It should be the referee's discretion and not a "challenge" that can be issued like in other sports. A guy should be allowed to use all the tools available to do his job properly, and shouldn't be denied tools that could so clearly be useful to him. Ref should confer with his team and if nobody saw it well enough, he should be able to look at the video. He can talk to them instantly on the headset "...did you see it? No? You? Play me the video." The video should be played on a small screen right in the same wallet where he keeps his cards. Technology is there and football ain't poor. Instead of protests and complaints and all the yadda yadda in this game there would be more simple decisions, less cheating, and in the end, the game would flow better, not worse.

This whole argument of things being "stop, start" is completely ridiculous. The game is already stop start, this would make the decision-making faster and more accurate and give the media, coaches, and players nothing at all to bitch about (I'm sure they'll find something). Wholeheartedly disagree with that article in absolutely every possible way. Its just the excuse the Plate and the Bladder use to keep corruption money flowing.

Seeing as the offside was not flagged prior to the whole of the ball crossing the whole of the line, recourse to goal line technology would have seen Ukraine been awarded a goal that should not stand?

Here's the gist of Nicholson's argument:

Goal-line tech would have awarded Ukraine a goal; a goal that was offside. England, rightly would complain that the application of this technology screwed them by only allowing one aspect of the move to be replayed and checked. Where is the fairness in that? The introduction of such technology is to iron out injustices but injustice happens all the time in football, stop one and you have to stop them all or you are no further forward as Tuesday night showed. Thus it is unsustainable to only have one form of technology and more will follow as sure as rhythm follows blues.

Pretty much every point he makes is bullshit.

The "fairness" of awarding Ukraine the goal would lie in the fact that the goal line decision was made correctly, even if the offside call wasn't. There's not a magical compensatory injustice hidden in the same run of play to balance out every major incorrect decision in football. That's not how it works.

The game will benefit from any incorrect decisions or unsportsmanlike behaviour you prevent with a new rule or method of enforcement. His claim, "stop one [injustice] and you have to stop them all", is false.

Advances are also achieved without the use of technology and contrarians of this guy's ilk (mostly) don't complain.

Administrators have struggled so long with the idea of introducing technology for goal line decisions that the "slippery slope" argument about opening the gate for other, more dubious uses carries little weight. Just moral panic nonsense.

All that said, I think retrospective video evidence for suspensions / reverses of incorrect cards would benefit the leagues more than goal line technology.

I would love - love - to see a player banned for 2-3 matches for diving on retrospective video. /Keegan

Think how quickly that'd fix that particular problem.

Let's sum the metaphors shall we?

It's not a slippery slope, but it is the thin end of the wedge. Oh, and of course, the door (floodgate?) would be opened.

I like the game because of its human aspects, all the imperfections errors and injustices, take away that and you have a cold technical demonstration and not human theatre.

Why? The game is already regulated by a technocratic rule-driven system aimed at eliminating these injustices (or niggles, imperfections, whatever) - that's why referees exist.

Just leave any two-bit challenge/review system out of it so as not to disrupt the "human theatre" and you're fine.

It's pure hidebound Luddism. There's no real difference (except accuracy) between goal line technology and having a linesman.

"I can't wait for the first wayward shot to smash the expensive and carefully calibrated hawkeye to bits"

This sort of event would happen very, very rarely. Less often than things like Darren Bent's beach ball goal. Less often than brawls, pitch invasions and postponements. And if the device helps in other cases it's still an overall improvement.

I don't know how you reconcile this view that football is chaos, decided by a sequence of unlikely tragedies with your widely stated view that the best team always wins.

To me that's just more magical thinking to go with the idea that the use of technology fundamentally alters the existing task of getting decisions right.

If football was introducing the concept of a goal line or a goal for the first time - that might be a significant change. Changing how it's tested whether the ball has crossed that line is just swapping one black box, the referee, for another that does the same job from an system analytical perspective.

@Biggs: you always say that the only thing that matters is the end result, and that the best team always wins regardless of how the relative quality of the competitors may appear, and that popular ideas about what constitutes superior football are distorted, and that the only effective football is that which produces end results, regardless of how they are achieved.

You consistently use this approach to deliver excoriating moral judgements against Arsenal. We weren't unlucky, we were shit. We weren't shit because of complex or chaotic factors such as injury or momentum, we were shit because Wenger doesn't train us properly. Etcetera.

It's not a stretch to claim that you reason based on a model in which the qualities of the side and its manager strongly determine end results. How do you reconcile this with your Ecclesiastes quote and your present claim that chance plays a definitive role?

Umm...goal line technology helps because it's pretty straightforward and does not waste time. Occasionally there will be controversy (which you get even with other sports) but not often enough to render the whole thing useless.

When a sport has billions of pounds at stake and winning/losing can almost overnight change the fortunes of a manager, it's crazy that it's still not been implemented. You'll still have enough controversy in the game to leave satisfied.

Meh You may have escaped this time.

No we don't. Equip sensors or just a freeze frame view.

In all honesty, the goal would have been given regardless because there was an official on the line! There have been numerous incidents in full view of those muppets which haven't been dealt with. I know they can't make a call on their own but surely they should be relaying some information to the referee?

Why? Offside decisions are still a grey area because of the first/second phase rules and happen far too frequently in a game to be reviewed.

'Did the ball go past the line?' is not.

And the Pandora's box has been opened a long time ago, there are inconsistencies in the rules already. Goal line tech will go some way to restoring sanity.

Biggus wrote:

Once you open Pandoras box you can't say I'll have that but I'll leave that.

Maaate … the thin end of a fucking big wedge is opening the door down the slippery slope to Pandora's Box.