Video technology in football - is it needed?

[Acker79]

The question of manpower is not a problem as refs have to retire at a young age so it would be easy to have a retired official who is unable to run and ref the game but is quite capable of watching a tv monitor with radio connection to the ref. It will come it is just a matter of how and when it will be implemented..

The retirement age for referees has been discarded as it fell foul of age discrimination laws.

You'd still need to teach them how to operate the video machinery, and old people are notorious awkward with modern technology (heck, some younger officials have trouble operating the subs board!)

Unless you're suggesting they watch tv and re-ref the game at the same time, still undermining the ref and going against the basic tenet of referees being the ultimate authority on a given match.

 

[BensGrandad]

I am not technically minded but I think that I could back track on a tv, as I do it quite a lot with my Sky plus, so it is not a great achievement, that anybody could do if requested by the ref via his radio.

 

[Acker79]

I am not technically minded but I think that I could back track on a tv, as I do it quite a lot with my Sky plus, so it is not a great achievement, that anybody could do if requested by the ref via his radio.

Do you view your sky plus on a jumbotron?

 

[BensGrandad]

What is a jumbotron so obviously not, but I can still stop and pause and rewind to look ar incidents many times within seconds of them happening.

 

[strings]

The retirement age for referees has been discarded as it fell foul of age discrimination laws.

You'd still need to teach them how to operate the video machinery, and old people are notorious awkward with modern technology (heck, some younger officials have trouble operating the subs board!)

Unless you're suggesting they watch tv and re-ref the game at the same time, still undermining the ref and going against the basic tenet of referees being the ultimate authority on a given match.

In rugby union the TMO (video official) doesn't operate any machinery/technology. He sits next to the TV director and asks for the angles he wants and the speed of replay he wants. The TV director is responsible for ensuring the technology happens. The TMO will simply ask for the replays again and again until he is satisfied.

So I think we can discard any arguments about match officials not being able to operate technology, because they don't necessarily need to do so.

(I'm against the use of TV replays, but thought I would offer a solution to your problem)

 

[m20gull]

How's that different to ANY other sport, Easy? If it makes the game ANY more fair and correct (which it obviously would) then it's a good thing.

I'm not sure about the obviously. In NFL you get two challenges and lose a timeout if you are wrong. Last week the Raiders missed out on what would have been a successful challenge because they had used them up. The replays did not actually make the game more fair or correct unless there had been unlimited challenges.

The other thing that has surprised me in the NFL is how difficult it is to get a good decision on the replays even with loads of cameras and a play-based game. Often you look at a call and can not decide simple things like whether a foot is down inside or on the line. And you get subjective challenges about whether someone had control of the ball or not.

I can't see that cameras in the NFL do anything more than give fans (and presumably coaches and players) something else to argue about.

I'm comfortable with goal-line technology (is the ball over the line or not) because that must be cheap and easy to achieve in the professional game and is not a question of referee's judgement. I'm also comfortable with referees making mistakes; it's all part of the emotional joy of watching live sport.

 

[BensGrandad]

I am not generally in faviour of tv replays etc other than for the ball crossing the line or defining a foul in or out of the penalty area. Which would assist the ref rather than contradict any decision he has made because if it was debatable he would signal the foul and await the decision on whether it was a penalty or free kick. The same with a ball crossing the line if missed the tv ref could call him up immediately. We should, however not go down the road of the tv ref saying it was or wasnt a foul or possibly even offside as there are 2 capable men to decide that on the field of play, unless of course it was blatantly obvious and missed by both officials.

 

[Acker79]

I am not generally in faviour of tv replays etc other than for the ball crossing the line or defining a foul in or out of the penalty area. Which would assist the ref rather than contradict any decision he has made because if it was debatable he would signal the foul and await the decision on whether it was a penalty or free kick. The same with a ball crossing the line if missed the tv ref could call him up immediately. We should, however not go down the road of the tv ref saying it was or wasnt a foul or possibly even offside as there are 2 capable men to decide that on the field of play, unless of course it was blatantly obvious and missed by both officials.

How would you stop that progression though?

Once we say you can use VT to see if the ball crosses the line the argument will be a penalty is almost as good as a goal, so why not use VT to determine if it is a penalty or not? If you're already using VT to determine whether a "foul" occurs in or out of the box, why not extend that to see if it really is a foul?

What about offside? you get them wrong and you can stop a one-on-one with as equally high a chance of a goal as a penalty. So how can you not use VT for offsides when you use them for penalties? (Let play go, then check the video to see if it was offside).

And once you cave to that, which you will have to because of the logic behind it and the strength of feeling that will come from a couple of wrong penalty (non)awards, people will then start to argue for free kicks just outside the area.

Look at how many goals we've scored from set pieces this season, clear a good chance of a goal is being denied/wrongly awarded. With penalties being reviewed with VT we've already established a precedent for using VT when it isn't a 100% guarantee of a goal, so, although there is even less of a chance of goals from free kicks than from penalties, there's still a pretty good chance, getting those decisions wrong could cost a goal.

And if we're doing it with free kicks, why not corners? A lot of goals come from corners, too. We see corners given when it should be goal kicks, and vice versa, so we have to get those decisions right or risk costing a team a goal.

And most teams have a long through specialist, not all as good as Delap, granted, but most clubs have that player who can through one in like it's a floated corner, so what's the difference, we have VT for goal line decisions, penalties, offsides, corners, why not have them for throw ins as well?


Like easy says, thin end of the wedge.