Posted on 06/29/2010 5:18:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
JOHANNESBURG (AP)—FIFA will look again at introducing video technology to assist referees after president Sepp Blatter apologized to England and Mexico for the officiating errors that helped eliminate them from the World Cup.
Blatter said Tuesday that FIFA will reopen debate on high-tech methods to improve decision-making on the pitch following mistakes in Sunday’s matches in Bloemfontein and Johannesburg.
“Naturally, we deplore when you see the evidence of referees’ mistakes,” said Blatter, adding it would be “a nonsense” for FIFA not to look again at goal-line technology with its rule-making panel.
“After having witnessed such a situation,” Blatter said, referring to England’s non-goal against Germany, “we have to open again this file, definitely.
“Naturally, we will take on board again the discussion about technology. Something has to be changed.”
The refereeing system won’t be changed midway through the World Cup. Blatter said the panel, known as the International Football Association Board, would begin considering changes at a July meeting in Cardiff, Wales.
FIFA can still block any eventual proposal because it retains an effective voting veto at the rules-making body.
Blatter said his apologies were accepted by England and Mexico team officials at the matches.
“The English said ‘thank you.’ The Mexicans, they just go with the head,” Blatter said, indicating that they nodded. “I understand that they are not happy. It was not a five-star game for refereeing.”
England was denied a clear goal when Frank Lampard’s shot bounced down from the crossbar over the goal line. That would have leveled the match against Germany at 2-2. Germany advanced 4-1. Argentina led 1-0 against Mexico when Carlos Tevez scored while clearly offside. Argentina won 3-1.
The errors created a worldwide furor and put pressure on FIFA, which has long opposed allowing officials to use technology to assist in decision-making.
(Excerpt) Read more at g.sports.yahoo.com ...
WC ping!
Don’t forget the couple of times they screwed the US team.
Wow! They have a President Blatter and we have a President Blabber!
you can't get away from it at sports bars. It's just weird. Guys PRETENDING to fall down and PRETENDING to get hurt in order to somehow get a chance to score one goal and then stall till the clock runs out.
It takes skill, I get it. But so does bowling, curling, archery, growing Bonsai, croquet, tiddly winks, badminton, tying a good knot with a cherry stem in your mouth.... but I'm not gonna watch it on TV unless there's nekid women doing those aforementioned "sports".
Hell, womens NBA is starting to look interesting. I just want them to keep letting the officials make the wrong score and replaying it on the jumbo-tron television so that maybe a full blown soccer riot breaks out. (same mentality as NASCAR, ya go to drink beer, listen to music in the outfield and look at wrecks).
Why would anyone care?
This WC has had the worst officiated series of matches that I have witnessed in the last 16 years. I am not a big fan of TV replays to chastise the officials but something must be done to correct the terrible calls without interfering with the pace of the game.
“Naturally, we deplore when you see the evidence of referees’ mistakes,”OK, I think I've got it — he's deploring your seeing the evidence of them while not deploring the referees' mistakes themselves?
While English not being Blatter's first language may be garbling his message a bit, he's certainly got the instincts of a Democrat politician when it comes to placing blame.
Doesn’t count be because the bureaucratic euro soccer snobs of FIFA screw us anytime they can. Thus only England and Mexico get apologies.
Yes - when I first saw this post I thought it had to do with our President ('President Blather') - especially when I saw the 'apologizes' in the parenthesis...
Nobody screwed us as hard as we screwed ourselves in the first half of that game vs. Ghana.
I'm not so sure that's what some of them meant...
“Don’t like it?..Watch something else.”
Well put.
“Doesn’t count be because the bureaucratic euro soccer snobs of FIFA screw us anytime they can. Thus only England and Mexico get apologies.”
Well put.
No apologies to all the other teams that got screwed out of goals (U.S. comes to mind)?
Excellent? No.
Batter takes a page from the Obama playbook. Instead of cleaning up the corruption and incompetence in his own organization, he’s looking into “technology”.
Officiating mistakes (blatant ones) occur in every sport. Look at Jim Joyce’s call in the perfect game that wasn’t earlier this year.
The guys on ESPN were yapping about a blown strike call (the ball was 8-12 inches off the plate) that cost the Tigers a game. Yesterday, I think.
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