“Football’s not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that.” These are the famous words of former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, in response to the statement that football is a trivial pastime, just a game. Even though his remark may appear to be an exaggeration, I don’t believe he was just joking. There are few activities that generate as much human interest, as much passion, as football.
Football is without doubt the most popular sport in the world. It is played in every continent. The major competitions of football are international events, topics of everyday conversations among friends, and occasions where a huge range of human emotion is on display, joy, friendship, anxious anticipation, disappointment and anger.
The popularity of football can be attributed to its simplicity. To play the game, all you need is a ball, or a makeshift ball. No other sport can rival football in terms of its versatility. Of all the great sports whose origins trace back to the British Empire, football alone has truly conquered the world. The beauty of football lies in the fact that it has been largely untouched by technology until now. The rules are the same all over the world. When you see kids kicking a ball in the park, they are practicing the same skills that professionals of the highest level also practice every day.
Added to its simplicity, the other main reason why football is so popular is because it is pure theatre. The level of excitement that surrounds a football match is something to really enjoy. Football is an ‘end to end’ sport where fortunes can change in an instant. As counter attacking is becoming more common, the excitement and unpredictability of football is increasing. It is a great pleasure to watch the greats execute acts of skill, awareness, and a sheer talent to read the game while they are playing it.
Excitement and sportsmanship are so central to football that the introduction of goal-line technology will change football for the worse. The most recent example of a goal that wasn’t awarded by the officials during a high profile match was at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, when England’s Frank Lampard held his hands to his head in disbelief when the officials denied him a legitimate goal. Anyone could sympathize with the player. Lampard’s shot had hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced well behind the goal line, but the officials didn’t see it.
Football’s governing bodies, previously keen to preserve football’s purity and not introduce technology to the game, as has been done in so many other sports, decided it was time to change.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter said on Friday his organization would have looked “foolish” had it failed to introduce goal-line technology ahead of the 2014 World Cup. Frank Lampard’s goal-that-never-was for England against Germany at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa sparked the 76 year old to back refereeing aides set to be launched this summer. (Euronews).
Although one can understand the feeling of injustice when a legitimate goal is not awarded, I believe that this technology will have a negative effect on football. Nowadays, the game is played at a much faster pace than ever. Most players, coaches and fans believe this to be a good thing. Football played at the highest level is truly a spectacle of athleticism and extraordinarily high concentration in the face of frantic speed and excellent skill. Physically, players have never been fitter. With this new speed at which the game is played at, incidents that are incredibly difficult to determine are bound to occur. We should accept this in order to continue football’s progress. When goal-line technology is introduced, we will be sacrificing the spectacle of the most exciting football that has ever been played, for technology that will reduce the game to a ‘stop-start’ sport, like baseball or American football. To draw a comparison with hockey, a sport that is also played at a high speed, and introduced goal line technology years ago, yes fewer mistakes are made regarding goal-line decisions, but fans are said to get impatient waiting for decisions to be made. The same would surely happen in football. Fans today often vent their frustration if the game is interrupted for a player to receive medical treatment. According to an article in Reuters by Steve James, Mike Murphy, the NHL’s senior vice president for Hockey Operations, claimed that although there is more accuracy regarding scoring, fans do get impatient waiting for a decision.
‘We were getting too many mistakes’, he said of the system where a judge behind each goal decided whether to turn on the red light to signal that a goal had been scored. ‘It's crucial because a goal in soccer is even more important than in hockey because there are fewer (scored). A video goal judge at each NHL game has the technology to monitor all plays and overrule the referee if there is video evidence the official missed a goal or awarded one in error.the fans are happy, as we get the right call more often, but they are unhappy that it takes too long sometimes. Just like in soccer, hockey has a flow which we don't like to interrupt.’ (James).
