. Its most recent study - Injuries of amateur football referees: a representative survey of Swiss referees officiating at all levels of play - focused on the extent and type of injuries sustained by referees at all national levels.

Mario Bizzini, physiotherapist at the FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence at the Schulthess Clinic, Zurich and F-MARC collaborator, is fully committed to referee care. "Over the last ten years, several studies had examined various aspects of the referees' performance and training," he says "but very little was known about injuries and musculoskeletal complaints in referees."

A previous study conducted by F-MARC concentrated on the extent and type of injuries in elite football referees in Switzerland. However, the 71 referees officiating in the top two divisions represented only a small percentage of all registered referees, making it clear that F-MARC also needed to examine the 489 active referees officiating at amateur level.

According to Bizzini, "We have to remember that the FIFA World CupTM referees represent mainly professionals and in fact correspond to only 0.02% of all registered referees in member associations worldwide. In 2006, FIFA counted more than 840,000 registered referees and assistant referees worldwide. We have to look after these many amateur referees as well. And we know from similar studies that have been conducted on players that injury frequency varies with the level of play."

The results of the study revealed that elite referees suffered almost two-thirds of their injuries during training and 39% of their injuries during matches. In contrast, amateur referees incurred 80% of their injuries during matches. Overall, nearly half (44%) of all elite referees surveyed had suffered at least one injury during their career, compared to 23% of amateur referees.

Another difference between the two groups was the frequency of musculoskeletal complaints - 86% of the elite referees reported complaints as a direct result of their refereeing, while only a quarter of the amateur referees pinpointed refereeing as a direct cause. Hamstring strains and ankle sprains were the most common injuries in male referees, both elite and amateur, while the majority of injuries differed from player injuries in that they did not involve contact.