Whistle blown on referees

THE human eye is unable to detect an offside position during football, explaining why so many decisions are controversial, a researcher claimed yesterday.

Dr Francisco Belda Maruenda, a family medicine specialist in Murcia, Spain, studied the physiology of the human eye to see if it could process all the visual information needed to apply the offside rule.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he concluded that this was beyond the capacity of the eye.

The offside rule, first introduced in 1866, states that to be in an offside position a player must not only be between the opponents’ goal line and the last two players from the defending team, but must be actively involved with the play at the moment when they are passed the ball.

Dr Maruenda said to apply the rule correctly the referee must be able to keep at least five moving objects in his visual field at the same time - two players on the attacking team, the last two players of the defending team and the ball.

He said this was beyond the capacity of the human eye.

“This may explain at least some of the instances when television replays of a game clearly show that the offside rule was not properly implemented”, Dr Maruendo observed.

The researcher said that errors being made was “unavoidable”.

“The use of modern technology during games - freeze frame television and frame by frame analysis - is advisable to limit these errors,” Dr Maruenda said.