Soccer has become hugely popular in recent years and is now generating billions of pounds every year. Because the financial rewards have increased there is a growing call for the introduction of technology to assist match officials in reducing the amount of refereeing mistakes that are made.
There have been numerous ideas considered by FIFA including having extra linesmen and also officials placed behind the goals. The referral system that is used in sports like rugby, tennis and cricket and others has been proven to significantly reduce the worst examples of mistakes made by the referees and umpires.
When you have incidents where goals are given when the ball has not gone anywhere near the goal then it strengthens the argument for the introduction of some sort of referral system. The main argument against using such a method is the interruption it would cause. Challenging or referring a decision to an official who had access to the required technology need not take too long as has been proven in other sportsthat currently use the system.
FIFA is reluctant to use the referral system but all teams would benefit in the long run. There is also an argument that relations between officials, managers and players would improve significantly with the reduction of controversial refereeing decisions.
If a referral system were introduced then it would have to be used selectively with each team having one opportunity to challenge or refer a decision in each 45 minute period. This would ensure that challenges would only be used for the most contentious decisions.
Football has become so big that officiating needs to improve accordingly. Referees may have become more accountable now that they have turned professional but there is still scope for improvement and using technology would certainly eliminate the human errors.
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The author is an experienced sports journalist and has a keen interest in sports betting, poker and financial trading you can see some of his work at Football Betting System which is a popular soccer betting resource for use on the betting exchanges.
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