Why is goal-line video technology taking so long?
The powers-that-be in English football have announced that the goal-line vid tech experiment will be started from the 2008/2009 season, with the blessings of the IFAB and what not.
If you’re done celebrating, here’s a worrying thought: Why the fuck is it taking so long, and how painful will the next season be (2007/2008) when we know we have the ability and authority to use the technology for league matches but can’t use it because the ‘authorities’ don’t allow it?
From the press reports, the HawkEye technology will cost £50,000 a season for five years (for each club).
Just to think that Ballack could sponsor Chelsea’s goalline tech with half a week’s wages. So could Rio for Manchester United. Henry for Arsenal, Gerrard for Liverpool.
The point is - the technology is not expensive to install and set up. Training is not complicated (not if you start now). We could have the tech installed at the end of the season and train the staff to use it over the summer.
The FA is afraid of change. Football is afraid of change. The reaction to the penalty-shootouts was surprising - any changes suggested to the traditional way of playing football are dealt with venom and unbridled anger, as if their mother’s honor had been challenged.
Goalline tech should be in place at the start of the 2007/2008 season - wasting a full year means that another season will go by with us watching non-goals given. It happens every season - would Blackburn pay 50k to buy back that one point they lost to West Ham? Would Chelsea pay 50k to turn over that Liverpool goal? 
I’m happy that the right steps are being taken - but they’re being taken too slowly, and at this rate, too many of football’s problems will go unchecked in the next 10 years.
Do you really want to see football like that?
- Video Evidence That Football Desperately Needs Video Technology
- The Goal-line Technology Debate: A Goalkeeper’s Perspective
- FIFA scraps plans for goal-line technology in favour of additional linesmen
- Premier League officials to lobby with FIFA for video replays to help refs
- Does Having Two More Referees On The Pitch Beat Video Technology?
Discussion - 2 Responses
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What concerns me is the lack of details released about how exactly the technology is going to be used. There are a multitude of issues that seem to have gone unnoticed by the masses.
Here’s what I know - Hawkeye works by tracking ball movement through the air and almost instantaneously simulating that movement (and predicting the direction it would have taken if it hadn’t been blocked - in cricket’s case) on the screen.
This is different from the ball-in-chip tech that was supposed to automatically sense whether the ball had crossed the line or not.
Hawkeye tech will mean that there will be goal-line cameras on each edge of the pitch (in line with the goal-lines) and they will track ball movement to predict whether the ball actually crosses the line or not.
It will, at the very least, allow refs and linesmen to ref dubious decisions like the second West Ham goal to the ‘3rd ump’, which is perhaps too much meddling for some people but if it’s such an important thing (a goal), i think people can wait for a few seconds.