How Many Match Officials Does It Take ... ?

... to manage a Champions League or Europa League game?

... to tell UEFA how to count?

... to change a lightbulb? (Please post humorous answers in the comments section!)

One, two, three, four, five ...

... and six match officials, right?

Referee Stephane Lannoy , and his assistants. Where's the 4th Official (who is also meant to be assisting)?

I have previously asked this Question: In matches that use extra assistant referees (EARs), are there five or six match officials?

Answer 1: Officially, UEFA states that there are five match officials (actually, they state there are "5 Referees"; see UEFA’s publicity campaign)

Answer 2: Technically, and observationally, there are six match officials


Here is another number-related question. In matches that use EARs, is the 4th official still called the 4th official? If UEFA are labelling ARs and EARs as "Referees", than the 4th official should also come under this same loose definition of a match official.

Remember, an important responsibility of the 4th Official is to advise the Referee on incidents that he believes the Referee has missed. So far, it appears that this responsibility of the 4th Official is ignored in the same way that the responsibility of the EARs is ignored. That is, advice from the 4th Official and EARs is, and is seen to be, totally ignored by the Referee. Therefore as it stands these extra match officials may as well not be present to "assist" the Referee.