FIFA sets-up a working group to look into professional referees

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FIFA’s Referees Committee discussed the issue at a meeting in Zurich on and said a working group would draw up "appropriate proposals". FIFA president Sepp Blatter has repeatedly called for referees to be paid salaries, saying the move would help stamp out corruption.

Football has been hit this year by damaging match-fixing cases involving referees in Germany and in Brazil, the two countries who contested the 2002 World Cup final. The trial of German referee Robert Hoyzer, who has admitted fixing matches in return for money from gamblers, is currently going on in Berlin.