Are There Workable Alternatives to Video Replay/Goal Line Technology?

March 6th, 2010 | by: Jan |

The Chase As Rob already reported in his previous post, FIFA just put their foot down on the issue of introducing any form of technology to help referees.

At the 124th Annual General Meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), chaired by FIFA, a decision was made to no longer pursue the development of goal-line technology – or consider technology in football in general.

As FIFA Secretary general Jerome Valcke explained:

“The question posed to the members of the IFAB was simple: should we introduce technology in football or not? The answer from the majority of members was no, even if was not unanimous.”

The words not unanimous mildly cheered me up there. The reasoning by the IFAB members was once again full of misguided philanthropy:

“The human aspect of football is essential to this sport. The big moments in this sport – whatever they are – get supporters talking and go down in history. That’s what makes this sport so vibrant.”
Jonathan Ford of the Football Association of Wales

“We all agreed that technology shouldn’t enter football because we want football to remain human, which is what makes it great. The fans keep talking about these matches again and again, and relive them.”
Patrick Nelson of the Irish Football Association

That should probably read formerly of the Irish Football Association. Outrage, anger, hate, death threats for referees, negative stereotyping of clubs and whole countries, conspiracy theories etc. are all human reactions to human errors. I don’t think everything that makes us human needs to be preserved. I also doubt that fans of American sports have suddenly stopped talking, the moment video replays were introduced. European Football has grown into a 12bn Euro business, so these errors aren’t just about football narratives and mythology, but about costing clubs millions of Euros.

Anyway, given that stone age has just been confirmed to last forever, maybe there are other ways to improve the quality of refereeing decisions made during a match?

UEFA are already testing additional referees who are running around in and behind the penalty box and get major calls wrong. But maybe you can put them into protective gear, let them sit inside the goal and have them stare at the goal line for 90 minutes? Ten years later, a scientific study will then publish the negative long term effects to the referee’s mental health and declare this job inhumane. But at least we’ll have 10 years worth of slightly improved goal decisions.

Or you could follow the lead from ice hockey and introduce a second main referee. The two referees would then need to agree on a decision. For a bit of deadlock fun, you could then even assign referees from the countries involved in a match. E.g. a French and Italian referee would have taken care of the last World Cup final.

Any other ideas? Maybe even ones which don’t include a bloody rebellion to overthrow FIFA.

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Dustin

wow…that was such a negative and biased blog post I hardly think there’s anything worth analyzing here.
http://australia.worldcupblog.org Luka

Explain to me how it was “biased” Dustin. Negative yes, that’s kind of the point as Ben (and the rest of the world) is rather pissed at this decision, but biased?
http://australia.worldcupblog.org Luka

*Jan. Where the hell did I get Ben from…
Canolli

I see a certain bias in the “cheered me up a bit” phrasing. However, I can’t quite understand whether or not the conclusions are tinged with sarcasm.

The point of this piece is an excellent one, in my opinion. Perhaps there are ways to avoid death-threat-inducing mistakes in officiating such important fixtures.
http://bundesliga.theoffside.com Jan

This post was certainly written in disappointment over FIFAs decision making and as such it was difficult to suppress my sarcasm towards FIFA. Sorry for that.

In retrospect, I also forgot to mention another point FIFA was making: “Where do we stop?”. In the sense, that they fear, that once you open the door for technology, there’s no going back and the game will degenerate into a stop and go event. Though, as the ill-fated “Golden Goal” rule proved, there is always the chance to go back again, when a rule change doesn’t have the desired effect. You can introduce a challenge system for video replays and you could still come to the conclusion that it’s too disruptive and either tone it down or even abandon it again. FIFA closes the door for technology for good and makes incidents like the bad offside decision against Fiorentina look like being “cherished traditions” in football. As if Fiorentina fans get mildly worked up about the call for a day or two and discuss it and then come to the conclusion that it’s cool that football is like that, because it got them talking.
http://tvseriesonlines.com Tv Series Online

HA HA funny video!
Luis Paulo

I don’t think Goal Line Technology should be the main goal here. How many times we have problems with that? Maybe one every couple WC. Bad penalty, offsides and faults decision, in other hand, happens every game. I would add morer referees to the game only to try to get better calls.
http://www.malawi.worldcupblog.org sscouser

“Bad penalty, offsides and faults decision, in other hand, happens every game. I would add more referees to the game only to try to get better calls.” – Luis Paulo

The problem is not that the refs don’t see the incidents. The problem is that the refs see the incidents but fail to make the right calls. Biased? Incompetent? So adding more refs will be a waste of resources. Also, Good refs are in short supply so where will these additional refs come from?
sunrisedatacare

http://www.sangambayard-c-m.com/