We don\’t need goalline technology, we need living-room technology

We don’t need goalline technology, we need living-room technology
Fifa were right to reject goalline cameras and chipped balls, but football could at least use the replay footage we already have
Fifa turned their back on goalline technology on the same day Birmingham were denied a legitimate goal against Portsmouth. Photograph: Tom Hevezi/AP
Back in the days when his peerless prose used to light up the Observer, Clive James used to say that whenever Jane Fonda came out and said something with which he agreed, it made him stop and think in order to re-evaluate his position.
Most people feel the same way about Sepp Blatter . It is easy to laugh at the Fifa president, who often seems deliberately to cultivate an air of the eccentric, and even easier to assume he and his organisation are always in the wrong, pontificating as they do from their Swiss mountain top about what goes on in the distant valley below.
Just occasionally, though, Fifa gets something right, or at least does something for the right reasons. It appeared to invite even more scorn and ridicule on itself at the weekend by setting its face against goalline technology at almost exactly the moment a legitimate goal was missed in an FA Cup quarter-final â?? if you were listening to the Pompey-Birmingham game on Radio 5 Live, as I was, the two news items were presented almost simultaneously â?? yet at risk of being branded a Luddite and swimming against a tide of popular opinion on the subject, I would like to back Fifa’s stance on this issue. There is no need for goalline technology in football.
I realise that is almost a heretical position, so here are my reasons. First of all, disputed goals are not all that common in football. You can go weeks, if not months, without seeing one. Many a time it is possible to watch an entire weekend’s worth of Premier League games on Match of the Day and never encounter an argument about whether the ball crossed the line or hit the back of the net and came out again. These problems are rare. This is not the case in tennis, where you get a line decision at least once a minute, and technology more or less had to be brought in to deal with serves and calls that were happening too fast for the human eye.
In cricket also, given that every delivery could lead to an lbw shout and every scampering run could end with a run-out appeal, there is a need to be vigilant all the time and cameras are a definite help, even if umpires still judge lbws by eye. Every time a try is scored in rugby there are issues that can be usefully checked on replay â?? grounding, foot in touch, double-movement etc â?? and thanks to technology you even see tries awarded nowadays that would never have been given in the past, because a fingertip’s worth of downward pressure was applied too quickly for the referee to see or there were bodies in the way.
That is a positive application of technology, yet there is hardly any need for it in football because the vast majority of goals are plain for all to see. The net billows, the goalkeeper clutches at thin air, John Terry kicks a post in frustration, the referee points to the centre circle. We all recognise the signs, we don’t need electronic assistance. It is true that there are a small number of situations, the phantom Birmingham goal on Saturday being a case in point, where a chip in the ball or a goalline camera would help the referee. Yet goalline cameras are not infallible, quite often there are bodies in the way of those, too, and in many cases the referee is still going to have to halt the game to check the footage, a far from ideal solution.
At first glance the chip in the ball seems a neater idea, rigged up with sensors in the goal frame so that a buzzer could sound every time the whole of the sphere crossed the line. While an electrical signal is just what the referee Steve Bennett could have done with at Fratton Park, it is important to bear in mind that with such a system there would be a buzzer/bleep/electrical signal for every goal, even perfectly obvious, non-disputed ones. How long do you think it would be, in those circumstances, before a club linked the buzzer to the sound system, the floodlights, or the giant screen? You could have anything from a snatch of song to a laser display to a volley of fireworks at the instant a goal is scored, and that would be amusing for about an hour and a half and then awful for the rest of time.
Even more awful might be what Sky could get up to with the same electronic signal. Stand by for every goal being greeted with a line of dancing girls or an erupting volcano. Think of the sponsorship possibilities. No sooner has the ball crossed the line than it’s ANOTHER GOAL BROUGHT TO YOU BY FIZZY DRINKS AND GREASY BURGERS! Maybe I exaggerate, but I’m still grateful Fifa has closed the door on any such unnecessary adulteration, whatever Ars?¨ne Wenger says about being illogical. You never know where these developments are going to end up.
One could argue that as there are so few (relatively) disputed goals in football they are better left alone, or even welcomed as talking points. Think of all the mileage people have had over the years out of Geoff Hurst’s goal in 1966, for example. I am not going to argue that, however, for the very good reason that while disputed goals in football may be small in number they are often high in significance. I doubt if the Irish are prepared to accept Thierry Henry’s handball as a refereeing oversight and a good talking point, and I imagine Fiorentina bitterly resented going out of the Champions League to Bayern Munich last night because of an offside goal in the first leg that Ruud Gullit quite rightly called scandalous.
