A great deal has been mentioned, spoken about, blogged about discussed at office water-coolers in the recent years. This world cup has highlighted that it really is a necessary weapon in the official's arsenal in order for the game to be fairer.
Sepp Blatter has been reported as saying that it is the 'human error' side of things that makes the game so 'charming'...
Sepp also wants to see Sunday league sides in Hull, having the same level of equipment as proper professional football. - All I can say to this is; "is there a hawk-eye system present at Sunday cricket matches in the amateur leagues? Does cricket suffer for it?" Of course it doesn't.
We have just thumped the Aussies in the ODI and we a re the current 20-20 World Cup holders. Do they even have Hawk-Eye at Trent Bridge for Notts matches? (I genuinely want to know this and can't be bothered to google it!)
I am happy to be completely wrong in the following:
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the Third Umpire in cricket has access to the Hawkeye(TM) data. I think that when a referral is passed to them from the field, they only have the video captured by the cameras up to the point that the ball either hits the body or the bat. After that, all bets are off, and it's up to the Third Umpire to try and determine whether it would have hit the stumps or not.
I completely agree that Football needs at the very least goal-line technology though.
A better comparison might be with Rugby, where the TMO (Television Match Official) can be called upon to establish whether a try was scored or not (usually working out whether the ball was grounded and/or whether the player was in touch).
The main criticism (other than the ones you mention) is that any sort of 'review' system would interrupt the flow of the play. However I don't see how referring a goal 'upstairs' would interrupt play too much, given that it's interrupted anyway when a goal is scored, for the players to prance around doing funny dances etc, and for the ball to be returned to the center for the kick-off.
Plus - Who *really* cares what happens to football?
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