Calculating Corner Flags

What a great game the Champions League group match between Barcelona and AC Milan was on Tuesday 13 September 2011. The match finished 2—2.

In the 19', one of the corner flagposts was knocked out of its position. When AR Mike Mullarkey reinserted the flagpost, it gave an opportunity to indirectly measure its height. The reason for this is because the corner flagposts in Camp Nou appeared to be rather short, particularly when viewed against tall professional football players.

AR Mike Mullarkey stands next to the corner flagpost

Based on available statistics, AR Mike Mullarkey is 1.78m tall. This means the calculation of the height of the corner flagpost comes to about 1.54m tall. This height exceeds the minimum required height by 4cm.
Note: this calculation is just an approximation, and it would be interesting if anyone can provide the exact measurements of the flagposts used at Camp Nou ... or whether Mike Mullarkey is 1.78m tall.


This post also gives an excuse to mention who the match officials were. They were:

Referee
Martin Atkinson (ENG)
Assistant referees
Michael Mullarkey (ENG), Peter Kirkup (ENG)
Fourth official
Michael Jones (ENG)
Additional assistant referees
Mark Clattenburg (ENG), Andre Marriner (ENG)

Looking at the high-profile names of the additional ARs (or EARs), this UEFA experiment highlights the complete waste of resources and inappropriate use of manpower in return for the supposed "benefit" of having EARs present in these matches.

Furthermore, based on the above list of 6 match officials, who would be the reserve Referee?

Outside Agents Interfering with the Match

The following incident occurred during the Tottenham Hotspur v Bolton Wanderers Premier League match on Saturday 1 May 2010.

According to the Laws of the Game, any outside agent that affects the running of a match is considered “outside interference”. Play should be stopped, the outside agent removed and play restarted with a drop ball at the place where the ball was when play was stopped.

Here are some freeze frames of an outside agent interfering with the match.

[Referee Chris Foy is alerted by his AR of an outside agent (i.e. an over-enthusiastic boy running onto the pitch)]

[He won’t forget this incident in a hurry!]

Related Bizarre Incidents

Sunderland’s Freak Goal Illegal and Wrongly Allowed

Sunderland Goal Should Have Been Disallowed Due to “Outside Interference”

Strange Handling Incident at AFC Champions League Match in Adelaide

Indecisive Referee in Israel's Premier League