Fantomas on the side of good (Школьные сочинения)

The article commented upon is entitled "Whistle While you Work". Well, the title is catching, but more catching is the picture of polished bald head of the football referee. I am fond of football and before reading the text I had the clear idea that the text is going to be about greatest football referee of all times, Pierluigi Collina, also known by his nickname Fantomas.

He is Italian, and I know that in Italy football comes third after pizza and pasta, I would say football is a concentrated passion there.

Well, maybe it was his fortune to have lost all his hair, as his distinctive, simple-but-striking hairstyle seems familiar to many people, even to those who are not acquainted with football. He was voted best referee several time in a row and I think he knows a little bit about standards of refereeing and we can absolutely trust him.

Well, do you know what a football referee is in charge of? The football referee's job and his main function is not only to show yellow and red cards, but to make sure that players follow the rules when playing, in other words he must provide fair play by fixing fouls, off-sides and so on and so forth.

ut the problem is more often than not referee can become a victim, as the risk of controversial decisions exists.

I would divide the text into 2 parts: the first one deals with the biography of Pierluigi Collina, but I would like to dwell upon the second part of the text, it is more thought-provoking and refers to a problems, existing in modern football.

Using video replays, match-fixing scandals, simulations and divings, incorrect fixing off-sides and wrongly-awarded penalties are among them. I guess the purpose of the article is to pay our attention to these problems and maybe to find a solution.

You should know that a referee is a full participant of a match, and when on the field he undergoes stresses, physical and emotional exertion, and under these circumstances he must observe the whole pitch and made decisions quickly, relying only on his sharp eyes, knowin the rules, assistants, and sometimes even on his intuition. Mistakes are inevitable, but a referee is the only person to blame.

It seems to be strange, but UEFA beferees Committee as if avoid checking video replays when making decision regarding the controversial episodes, however all the field is practically covered with TV-cameras. Why not to use that unequal, powerful instrument? It will definitely make the match more fair, and the risk of referee's mistake will be reduced dramatically.

Another prospect of using cameras is the possibility to fix and eliminate so called simulations, also known as diving, which are considered to be a crime against the whole game. Some unfair football players use this technique to get the advantage and get the penalty kick.

In conclusion, I would like to say that it is a referee whose decisions determine the result of a match, and I like the way Pierluidgi described an ideal referee - you can hardly notice his presence. So, I really can't understand why UEFA beferees Committee avoid modern innovations, which are able to make the game more fair and provide the progress for the whole game. I hope at least some measures will have been taken by the beginning of World Cup in Moscow.