Hawk-Eye was the preferred choice because it doesn’t influence the players’ playing environment.
Competing systems ‘CAIROS’ and ‘GoalRef’ use magnetic fields around the goal and require a chip to be inserted inside the ball to determine the its location.
Despite the obvious advantages of having goal line technology, football authorities need to be sensible. Some fans are sceptical about technology as they feel it will ruin the free-flowing, fast nature of football. This will not happen with goal line technology, as Hawk-Eye is immediate.
However, this is something that could be lost by the inclusion of more technology down the line. As well as being immediate, whether the ball crosses the line or not is objective.
It would be difficult for football to have appeal systems for subjective matters such as diving and whether a player is offside. Allen believes, “There will always be grey areas, the great thing about football is that we can sit and talk for a week about a refereeing decision.
“Yes it’s frustrating when it goes against you but we don’t want football that is stop-start.”
Delays are not the only concern football fans may have. Is it right that there will be elements of human error still in the game but ultimately whether the ball has crossed the line or not will always be accurate?
For instance, imagine a player was deemed onside by the referee when in actual fact he was offside. He then goes on to have a shot that may or may not have crossed the line.
Would it be fair for the goal to be given on the back of technology when human error allowed him the shot at goal? The FA’s main reason for not introducing goal line technology sooner was that they wanted to keep the game the same at all levels, be it Premier League or Sunday League.
FA referee Alex Lewis officiates in The Hellenic Football League and believes this could be an issue. Lewis said, “Due to cost we will never have goal line technology in the lower leagues.
“What we might see is an even further gulf between the Premier League and the rest of English football. We don’t want to sanitise the game with technology.”
FIFA have announced that the 2014 World Cup in Brazil will use goal line technology supplied by camera-based company GoalControl. UEFA competitions such as the Champions League will still be without technology, as President Michel Platini prefers the ‘assistance’ of his heavily scrutinised extra officials, who so far, have been nothing more than cardboard cut-outs.
Importantly, it seems that the majority of players are in favour of goal line technology. Frank Lampard described the decision to introduce goal line technology as “a no brainer”.
Ultimately, it will put an end to gross injustices that have happened over the years and as long as it doesn’t lead to football being refereed by robots, it has to be a positive for the game.
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For that England incident alone, YES goal-line technology is desperately needed. I look forward to seeing justice played out in more games from next season.