I suppose it could be considered testament to how popular football is, if you follow Sepp Blatter's original argument that it's too complex and expensive to implement all the technology everywhere. I find it amusing that he has had to take this embarrassing about turn, but it's ultimately his own fault for being so outrageously stubborn in the first instance. No proof of this, but I did hear that it's all his decision and he ignored professional advice and the rest of the FIFA board.

Tennis, for example, uses some very advanced technology in place of the old net line judges you used to see back in the day as well as computer simulations to see a ball's exact position in relation to the court boundaries if a judge's decision is in doubt.

In rugby, video replays are used extensively to determine whether or not the ball actually reached the ground if a try is in doubt, as well as any other fouls which may have occurred. Rugby fans think nothing of having to wait a minute or two before a try is awarded and the atmosphere leading up to a decision being revealed can be electric.

Contrast this with the number of absolutely inexcusable decisions made in this World Cup. Goals disallowed, fouls missed, someone diving behind the referee's back and getting somebody else sent off in the process, poor offside decisions... everybody watching TV and in the stadium itself can see exactly what's happened so why can't the officials on the pitch go back and review stuff?

This is arguably one of the most important sporting events on the planet, yet it has been a shambles in the way it has operated via poor refereeing and lack of recourse.

So, the inital fall out from an early exit has hit; Nigeria president suspends team.

Quote:
Nigeria's president has suspended his nation's football team from international competition for two years after a poor showing at the World Cup.

Special presidential adviser Ima Niboro told reporters the decision by Goodluck Jonathan will "enable Nigeria to reorganise its football".

The Nigerian Football Federation is to be dissolved and an interim board appointed, the BBC understands.

LOL. Foolishness. They do that all the time, and it always has the same result: fail. The fundamental issue is corrupt cronyism and the absence of genuine meritocracy. If the president were a "serious" figure he'd keep out of these kinds of futile displays.

Every day he shows himself to be more of an idiot.

Last week when addressing the state of African football, the consensus with the ESPN commentators was that their teams are poorly administered but the skill of the teams on the pitch usually hides it. Most of the commentators were former players, so they might have a bias towards favoring players over managers and administrators, but given what Goodluck Jonathan did, the commentators are probably correct in their assessment.

What are Ghana's chances against Uruguay?

When it comes to technology, if a tennis ball can be tracked in real time, as they do for Grand Slam tournies, then FIFA should be able to track a football during the World Cup.

If FIFA can control what shows on the "jumbotron" inside the stadium, then it can put an official in the booth reviewing plays.

Adding that "extra eye" on "off ball" interactions sounds like a good idea. A booth official could tell the other officials which players to warn and which to watch more closely.

I don't want to see timeouts and other interruptions foul football (commercial times outs! Argh!!!). I think charging a coach a substitution for a false challenge would be too costly. Reviewing red cards and yellow cards might be warranted, but viewing fouls in slow motion tends to exaggerate them, imo. What in real time may just be an inadvertent arm flail, can sometimes look like a slap in the face in slow motion.

Disqualified goals should always be reviewed. Maybe all goals should be reviewed. Carlos Tevez made a clearly offside goal against Mexico. It was great fun in the moment but it should not have counted. Letting that goal stand had an immediate impact on the game beyond the score. It took Mexico another 20 minutes to shake off the feeling that it was futile to continue playing with such poor officiating. By then it was too late.

A trade-off for substitutions wouldn't be necessary I think. If each team has N challenges for decisions (where N is small like 3), then these are precious and would naturally would be reserved for "important" decisions such as cards and goals, and maybe serious tackles that take a player off pitch.

There is a clean upper limit to the amount of time that could be wasted. Indeed, controversial decisions already consume lots of time with various players protesting.

Another idea for video refereeing would be to impose retro-active cards for clear cases of diving. I think diving is really awful and such a move could stamp it out, at least at the higher levels. I think this would mean that, in balance, the introduction of technology would decrease the amount of stops in the games, if players knew they could be called out. But I could not see FIFA bending so far.

Retroactive hand balls too, eh Thierry? [grin]

OK I seem to be the odd one out here supporting Sepp Blatter's and FIFA's current stance.

Quote: If FIFA doesn't adjust to present technological capabilities, then the 2012 Olympics organizers should.

The Olympic Committee can not introduce these measures as they have to abide by FIFA's rules.

Quote: My biggest 'fear' if you will with technology introduction beyond that is that it will start breaking up play too much. Cleaning up the game and removing some of the choices which are seen as a problem would make it worth while however, just as long as they can't challenge EVERY offside choice or foul for example; somethings should be left humanised as it were.

