REGENSDORF, Switzerland - UEFA's head of refereeing wants the sport's rule-making body to adopt the controversial offside interpretation that allowed the Netherlands to score its first goal in the team's 3-0 victory over Italy this week at the European Championship.
One of the tournament's 12 referees, Germany's Herbert Fandel, also said more care must be taken not to show replays of disputed calls on stadium giant screens. And the referee at Turkey's 2-1 win over Switzerland said he considered halting the match because of heavy rain.
In the most discussed call of the tournament, Swedish referee Peter Frojdfeldt allowed Ruud van Nistelrooy's goal to count Monday even though the Dutch forward appeared to be offside. Italian defender Christian Panucci was lying injured off the field of play when van Nistelrooy scored.
"For us, it was 100 per cent clear," Frojdfeldt said Thursday.
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Yvan Cornu, UEFA's head of refereeing, said the interpretation should be included in the rules when the International Football Association Board meets next year.
"In the Laws of the Game, we have the situation where a defender deliberately goes out of the field of play. But in the one the other day, he was out by the momentum of the situation," Cornu said. "It has to be clarified."
Cornu said that UEFA cannot propose the change directly, but a proposal must be made by a national association to the International Football Association Board, which meets annually to discuss and vote on rules changes. The IFAB has eight members - four from FIFA and one each from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
"For us, for the referees, it has always been clear," Cornu said. "But now, because the case happened, and it's a very special one, now the public is aware of it."
Several referees said a factor was the short time span between when Panucci went off the field and Van Nistelrooy scored.
"If it is clear for us, the referees, that he is injured, we can take another offside line - he is not in play. But if there is only two or three seconds, it is not possible to say is it injury? Is it no injury?" Fandel said. "The longer the gap, the more we have to think about this situation."
Frojdfeldt said the continuity of action must be assessed in making the decision.
"If the ball went to the other side of the field and he's still lying behind, the assistants shall go for the second-to-last defender," Frojdfeldt said.
Fandel was unhappy that replays of Van Nistelrooy's goal were shown on the stadium screens at the Wankdorf in Bern, causing Italian players and fans to question to call.
"It is a disaster," Fandel said. "It's dangerous for match itself because if you see something on the video screen, you think that's the truth maybe, and so you get emotion in the stadium that is not connected to what happened on the pitch."
Cornu said decisions on what to replay in stadiums were made by four active referees - two Austrian and two Swiss - in conjunction with television technicians. He said that sometimes those referees don't know in advance which replay TV directors are calling for, and sometimes the referees block replays they shouldn't.
"We would like to improve," he said. "It's a fine tuning."
Lubos Michel, the referee for Turkey's win Wednesday in Basel, considered halting the match after about 35 minutes because of heavy rain, but didn't because he saw the sky starting to clear on one side of the stadium. Cornu said the decision is up to the referee and the UEFA match official.
"I was thinking if it goes like that longer, I have to stop the game," Michel said. "We could wait even maybe one hour, but, you know, it's a late kickoff. The players, they don't like to stop for 40, 45 minutes and then restart a game because, you know, the problem with the muscles, they cool down, and a restart is not easy."