Does the Premiership need goal-line technology?

It's just very strange how Blatter staunchly opposed the technology in football UNTIL the lack of it HELPED ENGLAND WIN against Ukraine. Then he completely changed his tune.

Up until that point, I didn't take much notice of the claim that Blatter and Platini hate English/British football fans/teams/federations. But now I've seen Blatter totally switch sides on the issue since it gave England an advantage in a game, their hatred of British football looks very very strong.

Ukraines wrongly disallowed goal? The striker was offside anyway...

Originally Posted by EssexYiddo

Ukraines wrongly disallowed goal? The striker was offside anyway...

And that makes it al the more ridiculous

Goal-line technology ? Bells or computer chips in the ball ? Laser lines between the goal posts ? Extra referees assistants either side of the goal ? None of these are necessary and they certainly are not going to happen in the lower divisions in England or any country or the playing fields where millions play soccer for their local teams. So there is never going to be a completely fair playing field across the board, so we have to concentrate on the Premier/major leagues of every country as this is where the money and thus the most importance for now at least.
Virtually every major game is now televised or there are TV cameras attached to monitors at each game. All that is needed is for an accredited referee to be sat in front of a monitor watching the game for any such incident - yes this could also include off the ball incidents. We see it every match on TV. Something happens - a bad tackle, a goal, a great pass, and the television is replaying it within seconds. All this talk of stopping the game and holding it up for minutes on end is ridiculous, it would take seconds for the cameras to show the monitoring referee every possible angle and allow him/her to make a decision.
For those of you shaking your heads and arguing about the stoppage to play think on this; next time you watch a game and the referee gives a free kick just outside the area take note of how much time passes between when he gives the free kick and when the kick is taken. In the majority of cases this is between 30 and 120 seconds at least, none of this time is accounted for at the end when the referee adds time on for "stoppages".

I'm with ted on this one. Why not have a TV official who can immediately communicate with the referee on pitch? It would save money and time, and still keep the 'human' factor in the decision making process.

I really don't think it would cause many delays in stoppages either.

I like the way the Review System works in Cricket, each team is allowed 2 (I think) appeals and loses one of those appeals if the TV umpire rules against them. It really wouldn't affect the flow of the game and the quality of the cameras at most grounds would allow this TV refereee to make pretty good decisions on most controversial issues. The ref could also call on the TV referee if he wasn't sure. Refs use TV technology in Tennis, Rugby, Cricket and probably other sports so why not Football?

I think the officials in the Premiership do a pretty good job on the whole (Webb, Foy and others excepted obviously) and allowing a Review System would take a lot of the pressure off them.

YES - shrt memories esp of Chelscum last season

My only issue with goal-line review is that football lacks a natural pause of play. You have to stop play in order to review the play, correct? You don't want to award a goal 10 mins after it was scored. I would absolutely love to see goal-line review but want to make sure it is implemented well.

I'm with the others that suggest a 4th official with countless TV angles as per Cricket, Rugby, etc. There's now too much financial reward at stake not to have it and the cost of the above system would be negligible. The crowd would enjoy the outcome as they do already in other sports and perhaps the solution to the break in play argument is that each team has 2 appeals in a match (since it rarely happens anyway), if the appeal is successful it's a goal and a restart as normal if not then a goal kick to the defending team. they would all simply sign up to this rule before the season starts.

The cost of the above system would also mean it could be incorporated in all major divisions Europe wide. Simples.

It would have to be a human decision because tampering would come into play if it was simply a sensor on the goal line and that would need so much testing.

I accept the argument that goal-line tech will only lead to demands for tech in other areas, I just don't see what's so wrong with that. As far as I'm concerned, it's not about having "talking points" (I'd much rather focus on talk about some wonder-strike or crazy bit of skill on the wing than whether someone used a hand and the ref missed it anyway) but about getting decisions correct so that the game can be competed as on a near as possible level playing field. I just do not see how "human error" is beneficial for a sport if it lends 1 competitor an unfair advantage over another.

As far as I'm concerned, any decision which has a definitive yes/no answer (offsides, handballs, whether or not the ball crossed the goal-line or any other line, game-time, etc) should be entirely taken entirely out of the hands of a referee and thus allow him to concentrate his efforts fully on those decisions which require some kind of judgement.

People like to claim tech will slow the game down but that is nonsense because, I'm sorry, modern tech is able to give extremely precise yes/no responses FAR quicker than the human brain can, and it is FAR more consistent & is much more capable of correctly spotting such incidents even if they occur too quick or too close for the human eye.

