Uefa calls for two referees per game experiment

World cup in brief

* In the wake of refereeing controversies at the World Cup, Uefa has called for experiments using two referees per game. Gerhard Aigner, the chief executive of European football's governing body, said: "How can a referee judge whether a player is acting if he is not close enough to the action? Before we start to talk about cameras, slow-motion replays or stopping the game, we should first exploit human resources. We have unfortunately never had a serious test with two referees. This test should be made."

* Professional players are risking injury because they are playing too many games, Fifa medical officers said yesterday as they unveiled research on injuries at the World Cup finals. Jiri Dvorak, the world governing body's chief medical officer at the tournament, said there had been an increase in the number of injuries in "non-contact situations" – injuries like strained muscles when no tackles are involved. "If there is not sufficient time to recover or they don't recover completely, there can be an accumulation of injuries that can lead to one major injury," Dvorak said. The average number of injuries per game (2.6) is around the same as at the 1998 finals in France (2.4). But the number of non-contact injuries totals 26 percent of all the injuries compared to an average of 14 percent measured at 12 other tournaments.