Criticism
While advocates for goal-line technology maintain that it would significantly reduce refereeing errors during play, there are also criticisms of the technology. Much of the criticism comes from within FIFA itself including FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Apart from the criticisms revolving around the technical aspects of the two proposed technologies, critics point out that such technology would impact on the human element of the game and remove the enjoyment of debating mistakes. Sepp Blatter has been quoted as saying "Other sports regularly change the laws of the game to react to the new technology. ... We don't do it and this makes the fascination and the popularity of football".
A study suggested that in the 2010–11 Premier League season "errors took place nearly 30% of the time that video replays could help prevent", but some people claim that instant replays would interrupt the flow of the game and take away possible plays.
Other critics believe it would be prohibitively expensive to implement the technology at all levels of the game and particularly for smaller/poorer football associations. FIFA officials have expressed a preference for 'better refereeing' as well as more match officials over implementing the technology. Advocates in turn cite the many examples of incorrect goal-line decisions deciding important games and point out that the technology has improved much since the initial trials carried out by FIFA. Advocates contend that any extra help for the referee should outweigh arguments that it would lead to non-uniform rules (since not all football associations would be able to implement it).
Blatter had been opposed to goal-line technology until Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in the 2010 World Cup. He now says that the technology could be in place by the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. UEFA president, Michel Platini will likely oppose the plan, and instead propose additional referees beside each goal.
The introduction of the so-called "fifth official", i.e. the extra assistant referee standing beside the goal-line, was partly in order to facilitate in such situations.
Read more about this topic: Goal-line Technology
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“I hold with the old-fashioned criticism that Browning is not really a poet, that he has all the gifts but the one needful and the pearls without the string; rather one should say raw nuggets and rough diamonds.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)