Lampard-'introduce goal-line technology'

[schmeichel1]

Frank Lampard has said he would like to see an 'electronic referee' brought into judge if a goal has or hasn't been scored.

'The introduction of Hawkeye in cricket and tennis has been sucessfully done' said Lampard.

'It doesn't seem to have stopped the flow of matches in those sports'.

[moxdevil]

I'm in favour of technology. There was an article on the Guardian web site some time ago that was proposing the use of such technology and changes to the game. Arguments about it slowing down the game are silly, it'd take seconds rather than minutes.

found it- football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1767320,00.html

[schmeichel1]

Absolutely, i'd agree with that, we're only really talking about a few seconds and therefore a quick decision.

[7even]

Would it be a case of just to see if a goal has gone in, or would they check to see if a player dived in a box to claim a penalty, or would the referee use a microphone for the 4th official to confirm whether it was a dive or not, as he’s sat watching on a monitor. ‘’Try or no try’’ sort of thing like in Rugby on the big screen, ha ha.

I’m all for it I guess, move on with the times and all that and if its been tried and tested in other sports then why not give it a go, if it doesn’t work, at least they know they’ve tried.

I can’t see it happening anytime soon though.

[moxdevil]

In case link doesn't work-

How to make football beautiful again

With cheating and negativity rampant, football urgently needs video evidence, bigger goals and sin bins, argues Sean Ingle

