Significance Of Linesman Tools In Sports

By Essie Osborn


A linesman is like a sectary of an office assistant but in a good way. In field sport linemen contribute a huge role in the good officiating and smooth flow of the matches that take place. This is the desire of stakeholders of any given sport, be it players, coaches, fanatics or even the owners of teams. A lot goose on it team sport as this attracts a lot of attention in terms of numbers and following. With this comes huge responsibilities that are given to a few. For the chosen few to carry out this they need good linesman tools.

This is a variety of tools that are out in the market and depend on the type of sport that a particular linesman is in. The field sports that have the position of a linesman are football in this sense, soccer, American Football and finally Rugby. Rugby is the father of the other two sports. Ironically, it is the least popular of the three. Soccer being the first in terms of global following. The tools used are of a variety they include: watches flags, whistles, boots, jerseys, and earpiece sets for communication.

This have contributed to key, fair and on point decisions. The many controversies that have bedeviled Soccer, the most popular sport on earth, are the on field poor officiating. The 1986, hand of gold, goal scored by arguably the best player in the world, Maradona on England, was a clean handball.

The handball issue, for the few who know, a handball in soccer is a foul that could earn one a booking. This foul can be explained as the handling, controlling or simply a player being in contact with the ball. Soccer players do the opposite to what basketball or handball players do. Such errors could have been controlled if the linesmen of that time were equipped with the tool, skills and technology that characterizes their counterparts of today.

The best, according to the level of match officiating ought to be English Premier League linesmen. This is simply because they have embraced science and technology in sport. They use sophisticated but yet simple to use tools. They use earpiece technology, the tradition flags, and jerseys to distinguish them from the players. The league has also equipped match officials with off field equipment including goal line technology to detect more than half of balls passing the goal line and minute boards that are easily visible for time purposes.

The flags are important in field sport. For one reason, for communication. It would be quite archaic to use a microphone or speaker every time the ball crossed the line as way to signal that. This is why FIFA and IRB, the soccer governing body and their rugby counterparts respectively, have trained their linesmen in official sign communication with the referee. This is done with the aid of a flag.

Earpiece on the other hand have acted like mobile phone in the field. It is easier to call someone who is far than shouting. The earpiece in this case entail both the shouting and easy accessing of a referee from a linesman and vice versa. Linesman as assistants can seek further clarity from the other officials and in turn a true judgment is made before the whistle is blown.

This tools have prevented match officiating mistakes and misjudgments that over the years have led to stakeholders questioning the legibility of the governing bodies in regards to the various sports.




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