Question Number: 35834

Other 12/9/2024

Petr of Prague, Czech Republic Czech Republic asks...

This question is a follow up to question 35831

There are 24 official languages in the European Union alone. I see 5 of those languages on the IFAB website. (English, German, French, Spanish, and interestingly, Slovenian. Slovenian is a smaller language than Czech. Czech has about 13 million speakers, including emigration and minorities around the world. Slovenian has 2 million.)

Countries with small languages must translate the rules. In our country, this is done by the Rules Committee of the Football Association of the Czech Republic.
In our country, which was under Russian influence for 40 years (20 of which were under the presence of the Russian army), Russian was the main foreign language taught in schools. Or rather, in the vast majority of schools, the only one. Unfortunately, everything is repeating itself. Fortunately for us, 500 km from our borders. And there's a million times more blood. So only the youngest generation is fluent in English here. Moreover, Czech is a Slavic language that has a completely different logic than English. It is clear that I have big problems with it myself. So it is necessary to translate the rules.

The main part of the rules coincides with the IFAB, but the Czech committee adds its own comments and explanations for each rule. They call it a 'decision of association'. These comments are part of the rules. Always after the translated part from IFAB. And that sometimes confuses me because I don't notice that it's a part from the Czech commission.

Have a nice day and thank you again.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Petr
Thanks for the follow up.
The Irish language is one of the full working 24 languages of the EU yet improbable that the IFAB Laws of the Game would be translated into Irish. We use English as a working language so while Irish is the national and first language English is primarily used.

I expect that there is some reason why the LotG is translated into Slovene. I note thst IFAB uses 27 languages and perhaps IFAB expects that most of the soccer world can get by through one of those languages.
For those that perhaps find it difficult in the main languages it perhaps makes exceptions. I note that the Faroe Islands has a translation?

Anyway it should be a like for like translation with no additions or opinions of an association. That is spelt out clearly in the official law books,

Answer provided by Referee Peter Grove

Hi Petr,
I can definitely see the need for translations into local languages, given that in many cases, many of the referees may not have a high enough level of English to get all the nuances of the laws in that language.

I would agree with ref McHugh though, that when this is done, it would be better (and lead to less confusion) for these documents to stick to just translating the original English version, without any additional comments or interpretations.

As was stated in FIFA circular 1224 on this subject, issued back in 2010, this the best way to avoid, "the chances of differing interpretations around the world," and "to ensure uniform application worldwide."