I assume this is one of the fears of FIFA as well.

Quote: It should definitely be used for goal-line situations, and because of the speed of the game it should probably be something that is fully automatic and simply notifies the referee - who can then decide to overrule it, leaving us all the joys of railing at refs!

This technology already exists and was one of the (two IIRC) proposals for goal line technology.

OK so here is my viewpoint from earlier in the thread

Quote: I would say it is not going to happen [goal line technology], if it ever did it would be a very sad day for the game.

I am English it was my national team that one of the incidents happened against, yet I am still again GLT?

The game of football is a very simple game, which is played the same in Sunday league, Amateur, Professional and the big competitions such as the World Cup. To introduce something which separates the professional game from the others would be a tragedy and is this technology actually needed? I would say no. The disallowed goal was seen to be over the line by almost everyone but the match day officials. If they had extra goal line officials as was trialed last year in the UEFA cup he would have been stood in close proximity and have seen it was over. These extra goal line officials can be used at every level of the game.

Now look at the oldest association football cup competition and most watched in the world the FA cup. This competition starts life with the amateur non league teams, these said teams only just tread water to stay alive. Introducing GLT for these teams would eliminate them from entering the greatest association cup and these teams are part of the reason it is such a great competition.

So my feelings are that GLT is not needed, it would separate different levels of the game and as Phantom points out once you allow this technology into the game where do you stop?

Quote: Original post by dmail
The Olympic Committee can not introduce these measures as they have to abide by FIFA's rules.

Do they? That sounds like a reason why Olympic games should by played by amateurs. Maybe the World Cup should be merged with the Olympics?

Quote: Original post by dmail
To introduce something which separates the professional game from the others would be a tragedy ...

I find that notion rather humorous. How much money are the pros worth? How much money rides on games at that level of play? The separations between the pro game and the "Sunday league, Amateur" games are numerous already. The officials wear radio headsets to communicate with each other. How many "Sunday league, Amateur" games are you aware of where the officials use radio headsets?

I think FIFA can learn from the examples of pro tennis and the NFL (both good and bad) about how best to integrate technology into football officiating. I'll say this though, the fact that NFL refs can use video replay takes nothing away from high school or college gridiron games. So too with basketball and baseball and tennis. The trick is this, and it's very simple, when the technology is available, use it, when it's not, don't use it. No one should be eliminated from the early rounds of the FA cup for lacking GLT, but it's not too much to require successful teams to implement it as they progress through to the later stages of the tournament.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Maybe the World Cup should be merged with the Olympics?

I do hope you are joking.

Quote: Original post by dmail
To introduce something which separates the professional game from the others would be a tragedy ...

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I find that notion rather humorous.

That is fine, I find people calling for GLT humorous.

Quote: How much money are the pros worth? How much money rides on games at that level of play? The separations between the pro game and the "Sunday league, Amateur" games are numerous already.

Hmmm I wonder what the difference between a professional and amateur sportsman is? LOL

Quote:
The officials wear radio headsets to communicate with each other. How many "Sunday league, Amateur" games are you aware of where the officials use radio headsets?

Yes you are correct they do use this technology yet ones who do not communicate in this manner use the good old fashioned method of talking face to face. It is not the case that linesmen and referees do not speak to each other.

Quote: Original post by dmail

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Maybe the World Cup should be merged with the Olympics?

I do hope you are joking.

No, I'm not. Consider, the same teams play in the Olympic tourney, so if FIFA controls that tourney, the main difference between it and the World Cup boils down to the different prizes. As a point of comparison, Argentina took the gold in 2008. If they take the cup this year...

Quote: Original post by dmail
That is fine, I find people calling for GLT humorous.

Really? Must be that dry British sense of humor... [grin]

Quote: Original post by dmail
Hmmm I wonder what the difference between a professional and amateur sportsman is? LOL

To start with, millions of dollars.

Quote: Original post by dmail
Yes you are correct they do use this technology yet ones who do not communicate in this manner use the good old fashioned method of talking face to face. It is not the case that linesmen and referees do not speak to each other.

I think you missed my point. The fact that the pros have access to special officiating equipment will not change the way amateurs play the game. Evidence of that can be found thousands of times over every day across the USA. Tennis, baseball, basketball, gridiron football -- the pros use special officiating equipment and amateurs don't but they continue playing anyway. And when it comes to gridiron football, the rules change as the level of expertise increases. The rules for high school football are different from the rules for college football are different from the rules for pro football. The basic rules remain the same, but different rules about fumbles and passes and when a player is down and how to resolve tie games at the various levels of play hasn't stopped people at the lowest levels of play from playing.