As a famous Albert Einstein once said: ‘I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction.’ Technology is slowly becoming an even more important factor in our lives with it being used to fulfil a varied amount of needs. The human interaction is in decline due to the advance of technology in recent years.
Technology has been frequently used to affect the lives of those in sport; video technology is being used in rugby, line review technology has been implemented into tennis and replay vision has been added to basketball.
As a result of the success of technology in sport, footballers are calling for more technology to be introduced to the game. With technology advancing every day, will the introduction of more technology benefit the English game more?
The idea of introducing technology into the English game has been around for many years. The 2013/14 Premier League season saw the debut of technology in football with the goal line technology system. The system was first decisively used to award Eden Dzeko with a goal against Cardiff City. Ever since then, goal line technology has proven to be a success to English football and to football all over the world.
Whenever the full ball crosses the line, the system will alert the officials that the goal should be given. If the whole ball doesn’t cross the line then the officials will not be alerted to give a goal.
The World Cup, Premier League and now also the Bundesliga are all using the goal line technology system to help enhance the game for the better.
After the recent Arsenal v Liverpool game (ending 0-0), footballer Aaron Ramsey called for more technology to be involved into the English game in order to make it fairer and also to support and make crucial decisions to the game.
The Arsenal midfielder requested video technology to be introduced following his goal versus Liverpool being disallowed due to him being offside. However, the video replays afterwards showed that Ramsey was actually onside and that the goal should have stood.
If the goal was allowed, Arsenal would have been winning the game 1-0 and the rest of the match could have ended in a complete different way. This one inaccurate decision could effect both teams in the long run because the game could have had a different ending with either team walking away with all three points – instead of one point each.
Consequently, this has not been the first time that offside goals have been a major factor of the game. Goals have been awarded when the player was offside and goals have been disallowed when the player was onside at numerous occasions during football games.
The introduction of a video technology system would benefit the world of football because it would help clear the mistakes made by the referee and linesmen. The system would be able to identify if a player was offside or not, it could also be used to see the extent of a tackle to see what punishment the player should get.
This would be an overall success to football because of the fact that there would no longer be mistakes. Each game played would be fair and the final result would be accurate due to the help of technology. Offside decisions would be accurate and goals would be allowed/disallowed based on the results on the system.
However, video technology is not new to sport overall due to the fact that it is being used in rugby. The officials use the technology to see if a potential try should be given. After observing the play, they would decide the result and then display on screen to alert if the try was given or not. Video technology has proven to be a success to rugby so using it in football should be able to receive similar results.
A study of the 2010/11 Premier League season revealed that: “errors took place nearly 30% of the time that video replays could help prevent.” Mistakes have always been known in football that could effectively change the course of the season, or an individual game. If video technology was apart of the 2010/11 league season, these errors would have been solved and the league could have had a complete different outcome.
Despite all of the success of goal line technology and the potential video technology to be introduced into football, there is also a lot of criticism that has been said about the rise of technology in football.
With technology taking over all of the decisions, the human element in football is lost due to the lack of interaction the officials will have in game. Arguments between the ref and linesman will become inconsistent whilst the overall job of the linesman will be limited due to the overpower of video technology.
In addition to this, the consistency of looking to video replays to make decisions could possibly end the flow and intensity of plays. Losing twenty to thirty seconds of football just to observe the video replay to make the final decision could quite easily take away the flow from the team and interrupt a potential play.
Despite the criticism that goal line and video technology have received, it is about time that English football joins other sports including: rugby, baseball and cricket in implementing more technology in order to help prevent any more mistakes from happening.
Will more technology benefit the English game? – Quite easily, yes.
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John Smith 