Referrees Need Another Pair of Glasses: Technology

 Refereeing hit its all-time-low when Ecuadorian official, Carlos Vera, awarded a penalty to Greece’s Samaras in a crucial do-or-die match against Ivory Coast. Replays clearly showed that Samaras tripped on his own with minimum interference from Ivory Coast’s defender Giovanni Sio.

Source- www.scmp.com

The Ivory Coast players were left in dismay as Greece toppled them to move to the next round. This controversial penalty decision, not a first in this tournament, gave an added importance to the FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s plan to introduce video referees.

Blatter, who had been an opponent of the goal-line technology, took a complete U-turn to include the feature in this year’s tournament after English player, Frank Lampard, was denied a goal against Germany in the last World Cup.

“Why don’t we give team managers the possibility of two challenges for refereeing during a match? If a manager disagrees with a decision, he could ask for an immediate TV review with a referee.”

-FIFA President Sepp Blatter

Blatter’s revolutionary idea has attracted a lot of criticisms. The International Football Association chief executive, Stewart Regan countered by saying, “It would be a complete departure from what we’ve said so far in that goal-line technology is black and white. If a manager has an appeal and that results in the game being stopped, that interferes with how you and I understand football operates.”

Almost all popular games in today’s world like cricket and tennis have used technology to good use to reduce errors--errors which we can do without.

In this World Cup, what is done cannot be undone. However, it’s high time that after these controversial penalties, Blatter’s idea should be implemented. A bad decision can break millions of hearts or morale of players who have toiled hard for 4 years just to get a shot at the coveted cup.

With the advent of technology, the fans and players could be spared of such a horror in the near future.

The penalty, which was awarded to Brazil, which showed that there was no intentional foul made by the Croatian defender.

“If that was a penalty we don’t need to play football any more.”

-Niko Kovac, Croatian Coach, after this World Cup’s controversial match against Brazil

-Sayan Ganguly