The call for technology in football
Once again, the call for technology to be used in football is open to debate.
Following events at the 2010 Fifa World Cup- where England’s Frank Lampard shot went over the line but wasn’t given, and Mexico’s outrage at Argentina’s first goal which was clearly offside- Fifa president Sepp Blatter has some awkward questions to face.
Fifa have refused to comment now on whether technology should be used in football, and they said in March there would be no more talks about it. Everyone is talking about it again, so the matter is not over by a long way.
If technology were to be used in football, how would it work, and what would it be used for?
In the case of England, had video evidence been used, or something to detect whether the ball has crossed the line, like hawk-eye, which is used in tennis and cricket, then Lampard’s goal would have stood.
For Mexico, someone in the stadium showed on the giant screens a replay of Carlos Tevéz’s goal for Argentina as being offside. The linesman had acknowledged that he made an error, but television replays are not allowed to be used to influence a decision. It didn’t take long for the replay to come up on the screens, so why can’t that be used for the referee’s benefit?
If technology came into football, for example the video evidence, maybe a system could be devised like the hawk-eye system for tennis, where a team would have three appeals to make throughout the match.
If technology comes, then it could be overused, with teams appealing for everything, like penalty decisions, handballs, free-kicks, corners, red cards etc.
It is up to Fifa to decide, and at the moment they are standing firm on no decision.
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