Kevin Bish 1

Soccer vs. Technology: A real Game Changer Imagine you are competing for your nation in the World Cup, which is the largest and most publicized soccer tournament in the world. Your team is down 2-1 and you get the opportunity to take a shot to tie the game. You wind up, and put everything you have into this one chance to make history. The shot smashes off of the crossbar, and goes into the goal! There is just one problem, there was so much spin on the ball, that the moment that it hit the ground inside the goal, it bounced right back out. You know that the ball went in, but the referee didnt see it! He just sees that the keeper has the ball, and goes on with the game. This is the situation that Englands Frank Lampard was in during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The goal that would have equalized between England and Germany was never counted, and Englands chance at the ultimate glory of winning the World Cup ended. In the 2010 World Cup, there were many controversies that could have been easily solved by implementing technology into international soccer. From the countless debatable offside calls, the media-reviewed disallowed goal by Frank Lampard, to Carlos Tevez scoring from an offside position for Argentina, the panacea exists! Ball tracking and goal line technologies both exist, which would make the judgment of game changing calls much clearer to the referee, as well as the fans. This begs the question, why have they not been implemented into professional and international soccer? Background There are several situations in the game of soccer in which technology could give the referee a hand in officiating the game. Situations like free kicks, corner kicks, offside calls, and game changing foul calls all have the ability to change the outcome of a game if the referee makes the wrong decision. In the 2010 World Cup alone there were 64 games. Each game being

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officiated by one center referee and two sideline referees. There are 22 players on the field, each with a different perspective of what is actually happening in the game. Then there are the tens of thousands of fans at each game, and the hundreds of thousands of fans watching the games on television. By the numbers alone, there is a distinct disadvantage toward the referees when it comes to getting the best possible view of the game. If you factor in that every player is jostling for position, and moving between the ball and the referee, it becomes apparent that the referees may need some help in accurately calling the game. This is where ball tracking technology comes into play. This type of technology utilizes many high speed, high definition cameras placed around the stadium in order to precisely track the movement of the ball. This technology would make calls for offside much simpler and easier than they currently are. The other prospective technology is goal line technology, which is basically any type of computer or mechanical advantage given to the referee in order to better judge whether the ball has crossed the goal line. This addition to the refereeing power could be crucial in large leagues like the Barclays Premiere League in England, the Liga BBVA in Spain, or the Serie A League in Italy. In leagues as large as these, it is another numbers game. The number of fans, players, and television cameras watching every game greatly outnumber the three officials that judge them. And due to the way that professional soccer leagues are structured, the entire season could come down to one call in the final games of the season or a missed call in the playoffs. The addition of this simple technology could mean the difference between the glory of winning a championship and the despair of defeat on the worlds largest scale. The Need

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Some soccer fans are calling out for an immediate change in the field of goal line technology, but one of the crucial elements of the sport is the controversy created when pitting two teams against one another. The human element in soccer is critical, and some fans and board members argue that the human element will be compromised if a major league were to incorporate technology into the refereeing or decision making process. FIFA have stated on multiple occasions that the human element of the game is of great importance to them, that the game should be as universal as possible, and that the final decisions on the field will be made by humans (Hamilton). There have been several large pushes for goal line technology in the past ten years, mainly due to new technology, every time that there is a major tournament like the World Cup, every fan sees the game his or her own way. The ability of fans, coaches, and most importantly, the media to access a seemingly endless stream of footage has changed the way that the world views soccer. Adam Elder, a correspondent for Wired.com, argues that before the 2010 World Cup, many people were avid defenders of the integrity of the sport of soccer, but once the laundry list of controversies was published, post World Cup, the sport was flooded with an influx of new believers in goal line technology (Elder). The 2010 World Cup was one of the major catalysts in the movement toward goal line technology in modern soccer. There are many major leagues of soccer, spanning all over the world, but one of the largest is known as the Federation of International Football Association, otherwise known as FIFA. This association controls much of the organized international soccer that is played throughout the world, and is responsible for the World Cup being held every four years. FIFA is controlled by the International Football Association Board, known as the IFAB.

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The IFAB recently announced their full intent to incorporate goal line technology into international soccer through FIFA, before the next world cup in 2014 (Elder). In an article written by Dominic Fifield, a soccer reporter for The Guardian, he explains that the media craze that the World Cup controversies caused had many effects, one of these being the shift of the viewpoint of Michel Platini. Platini is currently the president of the Union of European Football Associations (also known as UEFA). This is another superpower when it comes to international soccer, being responsible for holding the European Cup every 4 years since its beginning in 1960. Platini has been a firm nonbeliever in the need to change the sport of soccer in any way, but the recent holes in officiating that have come to light have forced him to change his opinion, but not in the way that so many other people have. Platini suggests a different change to the game, by adding fourth and fifth officials to the mix. Each official would stand on the goal line on either end of the field, and be the decision maker when it comes to goals. This option seems better to him, as well as many fans, because it does not introduce computers into the game at all. This solution would seemingly retain the integrity of the sport in every way, but it also leaves room for human error when judging goals (Fifield).

