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Officials will be ready when Major League Soccer resumes play, referee boss says

Referees and their assistants are confident the game will be safe when soccer resumes in North America, former top referee Howard Webb says.

But there inevitably will be some changes in behaviour in the COVID-19 world.

Webb, general manager of the Professional Referee Organization (PRO), said he saw a recent Korean game where a player on the ground asked the referee to help him up.

The ref declined.

“It was quite interesting to see how that was on the mind of that particular official,” Webb told a conference call Wednesday. “Again, we’ll be reminding our referees of the need to not create unnecessary contact when it doesn’t need to happen.