Every year the International Football Association Board meets to discuss the Laws of the Game and make any changes they feel may be necessary. This year on March 8th they met at Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. It was widely forecast that they would be looking at the use of goal line technology but what happened was unexpected.
There have been many disputed goal line incidents and this season alone Reading have had two occasions where they have been awarded goals but the opposition have claimed the ball never crossed the line. So it seems that something has to be done, at the top level at least, to ensure the correctness of these decisions.
One solution put forward is television cameras placed on the goal line. The problem I see with that is firstly, if there should be a crowd of players on the goal line, the cameras can’t see through them, so wouldn’t capture the incident completely. Secondly, it would need someone watching the monitor, which may involve numerous replays to arrive at the correct decision. This in turn would lead to a delay in the decision being relayed to the referee.
Another vaunted system that has been on trial at Reading
FC's training ground is Hawkeye, which will be familiar to tennis fans for its use at Wimbledon to check on the accuracy of the line judges calling. In tennis, if the ball bounces outside the line it is out, but in football the whole of the ball has to cross the line so if it is overhanging it is still in play. It means a different concept is needed.
The system which seemed most likely was Adidas Teamgeist Smart Ball which would set off a buzzer on the referee’s belt if the ball crossed the line between the posts. It had been set to be
trialed at the world under-17 tournament in Peru before the last World Cup. If successful, it could have been used at the World Cup itself but, unfortunately, the equipment broke down. It has fallen out of favour, not because of the difficulty of deciding whether the whole ball has crossed the line but because in recent trials, concerns were expressed about the way the ball containing an electronic chip, flew through the air and bounced.
Another possibility was the Tracab technology, developed by SAAB for missile guided systems which claims to be able to make tight goal line judgements. I know little about this but I’ve heard that it had some amusing results when used at a friendly between Germany and Austria. Nevertheless, it’s said it is going to be used as a media tool at Euro 2008.
However, the International FA Board at Gleneagles decided to scrap all trials with technology. Michel Platini, who was Sepp Blatter’s ideas man at FIFA before becoming President of UEFA, has convinced him to try out having two more assistant referees at matches, who will be placed on the goal line. They will be line judges but also look at other incidents in the penalty area.
The cancellation of a technology solution came as a great surprise, and the makers of Hawkeye and Adidas are said to be suing FIFA for compensation for the money spent on developing their systems.
How did FIFA get the International FA Board to agree? They have four votes with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland one each and all decisions to be passed by 6-2. It means two home nations must have supported FIFA. Of course there would be no chance of technology being used on local parks and perhaps this is FIFA’s reason for this unexpected U-turn, as they are determined that the laws apply wherever the game is played. But this doesn’t hold water, as no way will local football games be able to have two extra assistant referees at each match.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2008