The thing about both those goals, two of the most obvious miscarriages of justice this season, is that neither would have been exposed by goalline technology. What would have been of enormous assistance, on the other hand, is the technology already available. All that needed to happen for Henry’s crime to be spotted and for Miroslav Klose to be confirmed as yards offside, was for the fourth official, or perhaps the match referee himself, to have a peek at the monitor. It is incredible that Fifa will not sanction such a simple recourse, perhaps to be rationed to just a couple of appeals per game, when even Blatter admitted that the world getting to see what Henry did while the referee had to act blind made the game look stupid.
At the moment, there is nothing to prevent a similar injustice spoiling a World Cup match in summer. Let us suppose there is another Geoff Hurst scenario in the final. One team is screaming at the referee that the ball crossed the line, the other is swearing it did not. The world watching on television has already seen a couple of replays that clearly establish the truth, but the referee did not have a perfect view and neither did his linesman, so while the two can confer they still have to guess based on what they saw once, in real time.
Football was lucky, in a way, in 1966, because the TV technology was not that great and the pictures were unable to prove or disprove the referee’s decision. That is no longer the case, yet in the Henry incident the pictures were ignored and guesswork prevailed. The world saw what happened, the referee did not. Going into the 11th World Cup since Hurst’s shot hit the underside of the bar and was generously awarded by an Azerbaijani linesman, officials will not miss goalline technology. It is the lack of living-room technology, the inability to see the pictures the world is watching from armchairs, sofas and bar stools, that is making their job impossibly difficult.
Paul Wilson Wednesday 10 March 2010
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We don’t need goalline technology, we need living-room technology | Paul Wilson
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 15.07 GMT on Wednesday 10 March 2010.It was last modified at 15.24 GMT on Wednesday 10 March 2010.
But, you know, Sky and the football grounds could do all that anyway. They don’t need a chip in the ball, just some bloke with his finger on the button – ref says ‘goal’, fireworks go off.
And the good thing about a chip in the ball is that it would give an instant, definite answer to the dispute. No waiting for a fourth official to view footage, no ‘was he interfering in play at that instant?’, no ‘was the handball intentional or not?’. The ball crossed the line, or it didn’t.
Of course, we can understand why English football doesn’t like the idea…
Nope. We do need goal line technology.
First of all, disputed goals are not all that common in football. You can go weeks, if not months, without seeing one. Many a time it is possible to watch an entire weekend’s worth of Premier League games on Match of the Day and never encounter an argument about whether the ball crossed the line or hit the back of the net and came out again.
Exactly. So when they do happen in football, it means a hell of a lot more than in a game of tennis. Football is a low scoring game. There were 33 games in the English and Scottish leagues this weekend that were decided by one goal or finished level. Couple that with the frequently tiny margins between success, (staying up), and failure, (relegation, reduced income, obscurity, road to nowhere), and it becomes clear that you can go down or survive on a goal that was, or was not.
And don’t dare give me that ‘what comes around goes around’ cack. I hardly think Chesterfield getting a consolation in an end of season 4-1 loss made up for them being denied a place in the FA Cup final.
if these situations are so rare what’s the problem with the ref or the 4th official having a quick look at a monitor to come to the correct decision.
if wenger says the decision is illogical then for once i’ll have to agree with him
They are already using it in Spain by all accounts. Sid Lowe may enlighten us more about this tomorrow. I hope so.
That wasn’t very clear. I meant they are already using the TV view via the 4th official.
One could argue that as there are so few (relatively) disputed goals in football they are better left alone, or even welcomed as talking points.
Bloody hell, I must have missed this on account of it being so ludicrous as to skip straight through my brain and out the other end. If England lose the World Cup final on a goal that crossed the line but wasn’t given will you still put forward the argument of ‘oh well, don’t worry, we might have missed the best chance we could ever have had to win the World Cup again but look on the bright side, we’ll be talking about this for years!’
This a pretty silly article.
I don’t get in a car crash very often, so I guess I don’t need airbags.
And why couldn’t they already do all those superimposed messages when a goal is scored? Many stadiums, especially in Europe, already play music when the home team score and all the crowd sing along. In the NFL they have all kinds of craziness when a ouchdown is scored from the standard dancing cheerleaders to a cannon being fired and they don’t have any electronic signal to tell them. All you would need the signal to go to would be the 4th official who then informs the referee via the earpiece they already wear that a goal has been scored.
The only real issue I can see against goal line technology is that any technological solution would be expensive for lower league clubs to install and probably impossible for non-professional clubs. But this isn’t an issue for cricket or tennis so I don’t see why it would be in football.
Hear, hear. What`s the point in having a chip on the ball, if the player who`s marginal goal that set off the beeper was offside or handled it over the line. It would be embarassing.
There should be Captains appeals based on the tennis appeal system. People might say that stops the flow, but watch any live game and the flow stops every time the ball goes out or a foul is committed.
