If you have been following the 2014 FIFA World Cup, you'll know that technology has already taken centre stage. Football has lagged other sports by a decade or more in adopting technological measures to support referees, and while the governing body has finally taken its first steps, the lag is telling.
Unfortunately, it tends to manifest in the worst possible ways - in poor decisions, which can alter the outcome of matches or entire tournaments. And players (regardless of where you stand on the "don't-hate-the-player-hate-the-game" argument) take full advantage of this Luddite blind spot.
Take, for example, one of the earliest games in this year's competition. In a replay of the 2010 final in Johannesburg, Spain squared off against the Netherlands, and striker Diego Costa won the Spaniards a penalty kick by diving in the box. (Spain took the lead, but justice prevailed and the Dutch went on to win 5-1.)
Football fears
As a sports fan, this frustrates me. It's not like there isn't a wealth of technology available to prevent this sort of abuse - television replays, movement sensors, and many more. There are arguments against technology, but in football it appears to be driven largely by the absurd technophobia of football's worldwide governing body, FIFA, and its boss, Joseph (Sepp) Blatter.
One of the arguments against using technology to adjudicate on-field decisions is causing stoppages in play, and this is true, but it is merely an engineering problem: whatever the acceptable delay is, beat it. In the case of football penalties, it becomes a moot point: the time it takes to set up the free kick, never mind the inevitable displays of gesticulation and opprobrium, allow more than enough time for a television replay to confirm the decision. In fact, with the speed at which networks process replays, and the speed of social networks on smartphones, by the time Xabi Alonso was squaring up to the goalkeeper, the only person who didn't know the decision was wrong was Nicola Rizzoli, the hapless referee.
FIFA's allergy to technology has diminished a little, and this year sees the belated introduction of goal line technology (GLT) - using high-speed cameras to detect whether the ball has passed the line or not. The system saw an early test when France beat Honduras, with the system first declaring "no goal" then apparently changing its mind to award the goal - some interface teething problems, no doubt, but in retrospect the system was shown to be correct. And assistant referees have long used referee paging systems to electronically notify the referee that an offside flag is raised, for example.
But this is dreadfully late coming to the game. GLT has been needed for decades, with numerous instances of "ghost goals" in high-profile games over the years. The fortunes of the English team highlight this - the team won the 1966 World Cup against Germany after Geoff Hurst's strike bounced off the crossbar and was incorrectly judged to have crossed the line. In 2010, in SA, the Germans got their revenge after Frank Lampard scored for England, but the referees mistakenly disallowed the goal - Germany went on to win 4-1. And when England faced off against Ukraine at Euro 2012, Marko Devi?'s equalising goal was cleared from behind the line, only to see it disallowed, with England going on to win 1-0.
It was only after that debacle that Sepp Blatter, responding to howls of outrage from observers, finally declared that goal line technology might be considered for future tournaments.
Electric all-rounders
In other sports, technology has been making a difference for many years. Electroline was first used as an electronic line judge in tennis in 1974, and has since seen the introduction of numerous improvements through to the modern era of Hawk-Eye, which is also used to great effect in cricket, where it was originally developed, and where there is now a battery of technology at the disposal of match officials.
Rugby has benefited from on-field radio communication and the judicious use of close-in camera shots to judge close calls for awarding tries. The constant scrutiny has also clamped down on violence in the game, since there is no escaping the lens and infringements can be brought to the attention of the on-field referee instantly, with game-changing penalties applied on the spot. Contrast this to the largely consequence-free unsporting behaviour in football.
FIFA's allergy to technology has diminished a little, and this year sees the belated introduction of goal line technology.
These systems are far from perfect, of course. Hawk-Eye, currently the state of the art for measuring the movement of a fast-moving ball, has a margin of error of around 5mm. And cricketers will tell you that 5mm is more than enough to make the difference between a delivery grazing the stumps or narrowly missing. But this, again, is merely engineering: the systems are getting better all the time.
Many professional sportsmen have expressed dissatisfaction with automated systems too, sometimes worried about accuracy, or about delays in play, or about changes to the spirit of the game. The first two are solvable engineering problems; the last, if the histrionics in world football is anything to go by, suggests that any change to the spirit of the game is likely to be an improvement.
The push-back in every sport has tended to be more about unfamiliarity than anything else, and as the systems improve and the players (and officials) grow accustomed to them, the resistance falls away.
The other reality that must be confronted is that these systems are deployed to reduce the errors of on-field officials, and unfortunately, errors are rife. This is simply the unavoidable result of the combination of fast-paced action with well-developed and highly-practised gamesmanship. To avoid damaging the perceived authority of the officials, many sports have adopted a referral system, which works surprisingly well, allowing players a few opportunities to question a decision, and have it overturned if necessary.
In tennis and cricket, in particular, this has worked well and demonstrated that officials and players are both fallible, and can benefit from a technological safety net. There is a worry that officials may come to rely on tech as a crutch, but as downsides go, that is likely a better result than maximising the number of mistakes by not deploying the technical aids at all... like football does today.
So come on, FIFA, bring football into the 21st century, and join the rest of the tech-savvy sporting world. We'll all enjoy it more as a result. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that until football adopts technology to improve fair play and accuracy, I'll stick to watching other, fairer and more advanced sports.
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