GLT: Why Technology Is Not The Answer

simon Kelsey, 14 Feb 13

Simon Kelsey on why he believes technology should stay out of football.

WHEN Ifab, the International FA Board, meets next month to discuss this years' potential
changes to the laws of the game, the introduction of technology will be a major talking
point.
On the one hand there will be the proposal by the Scottish FA to introduce in to players'
shirts microchips that will monitor data, including heart rate and distance covered, in an
effort to prevent another scenario such as that faced by Fabrice Muamba when he suffered a
heart attack on the field last year.
On the other, there is bound to be further debate about goal-line technology and its
introduction to the game, following a trial at the Club World Cup in Japan in December.
Technology in football is a subject that I have always been slightly queasy about. After all,
one of the great attributes of football over many other sports is the fact that not only does
one require very little in the way of equipment to get involved, but also that the game is
essentially the same whether one has jumpers for goalposts or Wembley Stadium.
Goal-line technology, great though it might be for the very small number of clubs who can
afford to invest in the technology required, is just the thin end of a wedge which will end up
being driven not just between the Premier League and the grassroots of the game, but also
between the Premier League and the Football League.

If a working, approved GLT system is a requirement for entry to the Premier League then
that will be yet another cost added on to the enormous expense for a Championship club
winning promotion. Many within the game would like to see Ifab go further and introduce
the use of video replays for a whole range of purposes, from whether the ball has gone out
of play to offsides or whether penalties and free kicks should be awarded. Tell you what,
why not just go a stage further and get rid of those pesky referees who are always messing
things up? We could just give Alan Hansen a TV screen and a remotely-operated whistle
instead. Guaranteed correct decisions all the time, apparently.
Like GLT, video technology might be great for the World Cup. It might even be great for the
Premier League. But how does it help the League Two or Conference Premier club for whom
promotion is a no less vital goal? How does it help the two million people in this country
alone - and a hundred times that worldwide - who play competitive football on a Sunday
morning?
It's easy to decry Ifab as luddites scared of progression. But the truth is that they recognise
their duty is to make the laws of the game for 240 million people worldwide, not just for a
handful of the elite. And that is why the introduction of technology to assist in decision
making is wrong, and why, on this occasion, Sepp Blatter is right (now there's a phrase I
never expected to write).
The game is about so much more than the Premier League, and as soon as you start writing
things in to the laws about video technology then you have a situation where the game is no
longer universal. At that point you have to start writing two rulebooks - one for the elite and
one for the rest of us plebs. Is that what we really want?
'Ah, but look at cricket' I hear you cry. 'Look how Hawkeye has made a difference.' Yes - it
has made a difference. You're right. It means that techniques learnt at the grassroots can
no longer be applied at Test level. Spinners must now bowl a straighter line in matches
using the DRS (Decision Review System) in the hope of getting lbws. Batsmen who would
have padded deliveries away now have to alter their technique dramatically. Shouts for lbw
which would have been turned down are now more likely to be given. Dave Richardson,
General Manager of the International Cricket Council, has admitted that DRS has affected
the game 'slightly more than we thought it would.'
Let those words be a caution to anybody pushing for the introduction of technology to
football. Once the genie is out of the bottle, the impact it has becomes very difficult to
control, and you can guarantee that the law of unintended consequences will be invoked to
maximum effect. Let's think carefully before we unleash an unpredictable monster upon the
game.