Is it Time for Goal Line Technology?

You’ve sold your car, remortgaged your house and the wife has left you. Things aren’t all horrific though; in just two weeks you’re heading to the World Cup Finals! After breezing through the group stages and putting out your arch rivals in the semis - you find yourself in the final against everyone’s beloved nation: the Germans. You’ve had too many pints and are getting ready to storm the pitch in festivity as you’re merely seconds away from a momentous victory. It all goes pear shaped though as the Germans grab an equaliser in the last minute. You finish your last packet of crisps and head back to the hotel, close to tears, after losing on penalties. Again. However disappointment soon turns to fury as you watch the replays. Sky Sports have removed the players from the pitch and have zoomed in ten times on the ball and it shows that the equaliser clearly didn’t cross the line. As you travel back home and arrive at the local Simon Community Centre you mutter the usual complaints. “If Sky showed a replay five seconds after the incident then why can’t the referee watch it?”, “How on earth could the linesman possibly have thought it crossed the line” and “Why didn’t I have a mince pie at half time?”. Some people say introducing technology to football is a no brainer. Others think it will ultimately ruin the game. Let’s have a look at both sides of the argument and come to our own conclusions.

Football needs to be brought into the 21^st Century. Nearly every other sport uses some form of technology and it’s time for football to follow suit. Over the last few years alone I can think of dozens of mistakes off the top of my head. Was Roy Carroll’s blunder against Tottenham possibly the worst refereeing decision of all time? Replays show that the ball was at least a metre over the line when Carroll managed to scramble it back into play. Frank Lampard made the headlines at the World Cup in South Africa having unequivocally equalised against Germany only for the goal to be disallowed. Luis Garcia scored the ‘goal that never was’ in the 2005 Champions League Semi Final Second Leg at Anfield after poking it ‘onto’ the line. Replays show that William Gallas undoubtedly hooked the ball away before it fully crossed the line though. Likewise in an even more famous incident from the 1966 World Cup Final, Geoff Hurst ‘scored’ England’s fourth goal of the game although modern replays have shown that the ball never crossed the line. Compare this to rugby or tennis and you very rarely see an officiating error. Why? Technology. In rugby league in particular you will see a fourth official checks almost every point scored before confirming it with the referee. This takes about 30 seconds in most cases, about enough time for the goal scorer to perform a few cartwheels and hug his team mates. Tennis of course gives the players three ‘challenges’ per set in which they can challenge any decision via consulting a Hawk Eye replay, again this takes little more than 30 seconds to come to a decision.

Surely the length of time taken to make a decision is of little significance however, if it’s the accurate decision. Just imagine you were in the situation I described in my introductory paragraph. If it came down to winning or losing a World Cup then unquestionably the extra minute taken to consult a replay would be well worth it. It wouldn’t be hard to implement. Placing a camera on each goal line with a feed to the sideline where the fourth official could scrutinize it could easily be set up for this weekend at every ground in the country. Let’s be fair, how often would it actually need to be used? The answer is not very often, maybe once every couple of weeks. So in this case the dispute of it wasting time doesn’t really hold up as you would only be adding another minute to a game every once in a while. That extra minute would be used by players surrounding the referee protesting the decision anyway.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But why are so many people against it, why hasn’t it been put into place yet? The main apprehension is that it will upset the flow of the game and take away the human element of football. Of course it will start out with a camera at either end of the park and will only be used once in a blue moon. Many people believe that it will escalate into something much more though, that replays will be consulted for a lot more decisions. It will eventually be used to determine whether or not it was a hand ball, whether or not it was a bookable offense or which player the ball last deflected off for instance. If this was the case it would almost become a game of American Football rather than the game we know and love. It would undoubtedly result in a lot of stoppages. Furthermore it might not give conclusive evidence one way or the other, football is a sport which contains a lot of gray areas. Many referee’s could well disagree on the outcome of an incident. Particularly when it comes to penalty calls. Referees are growing increasingly incoherent when it comes to awarding penalties.

Another prospective problem is just how far down the divisions do we take it? Should Exeter City have the technology when playing at home? Should Leeds United have it available at Eland Road? Should even Blackpool United have it in the Premiership? No doubt it would be quite expensive to implement. Obviously teams below the Championship could struggle to afford it, would they even see the benefit of it? The final argument against it is how do we restart the game after the decision has been made? Assuming it starts off with deciding whether or not the ball crossed the line, let’s say the referee has blown his whistle and has given the fourth official the go ahead to check the video footage. If he decides the ball hasn’t crossed the line how does play resume? What if the ball rebounded back towards the striker and he finished it convincingly the second time but the referees whistle had already gone; would the goal stand? This becomes an even bigger dilemma if replays are used to look at tackles or hand ball incidents. The only feasible way would be to start the game again with a dropped ball. Either way – it could become a nuisance.

Having considered the points both for and against technology in football I am still certain that it would be better for the game if it was put in place. Of course it will create inconvenience but it will be problems which can be resolved with a bit of thought and some new rules. I think if we begin with technology only being used for decisions regarding whether or not it was a goal and use it in the top leagues alone it would become very effective. Incidents such as those mentioned at the beginning would become largely nonexistent and the game can only become healthier because of this. It works so well in many other sports; there is absolutely no reason why the Football Association can’t make it work too.