Gaal handed Manchester mission
Saturday, June 4, 2005
Article summary
Gyöngyi Gaal will take charge of England-Finland after the officials were named for the opening games.
Article body
By Kevin Ashby in Preston
The officials have been appointed for the opening round of matches in Groups A and B.
Gaal task
Hungarian Gyöngyi Gaal will no doubt be relishing taking charge of England’s match against Finland at the City of Manchester stadium (kick off 19.00 local time), a fixture expected to attract a crowd in excess of 25,000. She will be assisted by Blazenka Logarusic of Croatia and Romanian Irina Mirt.
US official
The earlier Group A fixture between Scandinavian rivals Sweden and Denmark will be refereed by the leading official from the United States, Kari Seitz. Assisting her at Bloomfield Road in Blackpool (17.00) will be Northern Ireland’s Andi Regan and Hana Spackova of the Czech Republic.
Final
On Monday the action switches to the other pool, where Nicole Petignat will be in the middle for Germany against Norway in Warrington (18.00). A fellow Swiss, Elke Lüthi, will run one of the lines with Yolanda Parga of Spain patrolling the other. Petignat also refereed the 2001 final between Germany and Sweden.
Preston tie
Another person to referee a UEFA final, Alexandra Ihringova of Slovakia who presided over the UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship showpiece in 2002, takes charge of the concluding opening match, France versus Italy in Preston (20.00). Poland's Katarzyna Nadolska and Miroslava Migalova are her assistants.
New test
All the referees were put through their paces yesterday at an athletics track next to the City of Manchester stadium which was used as a warm-up venue for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. For the first time, UEFA officials did not use the standard Cooper Test but a new one being evaluated by FIFA.
Endurance
Professor Werner Helsen, who has worked with the game’s leading officials at UEFA European Championships and the FIFA World Cup, administered proceedings. The new tests is designed to better represent the movement of referees during matches and therefore places more emphasis on stopping and starting, short sprints and endurance. The eight referees all passed.