Opinion Such a fine line

France made World Cup history on Sunday by becoming the first team to benefit from FIFA’s long-overdue embrace of video replays in awarding goals. Goal-line technology, as it is called, confirmed the first of France’s three goals against a hapless Honduras, which was unimpressed at suffering the indignity not only of going 0-1 down, but doing it, as replays showed, through an own goal. In any case, France went on to win 3-0, restoring predictability to a tournament reeling from defending champions Spain’s drubbing at the hands of the Netherlands. Also predictable was the outcry following the deployment of goal-line technology, in keeping with football’s long tradition of relative Luddism.

The controversy arose not due to problems with the automated goal-line system but rather with how some people interpreted what they saw on screen. Because the system caught the ball crossing the line after rebounding from the post (and the Honduran goalkeeper), the Honduras coach, a commentator and the France coach were left grasping for clarity. But that is not an argument against the technology itself, as some are suggesting. Indeed, given the stakes in modern football, FIFA should be working on ways to incorporate more technology, not less, to reduce the arbitrariness that comes with refereeing.

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Instead, many fans and most officials have long contended that integrating any technology into decision-making would slow the game down with endless referrals and intervention. This amounts to a rather flimsy excuse, however, as other sports have set several templates FIFA could look into. Cricket, for instance, has been using video evidence for decades. Tennis, which introduced the idea of subjective video challenges not so long ago, limits the number so as to not disrupt the rhythm — and television scheduling — of the matches too much. Video replays won’t right egregious errors of the past — the 1966 World Cup final, for instance, when one of England’s goals was controversial, to say the least — but it might prevent new ones.