We usually look at how sports teams and organizations can use new technology to provide a better user experience for the fans and although it is all still very new, the take up in the last six months has been positive. Technology can enhance the experience, augment the feeling of connectedness, give fans access to wider and richer volume of content.So, why oh why does the most popular sport on the plant leave itself open to ridicule by being the only major sport that does not use technology in the GAME ITSELF!!
This is not a sour grapes post because England were denied a second goal at a crucial time in their game with Germany, it actually would have been a travesty if England had drawn level in that game…they were that bad! But, during the course of an otherwise awesome World Cup, it has happened to the USA, Italy and Mexico .
What we are debating here is whether we should get important, game changing decisions right . You can throw in all types of hurdles like, where do we restart the game from? How far back does the replay go? We need to implement it in all levels of the game? Answers to that are, I don’t care and stop being stupid! We are talking about getting key decisions in a game right or wrong and, up until now, FIFA have been ok with getting it wrong. Thankfully Sepp Blatter has said he will look at this again, and this morning seems to be taking it a step further .
One quote which stood out was “Naturally we deplore when you see the evidence of refereeing mistakes,” …well wouldn’t replays and goaline technology eliminate that completely? You won’t get referees making important mistakes if they can simply ‘go upstairs’ and get it checked. Plus it will get rid of the ugly scenes of players surrounding and verbally destroying the ref when they think a decision has unfairly gone against them. What’s to argue about if the ref can simply say “I’m going to check with the video ref…get out of my face”?
We aren’t even talking about the need for goal line technology, which admittedly can be expensive to implement in professional leagues, we are talking about replays, the same as Rugby and American Football. We have had replays for decades! We actually got an example of how it could work in the Mexico game when inadvertently, the replay of Carols Tevez’ clearly offside goal, was replayed to the whole stadium…and the official’s had to stick with their decision! This is seriously amateur outlook for supposedly the most professional game we have.
Minor rant over! As you were…
