Referees reminded of responsibilities

'Leave response to referee'
Cornu explained that the 12 referees on duty at the finals have a "responsibility" to stop play in the case of serious injury and restart it with a dropped ball. However, he added that players should not expect their opponents to return the ball to them if they choose to kick it out of play for a team-mate to receive treatment. "It is up to the players to continue to play and to leave the response to the referee," he said. Members of the UEFA Referees Committee underlined this point to the 16 teams when visiting them at their bases in the lead-up to the tournament, which kicks off on Saturday.

Responsibility
"If a player is injured, it is the responsibility of the referee to decide if it is a serious injury and to stop the game and restart it with a drop ball," continued Cornu. "If, however, a team decide to kick the ball out of the field of play they should not expect the other team to throw the ball back and that is something of a concern. We hope it will not be a problem – a problem for the players themselves and problem for the referee."

Moscow incident
UEFA is keen to avoid a repeat of the incident in last month's UEFA Champions League final in Moscow, when a player kicked the ball out when another was down and then pressed the ball when the opposition restarted the action. "We noticed that in the Champions League final such a situation led to a mass confrontation. If we can avoid it during the tournament it would be good for the teams, good for the referees and good for football," said Cornu. Besides repeating the instruction to get tough on scenes of mass confrontation, UEFA has also reiterated to the 12 referees that they should not tolerate holding and pushing in the penalty area. In cases where players fail to show respect to the official, the referees have been advised to issue yellow cards.

Ready for action
Speaking in the Swiss town of Regensdorf, the refereeing team's base for the finals, Cornu added that the match officials were ready for action. "For me, they are calm, focused – I would say ready." Since learning of their appointment for the EURO in December, the referees' preparations have included a February training course in Cyprus and an April workshop in Switzerland, after which they each received a fitness programme building up to the championship. In total, 44 match officials are on duty: every referee is accompanied by two assistants from his country and there are also eight fourth officials.