After Frank Lampard's disallowed goal against Germany and Tevez's offside goal against Mexico everybody who's anybody has called for FIFA president Sepp Blatter to bring in goal-line and video technology. This argument has been running on for a long time now and has fallen on deaf ears but after these officiating errors Mr.Blatter has said FIFA will discuss goal-line technology in its next meeting next month. Before these errors and even after Lampard's disallowed goal I was very much against the use of technology but after Tevez's allowed offside goal it has lured me into an agnostic state of mind.
The main argument from most for the use of such technology comes from the fact that other sports incorporate these technologies. But the reason I'm against this argument is as follows: video replays work in Rugby because the sport is stop-start and hardly ever free-flowing, the third umpire works very successfully in Cricket because the ball is dead more often than not and allows time for these replays to be looked at, the same goes for Tennis with their video umpires. As Football is generally a free-flowing sport the use of video-replays would slow the game right down and would ruin the sport. This is why the Lampard incident didn't sway me, because the ball didn't go out of play after the ball had crossed the line and the referee waved play on, Germany went up field and produced an attack of their own. Now if they had gone and scored the use of replays would have cut the action and everyone would have grounded to a halt preventing Germany's goal, which if the video had proven the ball didn't cross the line then Germany would have felt most aggrieved and could have changed the momentum of the game. The only way to pass this problem would be if the footballs had an in-built chip system that could tell if the whole ball had crossed the line and then alerted the referee, whether this is possible I do not know.
The reason that Tevez's incident swayed me a little bit is because the ball was out of play, in the goal. Being out of play there is no action taking place so the referee or the fourth official would have time to look at a replay if there is an objection to that goal, as most Premiership and other big leagues have television monitors and/or even big screens in the ground this could potentially work but only if the goal was scored or out of play, which could stretch to see whether a corner or goal-kick should be awarded etc. because of the ball being out of play. This would work fine and dandy but the only objection I hold to this is via grassroots football.
The main reason England's state of football is so poor is because as a nation we fail to look after our grassroots system. The highs of the Premiership and Championship tend to ignore some of the rules that grassroots referees are judged on every game. One notable offender is Stoke's Ricardo Fuller; week in week out spectators saw Ricardo Fuller wearing a stud in each ear, now the rules clearly state that no jewellery is allowed on the pitch, again grassroots referees will get marked down in assessments if they fail to adhere to this rule yet Fuller goes by unnoticed. This drift is one of many causes into why England's football is diminishing and grassroots is dwindling. FIFA and all the other footballing bodies look to provide and equality scheme where everyone deserves an equal chance to play football at a level of competition. But if we incorporate any form of technology into the game only the better and richer leagues will be able to obtain it. This would mean that lower leagues and grass root levels would drift even further apart from the footballing leagues and in poorer countries in places in Africa, for instance, would decline in their attempt to reach a quality to compete with the best teams in the World and football would then become a social hierarchy around the World and in football leagues in the richer countries. We don't need politics in football, they fail to be able to run a country (which is their job) let alone try to interfere with our sports!
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