Premier League: Goal Line Technology Finally Introduced for Next Season

After years of heated debate and constant controversy, football governing bodies have finally taken steps to bring goal line technology (GLT) to the sport. Incidents such as the ruling out of Scottish club Hibernian’s Leigh Griffiths’ dazzling free kick in the most recent Edinburgh derby and Frank Lampard’s infamous goal that never was against Germany will become a thing of the past as FIFA plan to implement goal line technology in this year’s Confederations Cup tournament. Premier League clubs will also be installing technology in their grounds, while the FA hopes to add the feature to their famous Wembley stadium in London.

Football will be joining a long list of sports that have already brought in some form of technology to assist in the officiating of matches. Rugby referees have the ability to speak to officials watching television replays of incidents if they wish to before awarding tries, while tennis and cricket make use of similar technology to what will be introduced to football. The British HawkEye system determines whether a ball landed in or out of the court and helps cricket umpires call players out on the LBW rule with no controversy. It appears that GLT can only be a good thing for football.

Despite these blatant benefits, not everything about GLT is positive. The introduction of technology to the sport undermines a referee’s responsibilities over the game—a referee’s decision will no longer be final. This does not seem to be an issue for GLT in particular, but it could slide football into a slippery slope where referees become nothing but puppets of technology running around the pitch. Where do we draw the line on what should be determined by a human and what should be called by a computer?

In addition to this, apart from the famous clubs of leagues such as the Premier League and Germany’s Bundesliga, most football clubs can’t afford to spend vital money on something football seems to function fine without. This leads to a two tier professional game where the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal never face goal related controversy whereas minnows like Port Vale and Plymouth Argyle trudge on like before.

However, when you look at incidents like "goals" I mentioned earlier as well as the success of similar technology in other sports, it’s hard to have any real argument against the introduction of GLT. The calls to bring it in have been made for years now—it’s about time FIFA actually listened.