AS SOCCER’S GOVERNING body today moved closer towards implementing goal-line technology, the Football Association of Ireland welcomed the decision.
Almost a year after the trauma of Thierry Henry’s crucial handball in the second leg of a delicately-poised World Cup play-off in Paris, football’s rule-making group International FA Board (IFAB) set a deadline of November 20 for companies to present their goal-line products.
Global body FIFA will then make a decision, according to FourFourTwo.
Speaking to The Score this afternoon, an FAI spokesman said: “We welcome the decision of the IFAB to re-examine the use of goal-line technology. The use of video technology for matches at the highest level has been resisted for too long and this decision may be a positive step for the future of the game.”
In the aftermath of the play-off defeat to France last year, the FAI recommended a number issues to the FIFA Executive Committee. Among those raised was ‘the introduction of video technology for matches at the highest level’ while they also urged the implementation of additional goal-line assistant referees for all FIFA international matches.
Before today, Abbotstown bosses have stepped back from the ongoing debate on video technology.
Much-maligned FIFA president Sepp Blatter – who was personally petitioned by Irish chief John Delaney in the immediate aftermath of the Stade de France fiasco - asked IFAB to reconsider an earlier decision which ruled out the future use of goal-line technology after Frank Lampard’s ‘goal’ was disallowed against Germany in South Africa last summer.
FIFA said in a statement earlier that the technology would apply solely to the goal line, and only to determine whether a goal has been scored or not; that the system must be accurate; the indication of whether a goal had been scored must confirmed within one second; and the result would only be communicated to the match officials.
A FIFA statement read:
A deadline of the end of November 2010 was set for companies to initially present their technologies to FIFA.
A proposed testing period will then take place with a selected number of companies, prior to the IFAB annual general meeting on 4-6 March 2011, when the next steps of the process will be determined.
