Events last night showed precisely why the decision to introduce goal line technology is WRONG. Had the technology been in place, the consensus is that Ukraine would have been awarded a goal. But that would have been an injustice to England, since immediately prior to the ball being put in the net, there was an offside which went unnoticed by the officials. The fact is that "no goal" was the correct outcome, but was only achieved courtesy of two incorrect decisions.
The particular case does not matter, the general principle does. A caller to 606 after the match made the point very cogently. Goal line technology will take one, not very common, critical decision away from officials. But the effect of that will be to increase the focus on other critical decisions, such as offside decisions. There are far more cases of "injustice" through bad offside decisions than through decisions about whether the ball crossed the goal line. Likewise through whether the ball was over the byline, or touch line, whether a player handled the ball, and so on. People argue that at least goal line decisions will be removed from the equation, there can't be anything bad in that. But there can! As last night showed. More importantly, you are giving up on the principle that, right or wrong, the decision of the officials is final. If getting the award of a goal right becomes so important that you have to give up on that principle, then you must go beyond the relatively few goal line controversies and take similar steps to eliminate the far more common types of critical decision.
The real answer, IMO, is for the football authorities to stop making games harder and harder to referee by complex changes to or interpretations of the rules (e.g. offside, hand ball, etc). Make the officials' task easier and you will get fewer refereeing errors.
The particular case does not matter, the general principle does. A caller to 606 after the match made the point very cogently. Goal line technology will take one, not very common, critical decision away from officials. But the effect of that will be to increase the focus on other critical decisions, such as offside decisions. There are far more cases of "injustice" through bad offside decisions than through decisions about whether the ball crossed the goal line. Likewise through whether the ball was over the byline, or touch line, whether a player handled the ball, and so on. People argue that at least goal line decisions will be removed from the equation, there can't be anything bad in that. But there can! As last night showed. More importantly, you are giving up on the principle that, right or wrong, the decision of the officials is final. If getting the award of a goal right becomes so important that you have to give up on that principle, then you must go beyond the relatively few goal line controversies and take similar steps to eliminate the far more common types of critical decision.
The real answer, IMO, is for the football authorities to stop making games harder and harder to referee by complex changes to or interpretations of the rules (e.g. offside, hand ball, etc). Make the officials' task easier and you will get fewer refereeing errors.
