This season will finally see the introduction of goal line technology across all three divisions of the English Football League. This will bring them in line with the Premier League, which has used the system since the 2013/14 season.
Goal line technology is something close to the heart of Chelsea fans, many of whom believe that it would have saved their ill-fated Champions League campaign in 2005. Few Blues fans will ever forget the controversy that surrounded Luis Garcia’s 4th minute strike in the Champions League semi final at Anfield. With the scores standing at 0-0 after the first leg at Stamford Bridge, there was everything to play for at Anfield.
Garcia’s shot was dramatically hooked off the line by William Gallas, but the goal was still awarded by referee Lubos Michel, sending the Blues out of the competition, and sending Liverpool off to create history on an epic night in Istanbul. Many fans believe that the ball did not cross the line, and Jose Mourinho famously declared it a ‘ghost goal’, yet the score stood and Chelsea lost 0-1 as a result. They had to wait until 2008 to get their revenge in the corresponding fixture.
Chelsea favourite, Frank Lampard, also experienced the reverse frustration in 2010, when his ‘goal’ against Germany in the World Cup was disallowed, despite replays showing it had clearly crossed the line.
Needless to say, Chelsea were first in the queue to welcome the introduction of goal line technology into the Premier League, and it has proved a success across the game. The introduction of the system into the lower leagues next season will be equally welcome, and it even saved the day for one non-league club last year, as part of the FA Cup.
As Manager, Danny Cowley admitted, National League side, Lincoln City, may not have been awarded their winning goal had it happened in their own league without Hawk Eye. However, thanks to goal line technology, they beat Premier League side Burnley, to become the first non-league side in 103 years to reach the FA Cup quarter finals.
Goal line technology uses the same Hawk Eye system that is deployed in tennis, for line calls, and famously in cricket for those all-important LBW decisions. The system uses multiple cameras to follow the ball, with the position being decided based on a combination of different camera angles. By triangulating this information, Hawk Eye is said to be accurate to within 4mm – which is much more accurate than the human eye of a referee or umpire, who is often standing many yards away from the incident.
Welcoming the decision, Shaun Harvey, the EFL Chief Executive was at pains to point out that the system is there to support, not replace, on field officials. “Professional officials do an incredible job, and this decision is about providing them with as much support as possible to ensure they are best placed to make the right calls in even the most difficult of situations.”
Technology like this is changing sports and games across the board. Even the simple game of poker has enjoyed a boom as players start to analyse the game with computer generated stats and systems. Every poker hand can now be intricately assessed, with the best poker players studying the odds for every possible combination and every opposition hand that could be out there to beat their own. Just like goal line technology, the aim of this new poker technology is to try and take the element of chance out of the game, and help minnows like Lincoln beat the best poker players in the game, either at online poker or live poker tournaments.
With a proven pedigree in the Premier League, the Bundesliga and Serie A, goal line technology can only be a good thing for the EFL, and for English football as a whole. It’s just a shame we can’t send the system back in time to Anfield in 2005…