By doing so, & giving the ref less to worry about, not only will we get many, many more of these crucial yes/no decisions correct but the ref will also get more of the more complicated ones correct also.

Let's be clear here, there'll always be controversy - 10 of us could see the exact same incident 100x and it not agree as to the correct outcome and it is incidents such as these which we should leave up to a properly trained judicator. There will be penalty decisions which will look as blatant as they come to some people yet also look like a good tackle to others, for example (just look at Dembele's tackle on Gerrard the other night which Rodgers and everyone on TalkShite called a "nailed on Pen" yet Shearer on MOTD and, most importantly, the referee felt was an excellent tackle), and I don't believe any sort of tech should or could be used in decisions like this which basically ask for an opinion based on a proper understanding of the laws of the game. However, with those other more cut'n'dry decisions taken out the refs hands they'll be able to concentrate more on these other decisions and so get more correct.

They say they do't want tech to undermine referees but it is by leaving yes/no decisions in the hands of the ref FIFA themselves are already undermining a ref because these decisions are not about opinions, they either are or they are not and, as consistently happens these days, when video later proves the opposite of what a ref saw during the game the ref is automatically undermined. All he can say is "I didn't see it at the time" because there is no way he can argue an opinion as to why a ball didn't cross a line when it clearly did.

There will always be a place for referees in football because there will always be decisions that do require interpretation. However, I don't believe the distinction between yes/no decisions and those which require interpretation is properly understood right now and this leads to confusion. I really believe FIFA need to make a clear definition between those 2 types of decision and then train their referees properly both in the laws of the game and the game itself so as they can make the best possible interpretation. At the moment many refs seem to try and and categorise decisions, such as dangerous tackles, and force these incidents into yes/no situations when often it is impossible and this often leads to sending offs which just don't make sense to many people. Kompany's sending off last year in the Manchester derby was a great example, where if the incident had been properly understood & interpreted by the ref a yellow card would probably have been sufficient, but instead he tried to apply a set of hard & fast rules (such as did he go in with 2 feet or not) to a situation with too many variables. Consequently it means 2 entirely different situations can be interpreted as the same because 1 or 2 specific variables match. It's nonsense and it prevents the referee from making a proper, educated decision based on his understanding and experience, & THAT is what undermines referees

^ Don't see how video tech would work for offsides.

It's also worth saying that tech doesn't need to be 100% correct before we implement it. FIFA keep saying it has to prove to be 100% accurate in tests before it is utilised (which it should, to be fair, but it needn't be in practice) & I often hear people using the fact that other sports which have adopted tech still have disputes over some decisions as being a reason why we shouldn't bother in football, but this misses the point.

Yes, sometimes the TMO in Rugby gets it wrong or cannot decide even after numerous referrals to a video replay. Yes, occasionally a catch, or drop, in cricket cannot be properly picked up by cameras. However, such incidents do not mean the entire system is flawed. At the end of the day, these occasions are very rare and happen only in very specific circumstances. The main point to understand is that, even with these odd occasions, 98% of the time (or whatever the precise figure is) the technology has enabled the correct decision to be reached, & that is vastly improved on the 70% (or whatever the figure is) of times it is correct without the new tech.

saying we should avoid this massive improvement from 70% to 98% simply because of the 2% of times it doesn't work is total insanity

Originally Posted by Mattads1882

^ Don't see how video tech would work for offsides.

I'm not saying it would, I'm saying that tech can be developed (maybe a video system,maybe not)if we were to pursue it & invest in it, if not right now then surely within the next 5-10 years. We put a man on the moon some 50 years ago now, we can create a system that tells a player's position on the field of play when a ball is kicked. It's actually probably not even that difficult to sort out with a bit of imagination, it just comes down to cost. However, with the ridiculous amounts of money in football these days, not pursuing such things because of financing sounds barmy to me

I know people get funny over ideas such as this but I don't really get why. As far as I'm concerned, the less human officials confusing the issue, the better. 1 referee is all we really need to make proper judgement calls, but UEFA now have 5!!! What's more, I'd say the majority of decisions which are categorically wrong are not the referees fault but the linesman. In fact, there is almost 1 incorrect offside decision in every game these days & I just think modern football (particularly in England) just moves to quick for it to be feasible for a human linesman to properly see every offside.

