Anxieties Over Ruling Out Technology
Monday, March 8, 2010
Fifa's general secretary, Jérôme Valcke, admits he hopes the decision to rule out goal-line technology does not come back to haunt him in the World Cup final this summer.
The International FA Board meeting in Zurich voted against continuing any further experiments with goal-line technology and effectively ended any chance of video replays coming into the game. The decision was swiftly followed by a legitimate Birmingham goal being ruled out during their FA Cup quarter-final defeat at Portsmouth.
The Birmingham manager Alex McLeish said afterwards that he supported the introduction of technology to assist officials. "My stance has always been that they should," McLeish said. "That is a frustrating decision by Fifa because I think they are doing their officials a disservice.
"It's not easy for their guys to see it in a split second. We feel he should have seen that but in a split second, you see offside decisions [given].
Valcke said the game should be prepared to accept referees' mistakes but admitted he hoped the ruling would not be shown up in this summer's World Cup in South Africa. Valcke said: "Questions will always come, we just hope they will not come in the final of the World Cup. Technology should not enter into the game, It was a clear, clear statement made by the majority of the board. The main part of the game should be humans – players and referees.
"Whatever are the mistakes – and, yes, there are mistakes – people will review the match and discuss what happened but there was a clear statement that technology should not enter in the game.
"If we start with goal-line technology then any part of the game and pitch will be a potential space where you could put in place technology to see if the ball was in or out, whether it was a penalty and then you end up with video replays. The door is closed."
The former leading referee Graham Poll today said he was "disappointed but not surprised" by the decision. Talking about football's reticence to embrace the technology on Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek programme, Poll said: "It's probably because of the level of arrogance. They feel that we have the best game, it's our game, the number one game and it's the same as experimenting with things like sin-bins – 'Oh no, that's a rugby idea we wouldn't do that'.
"It's like having a look at a different method of offsides – 'Oh, we won't do that, hockey have done that, we have to be different, we're football'. It's hugely disappointing.
"And to hear one of the reasons as 'Well, it's what people like to talk about in pubs, think back to 1966. Was the ball over the line or not?' The world has moved on massively since then.
"In 1966 we didn't have the possibility of seeing immediately whether the ball was a goal or wasn't a goal. It's changed completely and it's really affecting the confidence and respect that match officials now have."
The Scottish Football Association's chief executive, Gordon Smith, a vocal supporter of technology, said the development of two different goal-line systems had been a waste of time and money. Smith said: "There was no problem with the technology. For me the sad thing is that decision could have been made four years ago.
"It's not based on the fact that technology's not good enough, just an ideological idea that technology does not belong in football."
The FA and SFA had both voted in favour of technology but were defeated by six votes to two – Fifa's four votes plus those of the Welsh and Irish FAs.
The board will decide in May whether to pursue the system of having an extra two officials behind each goal-line.
The FA chief executive Ian Watmore had also been in favour of goal-line technology and said: "In the end it came down to a difference of opinion about whether you believe the future of football involves technology or not.
"But some of the arguments were very powerful and persuasive and we have to accept them.
"The credibility of football is always improved if you get the critical decisions right. I would have liked to try it out in the real game to see whether it is good or not."
Labels: FIFA, Technology
posted @ 10:02 AM,
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