Goal-Line Technology on FIFA’s Agenda – FIFA President Sepp Blatter
After a heated controversy during the football World Cup that concluded in South Africa last month, the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of the game, is seriously mulling over the prospects of introducing goal-line technology in the international game.
The tournament was marked by various umpiring howlers, none more prominent than the disallowed goal by English midfielder Frank Lampard (Round of 16: England vs Germany), whose attempt at a goal dropped inside the German net before being palmed away by the goalkeeper, yet the referee and the linesman failed to spot the ball inside the net and disallowed the goal.
The decision came at a crucial time in the second round encounter as the English team was down by one goal and had scored their first goal minutes before the incident.
Later, the Germans pumped in two more goals to sail through to the quarterfinals, and many football critics feel that it was the howler that cost the English team the game, as anything could have happened after the equalising goal.
The debate on Lampard’s “goal” continued for some time after the match, with television screens beaming the incident all over the world, putting tremendous pressure on FIFA to explore the possibilities of adopting the technology.
The agenda is set to be one of the priority issues for the President of the International governing body, Sepp Blatter, who revealed that the Federation was serious about the adoption of the technology; he made the claim soon after the dubious second round encounter.
Blatter reiterated his feeling during a news conference in Singapore, adding that the body responsible for determining the rules of the sport had agreed to spend their time and energies on the matter, besides making it their topmost agenda for their meeting set to take place in Cardiff, Wales, later this year.
"I have said at this meeting, we will bring the point of goal line technology to be brought to the official meeting of the business group that will take place in October. And now it is on the agenda in October, in Cardiff... goal line technology," Blatter told members of media.
Blatter added that he was keen on adopting the technology; however, he conceded that he was not sure if it could be relied upon fully.
"My personal opinion on goal technology has never changed, I have said if we have an accurate and simple system then we will implement (it), but so far we have not had a simple, or an accurate system," he said.
Besides Blatter, there were some other leading men from the World of football present at the meeting in Singapore; these included Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President Mohammed Bin Hammam, FIFA executive committee member Chung Mong-joon and Football Association of Singapore's President Zainudin Nordin.
Blatter has hoped that the group would come up with some suggestions on how to counter the issues surrounding the implementation of the technology.
"The Cairos-Adidas system said they will have something simpler, then the Italian group presented by the Italian FA they said we have now a system which is absolutely accurate. We have the Hawkeye again and then a Swiss watch company Longines, they said we have something that will beat everything so in this meeting all of these people can come and present their different items," he said.
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