"Make football technological"

Posted: June 14, 2010 by Daniel Vámosi Martinussen

The well-respected Danish football referee, Claus Bo Larsen, is a strong advocate of using technology in football. Actually he insists that the international football association, FIFA, starts to put it inside of the football.

The world renowned referee, Italian Pierluigi Collina, has suggested to integrate a chip inside the ball to help referees in the sometimes difficult judgements and now he gets support from Claus Bo Larsen.

"FIFA conducted tests with a microchip inside the ball during the World Cup for football clubs in 2007 in Japan where I was one of the referees and it worked brilliantly. I would very much appreciate if this was brought in so that referees do not accidentally cheat a team for a goal", says Claus Bo Larsen to tv2sport.dk.

Conducting the tests in Japan, a magnetic field was dug into field at the goal line, which would communicate with the chip inside the ball. As soon as the ball would cross the goal line an electronic massage would be sent to the referee's watch displaying the text "GOAL".

"It worked perfectly. The watch was a little heavy, though, but I would not mind that in order to avoid mistakes. As to why the idea has not been taken further I have no clue. It might be an expensive solution or perhaps the initiative has been politically influenced", says Claus Bo Larsen who believes the limit for technological aids should be set at the scorings.

"One could argue that each teem should be entitled to a 'challenge' as we see it in tennis. But having to stop the match several times in order to observe TV recordings to evaluate a potential penalty kick or off-side would result in numerous discussions on borderline cases", he says.

"Situations concerning 'hands-on' like Maradona's incident in 1986 or Thiery Henry recently is for the referee to handle. Otherwise we would need an impartial super-referee constantly surveilling 32 different camera angles. That will not work", says Claus Bo Larsen who by no means, fears that the referee's authority will be undermined with the electronic aid.

"On the contrary. It would be a major relief for the referee", he says.

Whether the much discussed official ball at the current World Cup is going to provide more borderline cases whether the ball has crossed the goal line or not will be interesting to see. But Øresund IT can only support the progressing implementation on technology in sports in general. Enjoy.

Source: tv2sport.dk