Media Monster

International Soccer Governing Bodies Still Not Big Fans Of Replay Technology

The bevy of bad calls at the World Cup made it pretty clear that soccer needs to do something about officiating – unfortunately, FIFA’s reaction didn’t suggest much meaningful change was in the offing.

But there was still hope – perhaps UEFA, essentially the Europe-specific version of FIFA, might institute changes that would make officiating – and by extension, the game itself – better…say, in time for 2012′s European Championships. Unfortunately, UEFA’s actions – and comments by the organization’s former boss – offer a step in the right direction, but not nearly as big a step as they could have made.

Instead of new technology, UEFA will station extra referees behind each goal starting this year. This is a positive step, and may prevent more horrible calls like this one. However, we can’t get past former UEFA head Lennart Johansson’s view on using additional technology:

“I face facts that referees are human and humans make mistakes. This is a game for humans and not for robots.”

Ugh. (Emphasis ours.) Besides that, due to this clip (go to :30), we imagine that bolded line being spoken by Futurama’s Dr. Zoidberg, it also smacks unfortunately of the odious arguments (scroll down to the bottom of that link, if you dare) of of anti-sabermetric baseball fans that “computers don’t play the game.”

Here’s the thing: soccer/football will still be a game for humans, because humans will play the games, as well as make the calls. Technology is necessary for controversial calls, and if it can be used to right potential injustices, then bring it on. Dirty Tackle’s Brooks Peck gives Johansson’s opinion the respect it deserves…which is to say, not much:

All these people calling for instant replay and goalline technology must not have seen the Terminator movies. Well Lennart has! So he knows what happens when you start messing around with things like lasers and video and those crazy eight-track players.

The sooner some of these people can start losing their apparent fear of technology, the better. Humans do make mistakes, yes – but is it really a bad idea to have the potential to correct them? Would making officiating more accurate really rob a sport of its inherent beauty and charm? We think not, and only wish more people in charge thought the same way.

Photo via