Is It Time Football Grew Up and Used Technology to Eradicate Costly Mistakes?
by Nick Gregson-Jones on December 22nd, 2009 1 commentEver since the ‘did it, didn’t it cross the line’ debate sparked by Geoff Hurst second ‘goal’ in the 1966 World Cup Final, the arguments for and against the introduction of goal line technology have rarely been out of the headlines.
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In recent years, goal line technology would have stopped the Bobby Zamora ‘goal’ against Blackburn in March 2007, which helped move West Ham off the bottom of the Premiership and may have in some small part contributed to them avoiding relegation.
Goal line technology would have allowed Spurs Pedro Mendes’ 50 yard lob which Manchester United keeper Roy Carroll clearly juggled a full metre over his own line in the Red Devils 0-0 draw in January 2005.
And more recently technology would have helped Martin Hansson, the Swedish referee who missed Thierry Henry’s handball that ended Ireland’s hopes of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
Football technology could take many forms. The most controversial is the video replay, a concept which brings with it the beginnings of video refereeing, in-game pauses and a whole host of related issues.
It’s often suggested that video replays would make football too stop-start due to the lag between incident and final decision.
Goal line technology is another method that has been mentioned to possibly enhance the game. Video replays have been mentioned to be used at the top level to stop any controversial goals. It is thought by many that if rugby and cricket can do it, so can football.
Instead of goal line technology Fifa have tried out having two extra officials, the system was first experimented with during an Under-19 tournament in Cyprus November 2009 and the positive feedback led the International Football Association Board to sanction a more high-profile trial. This led to two goal line officials been placed at this seasons Europa league.
Sport nowadays is not just a mere game. Every win is important and every defeat has its own repercussion. The game is highly commercialised and millions are riding on teams fortunes.
However would the introduction of some sort of goal line technology slow the game down, and potentially ruin it?
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anonymous - December 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
The introduction of video replays would actually speed up the game since any controversial call could be viewed by the 4th official and his opinion relayed to the referee in under a minute or so. What happens now is that players,managers and the assistant referees all get involved in the post event melee and it stresses everyone out. The alternative to this is the 5 on-field officials experiment but it has its problems such as; more people making calls means more likelihood of errors and disagreements, with some of the assistant referees actually entering the field of play while play is underway, it poses a risk of them interfering with play and finally it requires a practiced coordination between referee and assistant that ,as yet, does not exist. Video replays work and make more sense since you can’t bribe a video camera and there is only 1 person viewing it but the referee, if he doubts the opinion, can view it as well.