The BBC’s page on football and science. A shameless attempt to try and make the sentence “if you like football, you’ll LOVE SCIENCE” really work. However I particularly the bit on referees:
A referee’s perspective
Watching football can, however, also be frustrating, especially when it comes to the decisions of referees and officials.
Take a linesman trying to judge if a player is offside. Unless they are exactly in line with the last defender they will find it extremely difficult to judge whether the striker is in front of the defender or not.
Even if the linesman is as little as a metre in front of the defender, their perception is significantly distorted and the attacker will appear further forward than they really are.
Many scientists have suggested that offside decisions would be better taken from the stands where there is a much better perspective.
Yes, many “scientists” have suggested that. Also many “scientists” have suggested not picking blind refs, not to mention that they should pay more attention to Mickey Mouse’s hands.
(Also on the site: David Ginola using air to score goals. I shall not make the big puff (of air) joke here honest.)