The goal is....fair play

By Paul Flower on Mar 26, 10 02:05 PM

I have builders in my loft. It's not that I'm keeping them there against their will or anything, they are actually working. I might consider locking them up there until they've finished, or for long enough for me to hide from them when the bill is due, but that's another story.

This story is actually about technology. We're all technologically capable these days; we all have websites, e-mail, multiple social networking identities, etc. It's so much a part of our lives that we barely even think about how incredible it actually is - we take it for granted.

My builders, Steve & Simon, even have a great idea for a trade website - an idea they're currently researching with a view to launching later this year. The fact that this should surprise no-one is further proof that we are all at one with the technological age; unless you work for FIFA that is.

I was at the Hawthorns on Wednesday night for my regular dose of masochism and anger-management practice. It was a poor match and we looked very weary towards the end when Coventry were harassing us and beating us to every ball, it didn't do much for my nerves when they came close to equalising in the 95th minute either.

This said I could have been a lot more relaxed had Robert Koren's first half shot been given as the goal it so clearly was - with Cov goalkeeper Keiron Westwood obviously collecting the ball from behind the goal-line. These highlights are inconclusive but I've seen repeated footage and trust my own vision of Westwood in his own net scooping the ball forwards.

These incidents happen all the time, it happened to Birmingham at Portsmouth and will happen to other teams before the season is out - and every time it happens we hear pundits and managers moaning to the FA & FIFA that something must be done. Nothing ever is though as FIFA continually reiterates its trust in the system of rule by referee.

Their only concession seems to have been the addition of multiple referees, so we now have more people to blame. There's a referee in the stands and the linesmen are now also called assistant referees, although no-one ever calls them that (I normally use many choice expletives). Indeed the only assistance they seem to provide is to agree with the referee's decisions.

Barely a game goes by where the 'assistant referee' waits to give a verdict until the ref has made up his mind, even on decisions where the linesman was much closer to the play. All these incidents give further stress to the theory of why watching football is a real exercise in managing my anger.

I can sympathise with the excuse that we don't want to hold games up to review video evidence but would've thought the ball crossing the line could probably be authenticated in other ways - sensors on balls and posts perhaps? Maybe I'm not as conversant with technology as I think I am.

The real problem is with hapless referees and their incompetent assistants. I know it's a difficult job because I've struggled to do it myself with under-11's but I haven't had the training and I don't get paid so I can claim some excuse. The professionals meanwhile are beyond criticism as league managers face censure and fines for even questioning their performance.

In honesty I don't think that referees should be the fall-guys, they deserve the respect they get from rugby players (a game which does utilise modern day communication and assessment) - technology could help them.....but FIFA say no.

Worse still that they try to find justification for saying no: Jonathan Ford, chief executive of the Welsh FA, in justifying FIFA's decision said that debates such as England's third goal in their 4-2 win over West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final were part of the game.

"The human element of the game is a critical component of it," he said. "It's the thing ultimately we end up debating. That's the beauty of the game and it's what keeps people talking in the pubs afterwards."

Maybe this is the problem: representatives of minor football nations having an input into decisions which could cost teams of bigger countries dearly. Would Jonathan Ford be happy if Cardiff or Swansea fail to make the play-off's due to a 'ball across the line' incident?

Would he then appreciate the banter in South Wales pubs should such a decision - or lack of one - result in one of those teams failing to make the Premiership and thus losing the potential for millions of pounds of revenue?

I suspect not. I suspect instead that Mr Ford would be considered to be a knob, or maybe an assistant knob, disconnected from the rest of us who are all capable of appreciating what technology can do and how it can help us.

Of course it could be a generational issue, maybe the head guys at FIFA are amongst some of those people who can only read their e-mails when they're printed out and given to them at the same time that they're being spoon-fed one of their expensive lunches or dinners maybe.

The truth is that we'll never know - we know it'll happen one day though, by which time we may have all moved onto fairer sports that can't be ruined by the actions of one or three individuals.