SOCCER

Football rule-makers approve goal-line technology

Sports Jul. 06, 2012 - 07:00AM JST ( 5 )

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5 Comments

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TigersTokyoDomeJul. 06, 2012 - 05:42PM JST

Barn door. Horses. Bolted.
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FadamorJul. 06, 2012 - 09:49PM JST

I ref American football at the high school level and below. Players, coaches, and fans expect us to be 100% accurate, but we know that we are human and mistakes will be made. You may not believe it, but every time a potentially game-changing mistake is made by us, it's like a knife twisting in our gut. We can't SHOW it, but it's there. Like the player who makes a boneheaded play, we have to somehow shrug it off and finish the game, then try and figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.

99.9% of the time when a bad call is made, it is made from someone who is not in position to properly make the call. The officials in all sports have a set "choreography" during play so that all the areas of play can be properly be covered when they need to be. The next time you're at a sporting event, take a few minutes to watch JUST the officials and how they move in relation to the players and the other officials. This won't work if you're watching on TV because all the officials are rarely shown on the screen. You'll notice that they rarely will bunch-up during play as that makes their coverage of play less efficient. In the case of American football (and I'm sure it is true for soccer as well), there is an official (when the ball is near the goal) whose primary responsibility to be ON the goal line to rule on potential scores. This works perfectly UNTIL there is a player's body blocking the view of that official. If the official whose vision was blocked is the only one available to make the call, then he/she has to guess - an official's worst scenario.

The addition of these automated ball detectors aren't going to change the choreography of the officials one bit. They'll still be striving to be at the goal when the ball arrives, because electronics DO break. What you'll have now, though, is the possibility of an official overriding the decision or non-decision of the automated system. You won't have any official overriding the system unless it was a clear failure, though.
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JimizoJul. 07, 2012 - 12:25AM JST

I'm truly worried about a slippery slope. Football is the world's most popular game because it's the best. Part of the reason is the fact that it isn't stop-start and a 90-minute game means a 90-minute game apart from an average of 4 minutes for stoppages. Goal-line technology is useful as long as no bodies are in the line of sight but if it applies here, why not to offsides, penalties, free-kicks or even corners? Are they not game-changing decisions? We have a thing of beauty - don't mutilate it. I'll probably have nightmares about commercials while we wait for a video ref decision. The horror, the horror .......
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albaleoJul. 07, 2012 - 06:23AM JST

@Jimizo

I agree. I think most fans accept that if the ball doesn't hit the back of the net, there's some level of doubt, unless, of course, our own team is involved. And removing doubt means we can't use the " we were robbed" excuse when we go to work on Mondays. This has always been a fundamental part of the game. I dread the repercussions.
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TigersTokyoDomeJul. 07, 2012 - 07:06AM JST

Jimizo/ albaleo, sorry but that is absolute nonsense. This is 2012. You can read the news, weather and e-mail messages on your mobile phone in seconds. You can transfer music libraries and photo albums between computers using wireless technology in seconds. Why on earth should the worlds most popular sport still be living in the dark ages? Why should incorrect decisions (encouraging the cheats) be made because of some old fashioned romantic way of thinking? Maybe you guys disagree with hospital surgery and would prefer to just see how it pans out?

Football is no longer the best sport, nor is it a thing of beauty. It is run by a single undemocratic dictator and played by spoilt prima donna multi-millionaires who are the worst examples to our children. Maybe video technology will clean it up and help to make it purer yet again.