The game has evolved massively in the last 10 years alone, yet the refereeing system has virtually stayed the same for generations. In the early days they weren't afraid to change things to help the referee, like when they gave him a whistle (he used to wave a handkerchief about) so that he could be properly heard. That was effectively tech (for the time) coming into the game but we still use a whistle to this day, even in modern stadia, and it is often not heard properly. I think players should have undershirts on which give them a little shock whenever the ref blows his whilstle,


That said, recently there've been some totally shocking offside calls made. If you ask me, it's when they get these wrong (like when Torres is just stood still on the goal-line, 5 yards offside, & just taps the ball in for a goal or when Adebayor is 5 yards on and runs thru & tucks the ball away only to be called back) that really makes officials look silly

Agree with what you're getting at. It really is madness that in a sport that is so huge and with so much money that the technology is not in place. It just makes no sense that games can be won and lost on an officals decision when technology that already exists could be there to make sure everyone gets a level playing field.

I do think that the magic of football is in it's simplicity and people are a little scared of messing around with that notion. It's the idea that, so long as you have a ball of any description and a pair of markers for posts, anyone can play the game, anywhere in the world.

That's fine, & nobody is saying that should change. Nobody is saying that tech needs to be introduced into the actual game, like you would need a fancy racket in order just to be able to play tennis. Having technology at the very top level, where the ggame is so much quicker & so much more skilful & there is so much at stake, only allows the games simplicity to function more smoothly. As we've said, it's all about parity and there is just no sense whatsoever in boasting how simple a sport is if that simplicity cannot guarantee 1 competitor is not handed an advantage over another for reasons other than their own skill & competitiveness. For me, once competition ceases to be decided on those criteria, it is no longer a valid competition.

For example, when Mendes scored that winner at OT that was metres over the line, purely on sporting terms and within the laws of the game, it WAS a goal. It was only the opinions of a referee an linesman that decided it wasn't a goal and that the game should finish a draw & yet it is their flawed opinion that has stood to decide the game's outcome instead of tottenham's sporting superiority over United on that day. To me, that's crazy.

I mean, imagine what a farce the Olympics would be if Usain Bolt ran across the line clearly in 1st place in the 100m but, at the podium, the officials decided that the runner-up, The Beast, should get gold? It makes a mockery of everything.

In fact, the Olympics is a great example because they've used tech for YEARS to decide fairly & squarely who crossed the line 1st and so on. Nobody ever moaned about retaining the simplicity of having a race as it was taken for granted that, in order to satisfactorily distinguish a winner from a very tight field, technology was required as the human eye was simply incapable of defining a winner when the margins were so fine and the speed so fast. Over the years, as the speed has increased & the margins become even shorter, tech at the olympics has become absolutely fundamental in judging a fair winner & yet it goes virtually unnoticed and has zero effect on the actual dynamics of a race. Football should be no different

Originally Posted by Mr Spurfect

I'm with ted on this one. Why not have a TV official who can immediately communicate with the referee on pitch? It would save money and time, and still keep the 'human' factor in the decision making process.

I really don't think it would cause many delays in stoppages either.

There should be no need to stop the game any more than already happens. If the ball has gone out of play (or in the back of the net) judgements are made in 'dead' time anyway. If the ball is still in play & the ref has any doubt whatsoever, he should let play continue until the 'video ref' stops play. This is essentially no different to how the advantage rule works.

Originally Posted by USpur

My only issue with goal-line review is that football lacks a natural pause of play. You have to stop play in order to review the play, correct? You don't want to award a goal 10 mins after it was scored. I would absolutely love to see goal-line review but want to make sure it is implemented well.

I just posted a similar point above that there shouldn't need to be a pause if the advantage rule is used whilst playback is examined. Who cares if it takes 10 seconds of continuing play before stopping & saying 'Actually, that was a goal'. You wouldn't argue against the truth on the basis it took longer to achieve than an instant incorrect decision, surely?

Isn't goal line technology sort of an instant thing anyway, similar to NHL?

Mr Platini said today that it was going to cost £50million and he doesn't want to spend that amount of money on it for the sake of 1 or 2 'goals' per season...the money could be better used elsewhere....ie possibly for bribing FIFA officials when it comes to winning the world cup ballot? Mr Platini is in my opinion an arse.

We should give the referees access to all technology to help them do their jobs as best they can...ask the line judges at Wimbledon, the umpires at Cricket or the referees in Rugby. Football is such a dinosaur with hidden agendas sometimes.

#annoyed