Goal-line technology a must

| Wednesday June 30, 2010 00:00

Yesterday, the FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, acknowledged that his organisation is likely to look into the matter after he apologised about the refereeing blunders that contributed to the England and Mexico losses that drove them out of the World Cup now crawling towards the quarterfinals in South Africa.

We are of the view that Blatter should apologise to all teams that were wronged by bad refereeing.History is full of examples of how bad refereeing has tarnished the beautiful game. There were other serious refereeing blunders committed in the run up to the tournament.

Despite calls for a replay of the game, FIFA insisted that human error is part of the game, hence technology will not be accommodated in the near future.

The Irish people were hurt, but they had nothing to do because they love football madly.

Nobody will ever forget how the French team qualified for the World Cup finals after Tierry Henry scored through a handball pushing Ireland out of the running

The English will never forget how a referee denied them the goal that would have tied the match at 2-2 against the German side, possibly changing the ultimate complexion of the game.The Mexicans, one of the great footballing nations, will live to hate the game for refreeing blunders that cost them a game to Argentina.

Many hearts have been broken at the South African soccer stadia in the past three weeks as referees made surprising decisions some of which raised suspicions about the current state of health of the game. We join others in calling for goal-line technology, especially at games of this magnitude at the World Cup, CAF and at club level.

Today's football is about huge money and some referees could be making a killing hiding behind the 'human error' aspect.

With the technology in place, it will take a few seconds to verify a decision and the match will continue just like it happens in other sports such as rugby and tennis.

We believe that FIFA believes in fair play and it does not want to see soccer lovers hurting for the sake of the retention of the human element in the game. We do also caution that technology should not be used to spoil the game by calling for its use with every referee's decision.

We support goal-line technology because it is only goals that matter in tournaments such as the World Cup. It is the goals that differentiate teams on the ground and only goals can bring a team the trophy.

                                                                Today's thought

                           'Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.'

                                                              -Anonymous