Technology in football, is more always means better?
Football is now the most popular sports in the world and also a multi-billion business. Technologies are being used in many football activities such as training and broadcasting but the way a football game is moderated has not changed much since its inception. Besides more precise watches for referees, everything else seems to be stuck in medieval era and all decisions are relied solely on the eyes of the referees and their assistants. There were numerous times when human vision proved to be imperfect, leading to big incorrect decisions that would change the course of a football game.
The biggest error that comes to recent mind would be the 2010 World Cup where Frank Lampard thought his “goal” had brought England level against Germany but it wasn’t given and the Three Lions eventually lost 4-1 and were knocked out of the competition.
Referee-assisting technologies are already there, but they are not being implemented. Goal-line technology, the use of cameras to determine a goal should be awarded or not, has long been successfully used in many other sports including cricket and American football. But only until the 2013/14 season of the Premier League, it was officially allowed with Hawk-Eye being approved for all 20 sides playing in the top division. Video technology to aid referees has just been approved for trial use despite being available for a long time.
At bettingtop10.com, a leading website for online entertainment, they believe that more technology would disrupt the flow of the game, that statement has been used by many to stop the introduction of more equipment into football. They argued that with all those technologies, referees would take more time to reach a decision and that would affect the dynamic nature of football.
The technology is there, the money is there to implement it and above all, getting a decision right should be the most important part of the game.