The stage was set for Gui Finkler to score from a free kick. It was 2-2 in the second half against cross town rivals Melbourne City and Finkler executed a near perfect free kick.
Up and over the wall the ball went, leaving City goalkeeper Thomas Sorenson stranded on his line, off the post and in by about 20 centimetres.
Except it didn’t count.
The referee let play go as if the ball hadn’t crossed the line, and the linesman hadn’t raised his flag to indicate otherwise. Victory were furious, City counting how many lives they had left.
It turned into the second major talking point of the night after Victory ‘fans’ lit flares and threw objects onto the ground proceeding the no-goal call.
Victory players, staff and fans were clearly disappointed that their team had been disallowed a clear goal that would have put them in the driving seat of the game at 3-2. However, with no goal-line technology or additional referees, the crowd was forced to sit and watch the goal on the big screens around AAMI Park.
Similar to the Adam Voges no-ball incident in the first Test against New Zealand last week, many supporters of both football and cricket have called for the use of replays to clarify key moments that can change games.
Yet, the only solution that the FFA could possibly implement in the A-League is the use of a goal-line referee, as the FFA and major clubs will struggle to fund the use of goal-line technology used in the EPL. Reports throughout various media suggest the technology could cost around $400,000.
Both referees should be able to tell if a ball has crossed the line, especially by how much the ball crossed over in this instance. In the linesman’s defence, he does have to focus on the offside rule and maybe the main referee was blinded by the wall, but it brings around another issue of professional coaching among referee’s through both the FFA and FIFA.
“The linesman’s positioning could have been much better… I know it’s far but he wasn’t doing much and he could’ve helped the referee,” Finkler said.
It’s certainly something that does need to be addressed not just for the finals series, but also the normal season of the A-League, but there are only a few cases of this event happening each season so is it even worth the consideration and implementation by the FFA?
Maybe, but that is for them to decide upon and for us fans to hope that in the future, cases such as this are avoided.
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