".. . as Rooney approaches the keeper , Petr Cech who is
clearly off off his line in one- on-one situation . He takes
a shot at goal which the keeper swiftly parries to his
right... Robin van Persie gets possession of the ball and
approaches the goal from the left hand side , with the
keeper backtracking to his goal line. Robin quickly takes
a low curly shot towards the left side of goal ; the
keeper still retracting takes a dive to stop the goal
bound shot. Yes ! He stopped the shot "on the line with
his arms and upper torso behind the line" . GOOOAAAL!
The crowd in the stadium erupts . Some in support of
the goal and some for play to hopefully continue .
Van Persie celebrates with a run to the fans at the
corner flag while Terry guards the keeper to ward off
any other offensive from the opposing team. The referee
whose view was obstructed when the shot was stopped
begins to approach the assistant referee at the far right
of the pitch who is also at a loss whether to return to
the centre line or not. Few seconds after, with no
official decision through the blast of the whistle from the
referee , players from both teams argue with flared
tempers, the stadium goes into an uproar ... ”
Scenarios like the one above which have proven to be
the occasional dark spot in the history of the world’ s
most popular sport will not occur this season. The
English Premier League Board , that is made up of all the
twenty premier league teams does not want any more of
this kind of situations. They have decided to make the
job easier for the referee with the aid of technology by
approving the deployment of a Goal Decision System
(GDS ) known as Hawk -Eye to give quick verdicts on
situations like this during all premier league games .
This decision is coming after nearly 10 years of
skepticism around the introduction of technology into
the game of football. Although other sports like Tennis ,
Cricket and Rugby have began the use of technology to
aid in officiating, it was not the same for football
because a greater percentage of football lovers felt
introducing the technology might reduce the fun and
thrills of the game.
The Hawk-Eye Technology deploys seven cameras behind
each goal to detect the motion of the ball. Within a
second of detecting that the ball has crossed the line , the
referee receives a text message on his wristwatch that
notifies him that the ball and has crossed the line . The
speed with which the referee gets notified has allayed
the fears of many of the club managers who expressed
fears about the timely notification from when the goal
occurred.
The League Board chose SONY’ S Hawk- Eye Technology
as the preferred system to be deployed in the league
and the technology was given demonstration test trials
on some major premiership home grounds during the
break. The Hawk-Eye technology has also been subjected
to real life tests during the Community Shield game
between Manchester United and Wigan Athletic and the
International Friendly between England and Scotland
where no controversial goal mouth situation occurred .
FIFA tested a rival system developed by German
company “Goal Control” at the Confederations Cup in
Brazil in June.
With the introduction of the goal line technology to the
English Premier League, a great deal of difference is not
expected to occur because goal line controversies are
not common place in football. There were 31 goal line
controversies during the previous season , all but three
cases showed that the referees were right in the decision
they took ( about 90% correct ). This indicates that the
normal decision making process by the referees is not
bad. But the referees who are desirous of improving on
the accuracy of their decision making process with a
view to increase the viewing pleasure of everyone
involved have also supported the introduction of the
technology.
But if the introduction of goal line technology records
success following its introduction in the English League,
then there is the great hope that the technology might
be accepted globally and instituted in the FIFA statutes
as part of the game.
The introduction of goal line technology into football in
all competitions will bade a final farewell to the kind of
goal decision controversies that will forever remain in
the minds of football fans . Good examples of these
controversies include Geoff Hurst's 'goal ' in 1966 World
Cup final against West Germany that gave England the
World Cup trophy, the Victor Ikpeba Penalty 'miss '
against Cameroun during the African Cup of Nations in
the year 2000 and most recently , Frank Lampard 's ruled
out goal against Germany at the 2010 World Cup .
After more than a decade of campaigning for goal line
technology there will almost certainly be a real sense of
anti- climax when it is finally used in the league starting
today. This is because the frenzy , frills and thrills
surrounding the league will be the focus of the 'action
starved' followers of the league and many will not notice
the presence of seven cameras behind each goal .
What becomes of this Union will be revealed as the
League unfolds!
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