When Frank Lampard scored what came to be called a ‘ghost goal’, England was losing 2-1. Had the goal been awarded the score would have been 2-2. After the incident, Germany went on to score two more goals to end the game with a convincing 4-1 win. We must question whether these incidents would really change the fortunes of a game. Football is not a game of luck or chance. Good football players and good football teams create their own fortune. The more chances you create, the more probability you have of converting one of those chances into a goal. If one were to make an analysis of all the decisions that went in favor of and against teams, they would be fairly evenly balanced, but with slightly more decisions going in favor of teams who enjoy more possession, teams who are more adventurous, more daring, and create more chances.
Another controversial case involving the England football team occurred at last year’s Euro 2012 tournament in Poland and the Ukraine. England defender John Terry appeared to clear the ball away from goal only after it had crossed the line. No goal was awarded however. If goal-line technology had been in place for this tournament, the goal would surely have been awarded. And it would have been awarded unjustly, as pointed out by Barnaby in an article entitled Goal-line technology is the Wrong Move for Football in the Bleacher Report magazine. He makes this statement due to the fact that goal-line technology would have awarded the goal, but also would have failed to flag the Ukrainian player who was offside in the build up the ‘ghost goal’. He says:
So technology would have inadvertently rewarded a wrong decision. When I tweeted this earlier, a friend replied, albeit with her tongue welded in cheek, that she demanded offside technology. I was exaggerating when I said it was the first step towards the eventual clamour for robot referees, but I hope you get my point about how the new system will undermine the authority of referees and create an unfair imbalance.
It is worth considering whether goal-line technology will be the first step towards the use of technology to analyze other aspects of the game. Michel Platini certainly seems to think so. He feels that goal-line technology would eventually lead to the dominance of technology over the game, just as the writer Barnaby in the Bleacher Report was suggesting jokingly. In an article in The Guardian by Domini Fifield last year, the Frenchman restated his concern.
I don't think it's good for football. Maybe goalline technology, but that would be the first step towards the introduction of technology in all areas of the game. I'm still very much against it and, to be honest, I'm not going to change my mind at the age of 57. (Fifield).
Although the writer in the Bleacher Report is against goal-line technology, he still cannot see it taking over football so quickly. But Platini can. He offers a more conservative view, that the introduction could prove to be the beginning of the end of the beautiful game as he always knew it. He did offer some possible solutions to the issue of controversial decisions made around the goal area. He stated that more officials, five instead of three, would be enough to ensure no legitimate goals get disallowed and no illegitimate goals get awarded.
‘Uefa will suggest additional assistant referees are the solution we want for the future,’ Platini said. ‘The Italian league has already adopted the system this season and are rather happy with it already. Some associations will take longer than others, but the big European competitions will be using it, so we will give priority to referees from those national associations who are using the five-referee system so there is understanding among the team of five referees. It makes sense that we use officials from national associations who use it every week. That is not a threat, but we can still give 'advice'. (Fifield).
When this article was published in August of last year, Platini was still convinced that goal-line technology could be avoided, and that the employment of more officials could allow for more accurate decisions to be made. Platini pointed to the Italian Serie A League and the Champions League where the use of five officials instead of three proved effective enough for him. It is worth noting that ‘ghost goals’ are not very common in football, and when they happen, it is not clear that had the goal been awarded, the outcome of the game would have changed significantly.
Incidents involving ‘ghost goals’ are not nearly as common as incidents in the penalty area. For me, the most well known and the most frequently cited examples of ‘ghost goal’ incidents were Geoff Hurst’s unawarded goal for England against Germany in the 1966 World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur’s unawarded goal against Manchester United in 2005, Frank Lampard’s disallowed effort against Germany in the 2010 World Cup, and Ukraine’s goal that was swept off the line by John Terry, having just crossed it, against England in Euro 2012. For me, the only time the decision can be said to have affected the result was Tottenham Hotspur’s encounter at Old Trafford. Having said that, although the decision went against them, they still had time to accept the human error, get over the decision and not feel sorry for themselves, take the initiative, play more adventurous football and create more chances.
