FORMER Trinidad and Tobago World Cup 2006 and England Premier League goalkeeper Shaka Hislop has been appointed by FIFA to serve on an advisory panel for the influential International Football Association Board (IFAB).
IFAB discusses and decides upon proposed alterations to the laws of the game.
According to local sports website Wired868, Hislop, who now works as a football analyst at ESPN, will appear on the IFAB’s football advisory panel which meets at the Europa Hotel in Belfast, Northern Ireland on November 24, 2014.
The Football Advisory Panel and Technical Advisory Panel comprises of former players, coaches and referees as well as representatives from the various confederations, associations and league representatives and the global players’ union, FIFPro. The panel members will generally meet twice a year and serve for a period of two years.
Hislop, a former St Mary’s College pupil, played professionally for Reading, Newcastle, Portsmouth, West Ham and Dallas FC. He was nominated for the position by CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb.
The Football Advisory Panel includes: Anthony Baffoe (Ghana), Gijs de Jong (Netherlands, KNVB), Shaka Hislop (Trinidad and Tobago), Christian Karembeu (New Caledonia), Ioan Lupescu (Romania), Hidetoshi Nakata (Japan), Wynton Rufer (New Zealand), Richard Jobson (England, FIFPro) and Andreas Rettig (Germany, DFL).
Some of the topics tabled for its first meeting includes: the so-called “triple punishment” rule; Law 12 with respect to handling the ball; rolling substitutions for amateur/recreational football; and the use of electronic performance monitoring systems. These items were previously discussed by the IFAB and referred to the two new advisory panels for further analysis.
The IFAB does not have the authority to alter football’s laws on its own but it can forward proposals to FIFA for a final decisions. FIFA has four votes while each IFAB association has one vote each.