The “there’s so much riding on it” argument is the one that tells any sane person that we should reject the goal line technology. Football is already taking itself far too seriously and anything that makes the money men nervous eg that they could lose their seat on the gravy train due to a short sighted linesman is fine by me.
And TV technology was good enough in 1966 to show it never crossed the line. The 4th goal should also have been disallowed due to people invading the pitch.
Nice straw-man mid section about sky’s fictional buzzer and related shenanigans. Short on word count, were we?
Don’t get your point though. Compared to the population of Britain, a tiny tiny tiny tiny percentage of people get raped. No need to prosecute it then, really.
Please don’t put in replays! For every mistake a referee makes, there are still 89mins in which a team can pull itself together and rectify the situation. If Ireland deserved to be in the world cup, they should have scored a couple of goals. Yes I’ll complain when it’s my team that gets hosed, but the fact of the matter is that if they were truly better, they would find a way to win in spite of the referee. For anyone who complains, shut up and either score a goal or play defense. It’s your own fault for putting the referee in a position to determine the game anyway.
I am with FIFA on this for other reasons than ones stated by Paul Wilson:
First, everyone seems to forget the importance of the referee in professional football. That much-maligned sub-institution (Referee) is what makes football what it is. Without the referee, the game will be in disarray (obviously). As a result, the referee is the most important person on the field and to maintain this authority (and legitimacy), he must have the final say on everything happening on the pitch (even if he gets it wrong sometimes). If video technology is introduced, then the referee’s powers are curtailed and he loses some of that authority and legitimacy. Once this happens, that sub-institution that makes football what it is begins to crack and so does football.
Secondly, proponents of the video technology have argued that it could be used sparingly for goals only. However, i disagree with this notion because once you start using it for goals, people will begin clamoring for it to be used for other calls/fouls/etc thereby eroding the referee’s powers (see first point)
Third, I have watched and enjoyed football for the most part of my life and even though i have disagreed with calls and shouted at referees while watching at home, i still enjoy the game. Maradona’s hand of God, Henry’s handball, Mendes’ s goal at OT and recently, the Birmingham incident has not pushed people away from the sport so why do we need to change?
Paul, you use the examples of tennis, cricket and rugby, all of which are very valid. However prior to technology being introduced in these sports very similar anti-introduction arguments would have been made. I think we would all agree that technology has improved both the accuracy of decisions (and arguably the spectacle) in all three sports.
Therefore I would suggest there’s no reason to think the same wouldn’t be true in football?
Video technology works well in other sports so it’s about time football caught up, it just needs to be tried out, but for once I’d agree with FIFA that goalline technology on it’s own isn’t the answer. Some kind of video refereeing needs to be introduced at the very top levels because the prizes are so big, the fact that we are still talking about Geoff Hurst’s goal which was “scored” 44 years ago shows that.
As the article points out there have already been a couple of instances this season where results of very big games have been decided on bad decisions that could have been resolved in seconds with a look at the TV monitor, Thierry Henry’s handball and the Klose’s blatantly offside goal which ultimately eliminated Fiorentina from the Champions League being just a couple of examples.
I’d go for giving either the manager or captain 3 “challenges” like in Tennis and if they finish their challenges and lose to a debatable last minute goal then that’s just bad luck, like getting the goal keeper sent off after using all 3 subs. At a pinch it might just stop some of the discussions here in Italy where there are numerous programmes on sunday evenings in which various pundits, ex-playes and stunning models argue at great length over every offside/penalty/etc etc decision, usually coming to the conclusion that the referees aren’t up to scratch, but that they are still better than the Scandinavians.
Someone could indeed lose their seat on the gravy train, but the argument cuts both ways, namely that you could maintain your place in the financial elite based on a goal that should not have been given.
@Zizou- I’m not sure if you’re aware but video technology is out there and undermining the referee at every turn.
The problem with your argument is the idea that currently there is not an issue of damaged respect and that the referee having recourse to technology rather than just everybody else will weaken his position, it won’t.
If you are concerned about the primacy of the referee than you would be better campaigning for Andy Gray, Hansen and co not to highlight all their mistakes every week.
Any technology (as in Cricket originally) should be there to be used at the discretion of the referee. The myth of infallibality is a key reason refs are so heavily criticised- the technology is there to help them if they so choose. Pierluigi Collina agrees and he’s one of the most infallible officials going.
but the fact of the matter is that if they were truly better, they would find a way to win in spite of the referee.
Not quite. If they were better by than they could win despite having a goal falsely denied. If, as most games at top level are, the game is tight with only one-goal in it, the mistake decides the game.
Also you don’t have another 89mins to right wrongs if a decision is incorrectly made at the end of the game- you have already worked those 89mins to create the result and played the situation.