Thursday May 4, 2006
If the alarm bells at Fifa HQ didn't start ringing when Greece suffocated and stifled their way to Euro 2004 glory, or when France's Ligue 1 suffered its lowest ever average goal tally in 2004-05, they should have begun furiously ding-a-linging last week.
The Champions League semi-finals contained three of the most vibrant, attacking teams in Europe - Barcelona, Arsenal and AC Milan - and possibly the four best players in the world - Andriy Shevchenko, Samuel Eto'o, Thierry Henry and Ronaldinho. We should have drooled over football for the ages, not endured a fandango of shirt-pulling, freefalling and injury-feigning, with only two goals in 360-odd minutes.
But negativity has again become the new orthodoxy; just like it did in the late 1970s and pre-backpass rule 1990s. The average number of goals is slip-sliding down across Europe, a stifling variant of 4-5-1 grows ever more ubiquitous, and no amount of Fifa edicts or tabloid fury has stopped simulation or jersey-tugging.
In the past, when football's delicate balance between attack and defence has spun out of kilter, the authorities have stepped in. Not this time. But the rules need a makeover, and they need them now.
A brief history lesson
Forget what the traditionalists tell you: football's laws have always been tinkered with, almost from the moment they were formulated by the FA in a dingy London pub in 1863. They've had to be; for players and managers can be a cynical, conniving, cheating breed. It's their job to win - how they get there is largely irrelevant. But let's not get too Daily Mail about this: when the stakes are high, it's foolish to expect Presbyterian morality.
The history of football rules is one of exploitation, followed, several years later, by correction. Until 1891, for instance, there were no referees or penalties, because it was assumed that a gentleman would never intentionally foul. Instead players would appeal to, then debate with, touchline umpires for justice. But by the 1870s, players were making "vexatious and unmeaning calls [for fouls] ... on the most frivolous pretexts," according to the Sportsman, a popular paper of the day. A decade later, the argument for neutral on-field referees had become overwhelming, and the laws were changed.
Rules have also been altered to make football more exciting. As far back as 1925 the offside rule was ripped up after fears the game was becoming too defensive. The result? Total goals scored in the English leagues rose from 4,700 to 6,373 in one season. More modern changes - red cards for professional fouls and no tackling from behind (to combat Claudio Gentile, Vinnie Jones and their ilk), and the revised backpass rule (introduced after a World Cup-record low of 2.21 goals per game in Italia 90) - have all come after this same process: exploitation, then correction.
Recently, however, the International Football Association Board (Ifab), the body responsible for the game's laws, has downplayed or ignored issues such as diving, negative football and the potential impact of technology, in favour of mangling the offside law. Again. Not that Fifa president Joseph Blatter, one of the game's if-it-ain't-broke brigade, is concerned. He recently praised Ifab for its "stable and steadying influence" and "conservative approach".
So what should be done?
An obvious starting point is that current media obsession, simulation (if only to stop hacks like me going on about it) - along with shirt-pulling, feigning injury and other variants of the game's dark arts. Retrospective punishments, as suggested by Fifa, don't work: would you care about a one-match ban if a cynical swan dive in the World Cup final earned your side the winning penalty?
No. The only solution is instant video evidence for every top-flight and international match.
Introduce such technology, and immediately the risk v reward debate which zips around a player's head changes: there'd be no incentive to dive when someone in the stands can alert the referee, who would soon be waving yellow in your direction. And why pretend to be punched, when in 30 seconds' time you'd be receiving red for play-acting?
Technology would also help officials, not undermine them. Just look at cricket. The truth is, despite Fifa's almost-Catholic belief in the infallibility of referees, mistakes are legion - mistakes that ruin games and alter the history of teams and tournaments. Things may even out over a season, but they rarely do so over the course of a match.
Ah, splutter the luddites: wouldn't technology slow the game down? Perhaps, but not by much. The ball is only in play for 60-odd minutes, and double-checking contentious decisions - a goal-line clearance, penalty or offside appeal - would add seconds not minutes.
Clearly there's a balance to be struck between maintaining the flow of the game, and making the right decision but if other sports can do it, so can football. Ultimately, it boils down to what is preferable: a 30-second delay in play, or the Hand of God? Getting it right, or allowing cheats to get away with it?
One further suggestion: barely a big game goes by without someone feigning injury in the last 10 minutes, wasting two or three minutes and vaccinating an opponent's momentum. Is it too much to ask for an official stadium clock, like in rugby union, that comes to a halt every time there's a prolonged stoppage?
Goals, goals, goals
But it's not just simulation that needs addressing; stimulation does too. It's too easy for teams to stick 10 men behind the ball and grind out a result; ideal for the likes of Greece and Porto - not so exciting for anyone else.
That's not to denigrate great defending. When practised by the Baresis and Desaillys of this world, it's a rare art - and should be celebrated as such. But it's about balance. When a makeshift Arsenal defence featuring a novice centre-back and a central-midfielder-cum-left-back goes 10 Champions League games without conceding a goal, this art has become too easy.
Another worrying trend is that, the more important the match, the tighter it usually gets. In the 2002 World Cup there were just 25 goals in 15 knockout games (excluding the irrelevant third-placed play-off) and just one enthralling, edge-of-your seat humdinger - Italy v South Korea (a match also blighted by poor refereeing). It was a similar story in Euro 2004 - just 13 goals in seven knockout matches - and in this season's Champions League (14 goals in 12 matches from the quarter-finals onwards). Domestically, the pattern holds true too: only four of 16 games this season between Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal have had three or more goals.
No one wants to see football turn into basketball. But the flip side - 90 minutes of turgid tedium is even more repellent. As Michel Hidalgo, the manager who led Michel Platini's France to a glorious Euro 84 title, puts it: "We must find ways to encourage audacious players and we must fight goalless games. It is goals that leave their mark on the memory."
The obvious - and most contentious - way to do this is by increasing the size of the goals. It might smack of SoccerBall USA, but why not? After all, the average man stood at just 5ft 2in tall in the latter part of the 19th century when goalpost sizes were laid down in law - while the average Premiership keeper is now 6ft 3in. At the very least you could test it at semi-professional level, with perhaps a minor adjustment to move the posts six inches higher and a yard wider.
Another highly-flammable suggestion - sin bins - also deserves serious consideration. The almighty gap between a yellow and red card actually makes it rational for defenders to body-check, scythe and take out opponents in promising positions, picking up a professional yellow, because conceding a goal is far worse. That can't be right. The possibility of 20 minutes in the sin bin - with a yellow card chucked in - for cynical fouls would change a player's incentives and, ergo, their behaviour too.
Bigger goals? Sin bins? These aren't ideas that most football purists will rush to embrace. But then neither was the backpass rule. When it was first introduced in 1992, every professional in the land reckoned it would ruin the game - because keepers would be toe-punting it long at every opportunity. Impending doom was forecast. Instead goals went up, because the ball was in play far longer, and keepers became more adept at controlling a football. Six months later what had seemed unworkable had become matter-of-fact normal.
Final thought
In a month's time, the 2006 World Cup will kick off. Hopefully it will rank as a classic: one that sits smugly alongside Mexico 86, Spain 82 and Mexico 70 in the pantheon. But, on the evidence of recent tournaments, another scenario is more likely: two weeks of football that entices and enthrals before, on the day the knockout stages arrive and the stakes are racked upwards, a cold caution takes hold.
If this happens, managers and players will be blamed. Wrongly, in my opinion. Their job is solely to win, not entertain. The real culprits would be Fifa and its rulemaking arm, Ifab. They must be football's policemen: prosecuting the cheats and encouraging good behaviour. In the past, they've been like a village bobby - slow and dim-witted, to be sure, but usually getting there in the end. No longer. And while ultra-professionalism continues to choke romance and risk-taking, football will be the poorer for it.

[Busby Boy]

I agree it would make the game better but only if, it never slowed the game down.

I bet they'll introduce it considering a Chelsea representative has called for it to be introduced. Fergie has called for it. Jol has called for it. Arse-hole has called for it. No action taken but now Lampard has I reckon it'll be introduced.! ;D

[7even]

Nice read that! Although I agree with most of it, I don’t agree with sin bins (what is this, basketball, ice hockey perhaps?) or making the goals bigger. Video technology yes, a deliberate body check because a yellow is better than a goal, upgrading the yellow to a red, yes, a stop clock, to count all this flopping around on the floor to be added on, yes. But sin bins I think are silly as are making the goals bigger.

[Dizzy]

I really don't like the idea of Sin Bins, especially with the size of the pitches, it'll waste quite a bit of time.

Plus, Gattuso will then be paid for doing nothing but sitting down.