FA still in Pickle over GLT

Yet more embarrassment yesterday at the Cup Final when the crucial moment of the game was a goal line incident. Petr Cech made an amazing 'save' from Andy Carroll. Many thought the ball crossed the line. The Assistant Referee made a huge call. I think he got it right, but the point is that he would have been assisted by technology. The current haphazard system puts intolerable pressure on officials and means that games can be wrongly decided when there is a simple solution.
Here's what I wrote after the FA Cup Semi Final.
The Semi Final between Spurs and Chelsea yet again brought back into focus the issue of Goal Line Technology. Juan Mata's goal for Chelsea early in the second half, making the score 2 - 0 to Chelsea appears to have been erroneously awarded by referee Martin Atkinson (remember him from the Mario Balotelli controversy last week). TV replays demonstrated that Spurs had been done an injustice. Another major football event has ended with more discussion about refereeing mistakes than about the game and outcome itself. GLT could have prevented this. Below is my article on this very subject just a short while ago.

Are we getting to a tipping point with perceived errors by match officials? This weekend we witnessed at least 2 situations in which the officials missed events in games which might have affected the outcome. Chelsea were awarded a first goal against Wigan which was evidently offside. The assistant referee declined to alter his position in spite of the urgings of the entire Wigan team. Wigan lost 2 – 1, a result which may hasten their departure to the Championship. Very simple technology and minimal delay could have avoided this injustice.

The second incident concerned Mario (Why Always Me?) Balotelli. He launched into a hideous over the top tackle on  Alex Song making contact with  the Arsenal man’s shin. He was not even cautioned by referee Martin Atkinson.  TV replays suggested that Atkinson may, in fairness, have been unsighted. Balotelli managed to remain on the field till around the 85th minute when for yet another outrageous tackle he received a straight red card. Had television technology been used, Balotelli would have spent most of  the game watching from the stands.

Why is it so difficult to reach a solution on this issue? The game is being poisoned to a significant degree by an atmosphere of recrimination over ‘erroneous decisions’. Most post match interviews involve managers blaming officials for their teams’ results. We could avoid the Dalglish/Hughes blame game by bringing in the means to put things right on the pitch. The technology is there and it is highlighting the errors within the game. Arsenal should have had the advantage of an extra man and Wigan should have been ahead rather than a goal down.

IFAB (International Football Association Board), an interesting throwback construction based around representatives from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and 4 from the rest of the world, approved 2 of 8 Goal Line Technology systems for further testing with a view to their use in FIFA competitions from next year. Hawkeye and GoalRef will undergo further destructive testing to test their accuracy in the most extreme conditions and under floodlights. If one can be shown to be foolproof and to provide a rapid response (possibly within one second) then the rules are likely to be changed this Summer in order that the technology can be used in the professional game.

However even if this happens it will only relate to the issue of goal line decisions. These controversies, although remembered, are relatively rare.

If that technology is brought in it will mark a significant departure from the philosophy of having one 'beautiful game' played the same way from park to stadium. At present there are many, including Franz Beckenbauer and Michel Platini who are against the use of technology at all.

Patrick Barclay, however, has argued in The Times, that goal line controversies are extremely rare, and that FIFA should in fact have a 'video referee' (what does the 4th Official currently do?) in the stands providing assistance to the referee generally rather than limiting it to a very rare and isolated function.

The technology exists to permit a signal to be sent to the referee’s watch indicating that he has missed something important, a goal, an offside, a seriously bad tackle. Within seconds the issue could be resolved rather than changing the very character and atmosphere of the match. Its time to act now so that post match analysis can be about the match and not about the contentious decisions.