Total Pageviews

Video Technology in Football

Video Technology is used to aid officials in Basketball, Ice Hockey, Baseball, Tennis, American Football, NASCAR, Formula 1, Field Hockey, Rugby league, Rugby Union, Bull fighting, Boxing, Golf, MMA, Cricket, Snooker, Cycling, Athletics and others. Sports which do not use it either would not benefit from it or do not have enough tv footage or money to implement it. Football is the richest sport in the world.

The reasons FIFA gives for why football does not use video technology are:
  • That football should be the same game at all levels. This is already far from the truth. Anybody who has played sunday league football in the UK will be well aware of how different a yellow card offense is in the premiership. The English FA already have differences in their rules and directives from those of FIFA and UEFA. For example, when a player is down and appears to be injured, FIFA and UEFA still direct teams to put the ball out of play to allow them to receive treatment. The FA direct the teams not to do so, and allow the referee only to stop play for an injury. There are huge numbers of examples of differences at varying levels of football. Also, if this was a legitimate reason, then why do other sports not worry about it? Tennis, for example, uses VT wherever it can, even if it means matches in the same round of the same tournament being divided into matches that use VT and matches that don't. Is this unfair? No. Because it is of no disadvantage to players in one match that another match has extra help to ensure fairness. Would sunday league footballers and semi-professionals quit the game because it was 'unfair' that the premiership used VT? Of course they wouldn't. They would love to see VT as much as me and you.
  • It's too expensive. Ha! Football is the richest sport in the world. It has the biggest income. The top players and managers earn 250 grand a week. There is no way football can't afford it. No. Way.
  • It would have to be 100% accurate. Er, why? As far as I'm concerned it just needs to be demonstratably more accurate than one bloke stood in the middle of the pitch. Then it would be an improvement. I've heard people say "what happens if the technology gets it wrong?" Well, the same thing that happens when a ref gets it wrong. Jack shit. It's just that it would get it wrong MUCH less often.
  • It would slow the game down too much. Well, it is approximated that for goal-line technology, the decision would be made within 1 second, automatically. This is probably faster than looking over to a linesman, who puts his flag up, or doesn't. For things other than goal-line decisions it would depend. Yes, sometimes it would take longer. But more often it would be much faster. Often in football players are complaining about a decision and brawling with each other for minutes after an incident. Yes, there would have to be some thinking as to how to use VT for non-automated things, whether it would be a referral system at the referee's discretion or whether managers would be able to appeal in-game. There are many options. The point is, it's worth a go. If it did actually make the game last 5 minutes longer or something on average, which I very much doubt, then how bad would that actually be, given that just about every decision in the game would have been correct?
  • Bad decisions are part of what we love about the game. Speak for yourself. This is rather like people who say 'war is just part of human existence' as if to suggest we should just accept all the wars and suffering and not bother trying to end or prevent them. My response: 'Fuck off you ignorant twat'.
Ok, so what's the real reason? Are they deluded, stupid or lazy? Well, a bit of all three really. The truth is that every other sport has to constantly compete for viewers and spectators and is always just a few bad moves away from falling into steady decline, perhaps ending up in danger of no longer being professional i.e. not making money. So part of developing their sport is being innovative and forward thinking. And hence, VT is brought in, albeit gradually, but it is brought in and developed from there. Once the first move is made it improves and adapts to suit the sport.

Football is too popular. It has no need to worry about staying fresh, being innovative or appealing to the younger generation. It is governed by incredibly old and corrupt european idiots who don't face any of the dangers that every other global sport does. Just about every manager in the premiership now calls for its introduction, as well as all the fans, press and players. And it winds me up so much that it is just dismissed by the couple of twats running the game who, even if they don't want it, must recognise that almost everyone else does.

It is absurd that there can be a game of football, sometimes worth 80 million pounds or more, watched by 100 million people or more, and reported on by hundreds of media outlets with hundreds of camera angles and a plethora of technology, in which a decision has to be made by one man, stood in the middle of the pitch, who is categorically not allowed to ask for the help of any one of the hundreds of millions of people who have watched enough replays to know for sure the decision he should make. In a game of football, the referee is the only person who cannot watch the replay, and yet the one man who must decide what happened. It is the biggest disgrace in the history of organised sport and it has to change.