It seems the world game is beginning to buckle to the trends set by the likes of tennis, rugby league, American football, and cricket (among others) and allow the use of technology to assist umpires in decision making.
For this humble little sports fan at least, this rapid expansion is not overly comfortable.
Yesterday, English Football Association (FA) general secretary Alex Horne announced that it is likely that the FA will approve the use of goal-line technology, following FIFA’s decision to use the new umpiring tool at the upcoming Confederations Cup in Brazil.
I understand people want the ‘right’ result, that everything has to be fair, and that sport is now measured to the length of a nanometre.
Perhaps everyone has just accepted it.
But here are the worries with technology that have kept me up at night, wide awake and rolling around, trying to avoid landing my head on the pillow’s Kentucky Fried hot spot.
The first concern is the quality of some of the technology.
For instance, Hawk Eye has a 3.6mm margin of error, and only predicts the trajectory of a ball based on the trajectory it has seen, so using the technology to predict an LBW (after the ball hits the batsmen) is basically an educated guess.
There have definitely been cases, in both cricket and tennis, where a Hawk Eye call looked wrong for all the world to the naked eye.
The usually indomitable AFL are also guilty in this respect – the goal-line replays are poor quality, at bad angles, and apparently the computer control voice the umpires hear is Bruce McAvaney. Would you like to replay Cyril’s Kick? Delicious!
These inaccuracies wouldn’t bother me so much if the technology was not deemed as the final, correct, and only answer all the time.
Another thing I don’t understand is how all this new-fangled technology has managed to increase the amount of umpires.
A teacher once said to me that the only problem with the legal system is the amount and type of people in it. Technology has just added another person to bugger up the decision making process.
It also seems to me that, in having a third match official, it is a bit like the umpires are being bossed around by a faceless man who knows more than they do. They have become Charlie’s Angels!
I actually prefer the NFL style where the umpires look at the replays themselves.
As an idea, you could give the cricket umpires a tablet (shown simultaneously on the big screen) to see what they are looking for, yet they could still make their own independent decision.
Perhaps technology has also eroded a bit of the characteristics of good sportsmanship – batsmen walking, players telling the ref what happened under the pile up over the tryline – but it’s also there to replace its loss.
That is probably a bigger issue to contemplate.
Perhaps what is bugging me is more than just the technology, or the umpires.
It is this modern day fear of someone being jilted, which is taking a bit of the drama and emotion out of sport. Wayne Harmes’ slapping the ball back over the line in the ’79 grand final is remembered because it is still controversial, not because the umpire got it right.
Same with the Berisha penalty in last year’s exciting A-League grand final, was it or wasn’t it?
That moment really created a great rivalry between the Glory and Roar, and (at least temporarily) unified the Perth fans.
I love arguing with my mates about whether a ball fully went over the sideline, or whether it was going down leg side. It gets us passionate.
It makes sport more exciting by becoming a little bit more unpredictable. Having a thousand different replays and all this technology puts an end to part of that.
Off course I realise there are situations, like tennis and sprinting and the bottom of mauls, where it is physically impossible to make correct decisions. I know the crowd gets right into the try or no try decisions.
To me, however, having too many of these replays, sensors, radars, GPS trackers and whatever else is bit like being hungry and only having weight watcher meals in the fridge.
You know you have to eat it, but it is a bit plastic, lacks some spice, and no matter what the packet says, it is not authentic Italian.
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