Opinion Crossing the goal line

So on Tuesday,Fifa and its President Sepp Blatter had to apologise to England and Mexico and announce a re-look at goal-line technology. Nevertheless,Fifa’s instant reaction of banning replays of controversial match action on the giant stadium screens was more in character — shooting the messenger,burying its head in the sand of its blindness and arrogance. If anything was more outrageous,it was the press conference after Sunday’s errors to which Fifa made it a point to not send a single official overseeing referees. Rather than blame the replays,Fifa should have precluded the real cause for trouble. But to do that it would first need to shed its dinosaur tag.

For one,arguments about football’s native incompatibility with technology have been made ad nauseum. The game has been cleaned up to the point of a referee asking a goalkeeper to remove negligible confetti from the pitch — and stopping the game for doing so — to say nothing of the protection given to strikers and attacking midfielders (which makes Pele and Maradona rue they were born 40 or 20 years too soon),or the impossibility any longer of an Argentina needing to beat Peru by 4 goals to keep out a Brazil almost already in the final and then cakewalking through that encounter 6-0 (still the worst allegation of match-fixing and bribery in the WC,post-1934 ),or a referee blowing his whistle after the ball is shot and before it entered the net (Brazil vs Sweden,1978).

Yet,errors as witnessed in the 1966 England-West Germany final recur,even if as history’s revenge,or Luis Fabiano’s double handball goes unpunished — because Fifa keeps insisting that errors are as much a part of the game as goals and fouls. They are,and will be; but not at,literally,gamechanging junctures. Admittedly,referees long ceased enjoying a wide latitude to sway outcomes; and,undeniably,their or their assistants’ human eyes and ears will err. But to not come to their aid when help is close at hand,and in the process wound nations and ruin a referee’s reputation,is stubbornly callous.

Prominently on Fifa’s opposing side of the technology divide are the English Premier League and Fifpro,the international players’ union and… the entire football-loving world. When Fifa dropped the debate last March,Blatter had argued that video technology was “too expensive” for global application,that it would destroy the game’s “flow” and that its evidence was not conclusive. Football is indeed a free-flowing sport,very different from cricket or tennis,which have successfully applied technology but whose success is attributed to their stop-and-start character,deprived of the rhythm intrinsic to football. But then,hockey — football’s close rhythmic and rules cousin — uses technology for tight calls.

Referees and assistants can make or break a team in a split-second decision. Advocates of goal-line technology argue that the answer in close calls can be provided in half a second. Regardless of the debate between Hawk Eye (used in tennis for line calls,and cricket for lbw decisions by commentators but not umpires) or a micro-chip in the ball,the (Johan) Cruyff line is likely to see ready endorsements after Fifa’s latest humiliation — it’s all right,in fact necessary,to use cameras for goal-line; however,it’s best not to tie that to offside decisions which could further complicate what’s already so.

Football can never be fully cleaned up. But if it can be made 95 per cent error-free,that’s a lot. History’s weight is now decisively against Fifa’s refusal to evolve. The bottomline will have to be minimum,but indispensable,technology; referring only extraordinary calls; and strictly limiting appeals. If an overwhelming majority desire this change,they can’t all be wrong. A little investment in the right place,instead of additional assistants behind goals,and rhythmic interruptions can still stay well below the unwatchable and unplayable mark.

sudeep.paul@expressindia.com