Having run this blog for a while now, I would like to post my opinions on the issue at hand. However I would also like to hear from you. I would be very interested to see whether you agree or disagree with part or all of what I have to say.
With a number of recent incidents in the premier league there are once again calls for the use of technology to decide on controversial decisions in games:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/6352493.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/6164412.stm
Football is a simple game but at its best it is quite frankly the most entertaining live sport in existence. No other game flows, brings the same passion, loyalty and outright excitement as football and quite honestly, over complicating it, risks spoiling it.
The game is so simple in fact that it can be played anywhere from the lowest park to the largest stadium and, give or take the talent of the players and the ability of the officials, the game will be played the same. The players will on occasion cheat and the officials will make mistakes.
One of the suggestions is to implement video technology or indeed, introduce radio tracking of the ball, to determine when it has crossed the goal line. This would actually probably work, given that it doesn’t particularly suffer from most of the problems that other technologies might bring.
However, it still makes football a more complicated spectacle. Think of the cost and stoppages. Additionally, if such technology was a success would it result in further innovation? This could ultimately lead to far worse consequences. One can already hear the cries of “we’ve seen how well technology works with the chip in the ball so….”
Even if one accepts the idea that where millions of pounds are potentially at stake, then there can no longer be mistakes, the deeper issues still need to be examined. The arguments that seem to come up again and again include “the cameras are there, let’s use them”, and “they do it in other sports”. These statements are both true, but the point of football is it’s flow. In sports like rugby and cricket where adjudication is requested from the fourth official with a TV monitor, the game has reached a natural break – a couple of minutes of well, nothing. If the game rests upon the decision then the waiting game can infact be quite exciting but if it’s the fourth time in an unappealing game, then indeed it can be rather frustrating. Do we really want to see the fourth official put up the board reading 27 additional minutes? I certainly don’t.
Furthermore, in football a contentious offside decision, for instance is not necessarily a natural break. If it is offside then there is a free kick and break but if not then play continues as normal. Therefore if technology to resolve controversial offside decisions, a player diving or the penalty that never was came into the game, then presumably one must wait for a natural break before examining the evidence for a decision that could well have occurred minutes before. And thus the flow is broken. Yes, the technology is also there for us to track every player on the pitch in real time and the opportunity to supposedly get to the bottom of every last decision. But who wants to see this?
Having determined where everyone is using the dozens of cameras covering each top game we’re still left with the problem in the third round of the FA Cup where the big team travels to the minnows with their shed as a stand. Hardly the same is it. That brings on another issue? Where would the technology stop? Would it be used primarily for the elite leagues? Would this lead to further problems?
More so, think about the pub after the game or MOTD the same night. If technology was implemented then we’d have nothing to talk about. None of that, “Was it over the line?” or “Should it have been a penalty?”
So it seems that on Saturday, the committee have a decision on their hands but for me there is no contest: Football is simple. It should remain that way for the sake of the game, so that school ground arguments don’t degenerate into trying to convince the teacher to check the CCTV camera to decide on a goal, so that the game played on a Sunday afternoon is the same as those played at 3pm on a Saturday and we continue to see fans screaming at the ref after every contentious decision. Yes, mistakes will be made but it is part of the game: a game that we all love.
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1 comment:
I definitely agree with your statement that football is the most exciting sport to watch and play, as well as with the fact that its simplicity plays a part in this.
However, I think that most football supporters will support any development that adds a 100% certainty to the game and rules out any controversies.
How many times have fans despaired at presumably wrong decisions, have remembered them for years afterwards, and have felt betrayed by "a goal that never was"?
The Wembley goal of 1966 is the most obvious example.
And how often have teams and players who benefitted from these decisions felt, at least secretly, ashamed that they had to resort to a dubious goal and wished that they had won by a goal that was there for everyone to see?
New goal-line technology will make the game fairer and more transparant, and will finally get rid of the tedious moaning of managers and players about decisions that, however contentious they may be, can and will never be reversed.
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