The Technology Itself Upon the announcement of the IFABs intent to incorporate goal line technology into soccer, they began a broad search for the best candidates. After much research, the IFAB decided upon 12 candidates for further testing. The candidates were 12 different types of prospective technology that would detect whether a goal had been scored or not. They were put through a series of both computer and physical tests, which tested every aspect of the technology. From the effectiveness of the technology to accurately determine the position of the ball, to the amount of

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time that it would take for the result to be analyzed and sent to the referee. These tests weeded out 10 of the 12 candidates, leaving the two finalists which were then moved on to practical game testing (Elder). Both technologies utilize a watchlike wristband that the center referee would wear, and it would receive a signal from the technology on the field whenever a goal is scored. The first possible technology is known as GoalRef. It is a technology that would incorporate small sensors into the actual soccer ball, and place magnetic receptors around the goal. The magnetic receptors create a sort of magnetic wall, that when completely crossed, will send the referee a signal that a goal has been scored. Keir Radnedge, from Goal.com, reports that the other goal line technology that moved on to the third stage of testing is known as Hawk-Eye. This is a different type of technology, that incorporates 12-15 high speed, high definition cameras that would be placed around the stadium. Each camera is equipped with ball tracking technology. When the ball approaches the goal, the cameras will be able to triangulate it position, and if it passes over the goal line, the referee will receive a signal meaning that a goal has been scored (Radnedge). These technologies were designed to make as minimal of an impact upon the actual play of the game as possible, which is why they appeal to the decision makers at the IFAB and FIFA. The only time that they would come into play is if the ball has completely crossed the goal line, and a goal has been scored, or in the event of a player clearly in offside position. Even though the two technologies use a different type of system for detecting the call, they both provide the unobtrusiveness and accuracy that the governing bodies of international and professional soccer have been demanding. The True Controversy

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One of the main problems with incorporating goal line technology is the precedent that it sets for future changes to the game. Many fans believe that the introduction of such technology will eliminate the human element in the game, and lead to the possible introduction of other technology. The idea of having a soccer game that is run by computers, with no margin for human error is something that scares fans, because it will eliminate any controversy. Much of the soccer fan base wants to have that extra element of interest that has kept people watching the game since the rules were originally written down almost 150 years ago in London (FIFA Quality Programme). The idea that goal line technology will compromise the integrity of the entire sport seems alien and extreme, but one point raised about the implementation of the Hawk-Eye technology makes it seem fairly plausible. Hawk-Eye is currently used by many large tennis tournaments like Wimbledon and the US Open in order to finalize calls on whether the ball is in or out of the court, but that is on an open court where the entire ball is visible to all cameras. The transition of this technology from tennis to soccer provides more opportunity for controversy because at least 25 percent of the soccer ball needs to be visible to one or more of the cameras in order to make an accurate call. This could cause possible misreading of the cameras, or a lack of visibility could even render the technology useless on a major call. Free kicks and corner kicks are two very likely scoring situations, and both situations involve large numbers of people clustered around the goal. This could definitely be problematic to a goal line technology that is based around cameras and visibility (Hamilton). An article posted by The Gaffer, on the website EPL talk (English Premiere League talk), states that another prospective problem with both technologies is the fact that the results are only visible to the referee. This means that the Hawk-Eye cameras could provide a different camera

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angle than the angles that the television cameras are able to capture. If the cameras dont provide the same views and angles, it is very probable that the camera angles will make the calls look wrong to the viewer. The naysayers, fans and those on internet blogs believe that the implementation of this technology is only substituting one type of controversy for another, meaning that fans will either argue about whether the goal went in, or whether the technology accurately judged if the ball went crossed the line entirely (Gaffer). The other main concern with the integrity of the game is that the speed of a soccer game is one of the things that has remained the same when compared with other sports. If youve ever watched the last two minutes of a NBA or NFL game, you know that they can take much longer than the clock would have you believe. This is due to the implementation of instant replay in order to make sure all calls are correct in the last crucial minutes of the game. Retaining the game speed is one of the main design factors of the GoalRef and Hawk-Eye systems. Both systems are designed in order to send the referee a decision within one second of the goal taking place. The Bottom Line Ultimately, there will always be controversy when two teams are competing against one another. The real decision that officials, owners, and board members have to make is what the controversy is going to be about. If they choose to incorporate new technology into the game whether it be the incorporation of goal line technology or ball tracking technology, the subject of argument will simply switch from whether the ball went in, or whether the player was offside, to how accurate the technology actually is. In a game this old and with this many different aspects, there is always going to be some facet that all parties watching are going to disagree about. That is the reason that the sport holds interest for anybody, as well as the reason that incorporating

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goal line technology has been so hard to do. The bottom line is that soccer has deep roots, devoted fans, and countless uncontrollable variables. These things make it so that changing the game is not easy. There will always be those against changing the game, and those who believe in it. The bottom line is that technology is an unstoppable force, and soccer is not an immovable object. Soccer is bound to change in order to accommodate the will of the technological age that we now live in, and goal line technology is not a bad place to start.

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Works Cited Garside, Kevin. "England v. Germany." The Telegraph. The Telegraph, 27 2010. Web. 4 Nov 2012. Elder, Adam. "With Goal-Line Tech, Soccer Tries Kicking Its Addiction to Human Error."Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 31 May 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. "FIFA Quality Programme." FIFA.com. FIFA, 2012. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. 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 Gaffer. "Why Hawk-Eye." EPL Talk. EPL Talk, 07 2012. Web. 4 Nov 2012. Hamilton, Howard. "Goal-Line Technology Comes to Soccer." SoccerMetrics.net. N.p., 07 2012. Web. 27 Nov 2012. Radnedge, Keir. "Goal.com." Goal.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.