It could be a good idea, yes. Of course, many football people are conservative and this would no doubt upset many of those conservative people - but one has to face the fact that the game is a lot faster now than, say, 30 years ago, not to say when the rules were written. Discussions about referee decisions are so frequent now it's actually becoming annoying. (And here is a bit of criticism for Sir Alex from a United fan: He should also keep in mind that referees are human beings and do mistakes, just like players and managers do. There is no need to give the ref hell every time an important decision goes in United's disfavor).
If this third umpire (I guess in football the so-called "4th official" would have this job) has access to immediate video replays of the situation, which is the case in most games at top level, one can easily avoid that games are turned by decisions that are obviously wrong. I can take three, four blatant examples from United games:
- The offside against Paul Scholes in the Champions League game against Porto in 2004. He was two meters onside.
- The goal Tottenham scored from the half-way line at Old Trafford in 2005, which the referee and assistants didn't see was in.
- The penalty Wayne Rooney got against Arsenal in 2004 (yes, it was a dive) would instead have been a yellow card
- More recently: Manchester City's penalty on Tuesday would instead have been a free kick.
I think it's a good idea. Of course not for situations where the referee has to use judgement to decide whether to give a yellow card or not, for example, but in situations where one doesn't know if a foul happened inside or outside the box, or if the ball has crossed the line or not.