But goal-line isn’t the issue. The biggest (and most necessary) change would be retrospective punishment for violent conduct, diving, handball etc. All adjudged by serving refs (including the match ref) regardless of and independent of, the decision during the match.
Fair enforcement of the rules is how you gain respect- not by saying you deserve it and cannot be wrong. Ask the pope.
Thats all good and nice. But when you have busted limb and guts and worked your backside off like the Irish did, they didnt deserve to exit the World Cup play-offs in the manner in which the did. If I was Thierry Henry I wouldnt even bother playing football again. I have got a sure feeling karma is awaiting him in Johannesburg.
2nd to last game of the season, Chelsea (for example) are playing West Ham. If Chealsea win it sets up next weekends pay-per-view-title crunch with United. A draw means that united are champions. A massively contentious decision is made which denies West Ham a goal. Sky director, knowing that the draw will lose his company millions in subscription, in an instant decides not to show the reply which conclusively awards the goal to West Ham. 4th Official / TV offical or whatever, only sees inconclusive replay. Chealsea win.
Why modern football rules are ridiculous:
1) Video replay: exists in many other sports now and needs to be urgently introduced in football. What if a blatant handball decides a world cup final, billions see it on TV and the ref does not catch it? Therefore, each trainer should have a few (2-3) opportunities to stop the game for video replays, just as in American football or in tennis, everything else is just a travesty.
2) Yellow/red card rule: another absolutely ridiculous rule destroying modern football is to rule players out of games for yellow or red cards they received in earlier games. How is this supposed to be fair? The team that was disadvantaged by the foul does not gain anything from a yellow card (except that the player may be a bit more careful), but the team in the next game gets a completely unfair advantage. Plus it shatters dreams in that some players cannot play in games that they should be able to participate in, e.g. finals. Fans and players alike should be allowed to see the best teams in important games, and yellow and red cards should have no influence on who plays in the following games. Rather, time penalties should be introduced as in most other major sports, as this is the only reasonable and fair way to punish the perpetrating team and award the team that was disadvantaged. Time penalties already happen in some minor football leagues, e.g. in Denmark.
3) No penalty shoot-outs: as they have nothing to do with the game of football, there should either be rematches, or, once overtime begins, one player should have to leave the field every five minutes until a decision has been reached. This would make overtime much more interesting than it is now, with teams only defending being shit-scared of losing in the final minutes, and also just too exhausted to attack.
4) No away goal rule: how can a goal count more just because it is scored on the away pitch. Ridiculous! Just use overtimes, as suggested under 3, to decide games.
5) Offside rule: never works, never will (just look at how often they get it wrong in each game, especially as football has become quicker). Rather, get rid of the offside rule completely, or at least have a line, for example, 30 yards out from goal, and once the ball has been played inside that line, the offside rule does not apply anymore. Something like that, because for sure, it just does not work and it destroys too beautiful attacking moves which were simply not offside but the refs get it wrong anyway.
Only when all these destructive and idiotic rules have been done away with will football really be the beautiful game again: fair to each teams performance, not riddled by referee mistakes, not constantly interrupted by offsides, not decided by penalties. One can hope, but I am not holding my breath.
Whenever Paul Wilson comes out and says something with which I agree, it makes me stop and think in order to re-evaluate my position.
obv the point im making here is that the refereee is didinterested in the outcome of the game. those that provide the replays are not. and no, just because it works in cricket, where cameras are static doesnt mean it will work in football. first off there’s too much cash at stake.
I understand the pros and cons on both sides but when you’re talking about such big margins, I do think SOMETHING has to be done. That offside goal from Bayern will end up costing Fiorentina something like 10m in TV money and gate receipts and yet all of us could see within 5 seconds that it was offside. And they’re saying there’s nothing we can do? Psssssssssh
bawalther, EVERYTHING you say in your post is nonsense and betrays a very poor understanding of the game of football. i dont think ive ever read text before where even the conjunctions sound stupid.
Sky director, knowing that the draw will lose his company millions in subscription, in an instant decides not to show the reply which conclusively awards the goal to West Ham. 4th Official / TV offical or whatever, only sees inconclusive replay. Chealsea win.
The Broadcaster doesn’t control the technology, only the replays they show on TV. The 4th official should have access to the Hawkeye tool- not have to listen to the Scottish tool on Sky.
I think that’s how it works with Cricket?
1. With a video replay, England likely would never win the World Cup.needs are (1) the games like those two played last evening in Firenze and London, and (2) the high standard of refereering demonstrated by the Belgian De Bleeckere and Undiano Mallenco from Spain.
saw the beachball interfere with play and cause a goal to be awarded against liverpool in direct contravention of the rules of the game.
and this is somehow less deserving of consideration than the Henry situation?
if they can’t handle a situation like that then they are hardly prepared to use NFL-like video monitor appeals.

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