Press Release

PGI at The Scottish Cup Final 2006

Saturday, 13 May, 2006
Hampden Park, Glasgow
Heart of Midlothian 1, Gretna 1 (aet)
Heart of Midlothian won 4-2 on penalties

Performance Group International ("PGI") was invited by The Scottish Football Association ("SFA") to support the final showpiece of the season in Scotland. Seen worldwide, the match was eventually won on penalties by Hearts (4-2) though Gretna made history by appearing in their first ever cup final.

PGI was extremely privileged to be part of the final, and is honoured to work so closely with The SFA.

PGI was tasked with analysing the officials and monitoring their performance in one of the most important matches of the year - not only in Scotland, but also for the officials.

Utilizing the analysis framework PGI developed for FIFA over the past five years, a series of image and data collection mechanisms were deployed in order to maximize the assessment possibilities. Video was captured from each of:

• Broadcast Television Feed (Sky)
• A dedicated Referee camera (PGI)
• Wide Screen Video (PGI)

PGI's Director of Referee Solutions Peter Mikkelsen, the well-known former international referee and recipient of FIFA's Referee of the Decade award for the 1990's managed the in-stadium match observation. Peter's feedback to the referee's was delivered post-match and the video / biometric match analysis was delivered to SFA Director of Referee Development Donald McVicar a few days later.

The Referee Analysis included assessment of all critical match incidents and included items such as:

• Fouls, Penalty Area Incidents, Penalty Kicks, Red Cards, Yellow Cards, Off-sides, Simulation, etc.
• Teamwork / Assistant Referee - Referee Cooperation
• Duties of the 4th official - dealing with the technical areas
• Man management and control
• Positioning
• Discipline

Beginning with the 2006-07 football season, PGI will be using DatatraX & Datarate -- both part of our total analysis solutions package "Datasuite" -- to monitor the following additional data points:

• Referees' distance from the ball 'RefTraX'
• Heart Rate
• Distance covered by:

  • Running (high-speed, sprinting, low intensity etc)
  • Walking
  • Backwards running

All analysis was directed by our Director of Referees in accordance with the guidelines from FIFA and UEFA and made available for the Referee Conference in St. Andrews. The material delivered included:

• Detailed analysis of every incident or event with video
• Full Presentation Materials including PowerPoint
• Personal Referee DVD, a private souvenir from the final

The Cup Final was the initial phase of a planned long term cooperation between the SFA and PGI. PGI also support the SFA National Teams program by providing match analysis for the various age level teams, most notably during the current UEFA U-19 European Championship where Scotland has reached the semi-final and qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup next year in Canada.

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For more information please email: news@pgintl.net

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