by Gourab Modak

Created on: July 03, 2010

It's official: referee's cannot be trusted to make official decisions about when a ball crosses the goal line anymore. As everyone understood who watched the world cup Round of 16 game when Germany took on England, referee's can be fooled really easily, and we need technology to be introduced to find out when the ball crosses the goal line, and when a German goalie is trying to fool the ref.

Bad refereeing was not uncommon at the 2010 world cup, and it caused a lot of chaos in the world's most competitive football tournament. Not only were there a lot of bad calls, but there was also shower of cards (red and yellow) issued for the silliest reasons. One of the silliest, as many spectators can tell you, came when South Africa's goalie was sent off in an attempt to slow down Uruguay's explosive offense. What was even worse was the goal denying call by the head ref in the USA vs. Slovenia match. However, though the referee's in the tournament were a lot less than world class, goal line technology hasn't really been necessary during the tournament. Though there has been the instance where Germany fooled the referee while playing England in the Round of 16, it was probably the only time goal line technology has been necessary.

Perhaps that's why FIFA didn't have goal line technology at the 2010 World Cup. There hasn't been a lot of calls where this has been necessary in the history of football. Though the England vs. Germany game is a case where that was necessary, it is just an outlier in the history of the beautiful game. If anything, the quality of refereeing, and the integration of instant replay needs to happen. In the world's greatest stage for football, only the best teams play, and in that tournament, there should be no mistakes in what the refs call, or else it could send a team that worked hard to get to the World Cup back home.

Overall, the effect of goal line technology hasn't been noticeable. For one thing, goal line technology didn't make an appearance in the world cup. It hasn't been necessary to use technology to know whether the soccer ball has crossed the goal line in the world cup. The only problem has been with referees making horrible decisions, and disallowing goals that were scored fairly. However, FIFA has given a thought about this matter after the craziness of the World Cup, and might introduce goal line technology in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

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