By FRANCO PANIZO
The day so many soccer fans have been waiting for has arrived. Yes, goal-line technology has been approved by FIFA.
The decision was made by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) during a meeting in Zurich on Thursday, with two different systems getting the green light. Those systems are Hawk-Eye and GoalRef, and both will be used for the first time during the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan this December.
FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke also said the technology would be used in next summer's Confederations Cup as well as in the 2014 World Cup, both of which will be in Brazil. But he added that it is up to event organizers to decide which they want to use, and even then the technology has to pass more tests at every stadium in which they would be installed.
According to reports, Hawk-Eye is used in cricket and tennis and is based on optical recognition with cameras. GoalRef, meanwhile, uses magnetic sensors to track a special ball.
While such news might suffice for hordes of soccer fans around the world who had grown sick of seeing goals unjustly not given, there was also more to smile about from Thursday's meeting. Also approved by IFAB was five-man officiating crews, which have been tested in more than 1,000 matches during the past three years.
The approval of the larger referee crews, which have an additional official beside each goal, comes a couple weeks after a well-documented failure in the system at Euro 2012. Officials did not count a Ukraine goal that appeared to cross the goal line in their 1-0 loss to England, resulting in the Ukranians getting eliminated from the tournament which they co-hosted.
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What do you think of the decision to accept goal-line technology? Celebrating? Wondering how FIFA will corrupt these new systems?
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