Nowadays, controversial incidents in the penalty area far outnumber those that take place on the goal-line. For me, incidents on the goal-line are a feature of the fast, exciting game we love. Too many players today try to deceive the referee by pretending to have been illegally challenged by an opponent in order to see the opponent cautioned or sent off, or to gain a free-kick or penalty. This behavior, known as ‘diving’, happens in all the major leagues and competitions all over the world. Some players even admit to it. Cheating is completely unacceptable in sport. When a player cheats, he is letting down his own team, the opposing team, both sets of coaches and the fans. Diving has changed the football so much that referees are forced to make decisions that affect the outcome of games based on the behavior of opposing players, both of whom may be trying to deceive him.
An interesting perspective on the goal-line technology debate comes from John Stevanja, a former goalkeeper and now goalkeeper coach and journalist. Stevanja believes that goal-line technology will be a good thing for football, as long as it is used properly. His criteria for how goal-line technology should be used properly appears to consist of three main concerns. Firstly, he doubts whether technology can be completely accurate. Secondly, he thinks that the game will be slowed down considerably “as officials ponder over the results of the technology during game time.” (Svetjana).
His first concern would likely to be brushed off by supporters of goal-line technology, and manufacturers of systems like Hawk-Eye and GoalRef. But perhaps it is a legitimate concern. Can technology always be trusted to detect something the human eye can’t, given the complexity of football’s rules? His second argument is perhaps even more solid. Some decisions could take time. And in the modern game, so much time is wasted already, mainly due to the cynicism of coaches and players who want to interrupt the flow of the game. One could speculate that goal-line technology could be another feature of the game that eats up time, and could become another way for teams to intentionally stop the game.
His third point is the most interesting, for me. It comes from a goalkeeping perspective. Stevenja says that as this new technology focuses on controversial decisions made on the goal-line, this will put a new focus of attention on goalkeepers, that their play will be up for scrutiny and examination to pick out mistakes they may have made and whether a goal resulted from these misakes. He also acknowledges that goalkeeping may improve, that the technology could result in an increase in alertness and awareness on the part of goalkeepers, as they play under enhanced surveillance. Initially, at least, perhaps it is goalkeepers who have the most to lose from the introduction of goal-line technology, as any lapse in concentration they may have, such as a dropped ball for example, that they have to react quickly to in order to make sure the ball doesn’t cross their own goal-line, will be analyzed and inform tell the officials with more clarity whether the ball crossed the line or not. Stevanja thinks that although these errors will be accounted for more rigidly, the technology could eventually lead to a higher standard of goalkeeping.
For me, this is not so clear. Goalkeepers are the players who go for longer periods than any other player without touching the ball. I believe the decision to scrutinize every ball on the goal-line should be taken with caution. When FIFA President Sepp Blatter was interviewed CNN Asia Pacific in January 20011, he said that goal-line technology had a good chance of being if it was accurate and immediate, even though he acknowledge that Michel Platini was against it and that the International Board was, in his own words, “a very conservative organization.” (Blatter). Now that goal-line technology is going to be trialed at some international friendlies this summer, this is the challenge that it has to meet, that it is accurate and immediate. Football’s governing bodies, nor players or spectators, want to see wrong decisions being ruled by the technology, or long delays in getting the result.
James Walker, in his article World Football: How Will Goal-line Technology Work? examines the two systems to be trialed, Hawk-Eye and GoalRef. Under the Hawk-Eye system, “an encrypted radio signal will be sent to the referee’s wristwatch when a goal has been scored.” (Walker). He goes on to describe exactly how this system will work. “The process will take less than 0.5 seconds to complete and be reliant upon six cameras, focusing on each goal, to track the ball. The signal will use a triangulation method to pinpoint the precise location of the ball before releasing a radio message.” (Walker). It remains to be seen how effective the system will be if and when an incident occurs demanding a broad knowledge of the rules of the game and how to apply them.
