Sir Alex Ferguson today said that it was about time new technology was introduced into the game. I agree, but the, "Beautiful Game," has survived so far without such innovations. No doubt many decisions have cost thousands if not millions in revenue, but let's not forget the human error element. Can you imagine going to a game where you don't hear many derrogatory comments about the, "Man in Black," to many that's all part and parcel of the game. If you introduce something like this, then it must be introduced across the board, at grass-roots level, many clubs cannot afford this, so what happens to them? Gives you something to think about, doesn't it?
The technology he is referring to is the goal line technology to confirm goals. that is as far as it should go the remainder should be left to human judgement, but for split second decisions on whether the ball crossed the line for a goal I think it is needed.
Introducing technology to confirm goals would be good in a way. My main concern would be how long it might take to agree on the result, if it does cost millions for wrong decisions, then it would require unbiased judges to make the call. Erm, a ref's ref. Perhaps they could all put up score cards to define the quality of the resultant call.
I like the human error factor, refs are there to be the final decision makers. When they get it wrong everyone reminds them and thats life! Could you imagine stop start games and the like?
Right, so you introduce it for 'over-the-line' incidents only... What about if the effort on goal came about from a corner that shouldn't have been given? What about if it came from a free-kick that shouldn't have been given? What about if it came from a throw-in that shouldn't have been given? If I'm the defending team then I want video replay for the wrong decision that led up to the over-the-line incident. It's just as important! And what about if the attacker fouled the defender but the ref didn't see it at the time? But then he sees that foul on the replay, but can't give the foul, but has to give the ball over-the-line because that's the only ruling he can use video technology for! He has to ignore the foul that led up to the 'goal' because he's not allowed to use the video for that! I'm not even going to start on at what point do you stop play... Anyway, why do people get so obsesssed with over-the-line incidents? They are so rare that they're not worth worrying about, like all decisions sometimes they go for you, sometimes they don't. How many do we see a season? One? Two? How many wrong offside decsions do we see? 10,000? If we're having video replays for one type of incident then we have to have it for everything, every single decision, because every decision given, even seemingly unimportant things like throw-ins, lead onto the next play. And to have video replays for every single decision is clearly not possible.
The NFL in the USA use video replays to review the officials (referees) calls on the field. However, more often than not, despite contrary video evidence the officials still manage to get it wrong after review.
The USA is the only place in the world where a game that lasts for 1 hour can take four hours to complete. The last two minutes, alone, of basketball can take as long as an hour to finish.
Video Technology is a MUST... it cost us a goal on Saturday and it could of been vital if we ended up not scoring
