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FIFA has appointed normalisation committees in Chad and Guinea, the latest two African countries unable to run their own footballing affairs.
The Fifa-appointed officials will oversee elections in both national associations.
The normalisation committee is expected to carry out its functions in Guinea by the end of June next year, while the mandate in Chad expires on November 15, 2022 at the latest.
Fifa said it was intervening in Guinea after “a series of irregularities” during the electoral process of the Guinean Football Federation (FGF).
The committee will run the daily affairs of the FGF and decide if changes need to be made to the organisation’s statutes and electoral code before holding new elections.
Fifa will also supervise elections for a new executive committee for the Federation of Chad Football Associations (FTFA) after observing the “inability of the local football governing bodies” to do so in accordance with its requirements.
Chad was readmitted to international football only last month after Fifa lifted a suspension imposed in April for government interference.
The country was disqualified from the final two rounds of qualifying matches for January’s Africa Cup of Nations after the government dissolved the FTFA.
Meanwhile, the use of technology to help officials detect offsides more accurately is being trailed at the Arab Cup, which started yesterday in Qatar.
“Semi-automated offsides” work using between 10 and 12 cameras and a dedicated offside video assistant.
Fifa chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina said the Arab Cup represented the offside rule’s most important trial so far.
“VAR has had a very positive impact in football and the number of major mistakes is reduced, but there are areas where it can be improved, and offside is one of them,” said Collina.
The technology provides the Video Assistant Referee with information before the on-field official takes a final call.
“We’ll have a camera setup installed under the roof of each stadium,” said Fifa’s football technology and innovation director Johannes Holzmueller.
“The limb-tracking data extracted from the video will be sent to the operations rooms and the calculated offside line and detected kick-point is provided to the replay operator in almost real time.
“The replay operator then has the opportunity to show it immediately to the VAR. At the Fifa Arab Cup, the assistant VAR at a dedicated offside station can immediately validate and confirm the information.”
The game has seen multiple contentious offside calls since the introduction of VAR, with growing concern about the time taken and the precision with which offsides are judged.
Fifa’s chief of global football development Arsene Wenger said in April that he hoped the semi-automated system can be used at next year’s World Cup. — Inside World Football
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