Walker then weighs up the other technology to be trialed, GoalRef. “It will be dependent upon a microchip implanted in the ball, accompanied by low magnetic waves around the goal. The system will detect any change in the magnetic field on or behind the goal line to assess whether a goal has been scored. Like Hawk-Eye, the process will take less than a second.” (Walker). It all seems too good to be true. Even though the writer, who is in favor of the introduction of goal-line technology, assures us that it takes just half a second for a decision to be made, and that the officials will ultimately make the decision, I would be concerned about whether the unpredictability of football may not be accounted for by these technologies. I wonder if the interpretation of the signals from the new technologies will be compatible with the interpretation of the rules of the game by officials.
Having said this, the case has also been made that technology has always been a part of football. Thomas Reilly and A.M. Williams, in Science and Soccer, say how technology has been in soccer for a while. However, the technology they refer to is usually from a training point of view, and doesn’t necessarily relate to decisions made by officials on the field of play. There is no doubt that the level of professionalism in football has increased substantially in recent years, but this technology is usually used in the gyms and on the training grounds. It is only now that we are seeing modern technology used to help officials make their decisions. I believe that technology used to enhance the fitness of players is a good thing, but that technology that interferes with rules of the game and how they are made, will have a negative impact on the game, and may eventually turn it into a very different sport to the one that is played today, all over the world.
Annotated Bibliography
Barnaby. "World Football." Bleacher Report. N.p., 5 July 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
In this article, the author writes about how FIFA are making a big mistake by going through with goal line technology. And how it will be the beginning of a technological invasion into the soccer world.This article in a way was exactly what I was looking for, it supports every argument I have against this technology. This is very helpful.
Blatter, Sepp. "On Goal-Line Technology." Interview by Pedro Pinto. cnnasiapacific.com. CNN World Sport, 2011. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. This is a long interview with the chairman of FIFA Sepp Blatter. The interview is all about goal line technology and what Blatter and FIFA think of it. I will be using this interview to show what this technology could offer and what positive affect it will have.
"FIFA Approves Goal-line Technology." Euronews. N.p., 3 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
This short video talks about the approval of goal line technology by FIFA, and has a quick interview with the head of FIFA.This source is not very helpful. This is just the introduction of the technology.
Fifield, Dominic. "Goal line Technology Is Still Clearly Offside for Michel Platini." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 31 Aug. 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.
This article is about the UEFA president Michel Platini opposing the idea of introducing goal-line technology into soccer, and offering other effective solutions like adding more referees to three classics which proved effective in the Italian Seria A and the Champions League this season.This source would be very good for my research. It would strengthen my point of view and support it.
James, Steve. "NHL Sets Example for FIFA with Video Technology." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 09 Mar. 2007. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
This article is about FIFA introducing goal line technology into soccer and compares it to the American NHL, and how they are looking at technological changes.
This source is helpful for me to compare between soccer and the NHL who have been using technology for a while.
Reilly, Thomas, and A. M. Williams. Science and Soccer. London: Routledge, 2003. Print This book talks about the relation between soccer and science and how technology has been in soccer for a while. This book is amazing, has a lot of interesting views and ideas. This source is going to be very helpful.
Stevanja, John. "The Goal-line Technology Debate." Soccerlens.com. N.p., 22 Aug. 2007. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. This article points out the potential problems that could result after officially installing this technology. And also sees it from a goalkeeper’s perspective. This is also a strong source for me to use. I will have solid arguments to defend my thesis statement.
Walker, James. "World Football: How Will Goal-Line Technology Work?" Bleacher Report. N.p., 5 July 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2013. This source is all about how goal line technology works and explaining everything related to it. I will be using this source to explain how this technology works and point out how it will slow the pace of the game. And also point out how beneficial it could be.
I think that my research was quite comprehensive in this essay. I used the thoughts of players, coaches, journalists and experts from both sides of the debate. I also think it was a good idea to present the idea of winning not being everything, and some famous examples of fair play in sport. With more time, maybe I would have focused more on specific incidents in football as examples, but these descriptions can be time consuming and eat into the rest of the essay. I feel that it is well written, and that my arguments are plausible despite the majority of people in football being in favor of goal-line technology. Maybe this can mean I can get a good grade.
