Why football needs a Justice League: Furthering the case for use of technology

Popular arguments against use of technology are that it will slow down the game, that the players will abuse the system and ask for decisions being overturned all the time, that the game needs to be uniform across the world, that the cost involved in setting up these systems is vast and that the technology is still not accurate enough to be trusted. Let’s look at these one by one:

It will slow down the game

Will technology really slow down the game?

The referees aren’t total duds. More often than not they are right and decisions outside the penalty boxes are generally of much lesser consequence than the ones inside them. It is mainly incidents involving players being sent off and penalty decisions that need to be looked into since a man advantage creates a huge rift between the two sides and takes one team totally out of the game while a penalty mostly leads to conversion and a goal counts for a lot in a sport where scorelines with sum of goals less than or equal to two account for close to 50 percent of the games.

So, how many such critical incidents take place in a game? Let’s say five on an average. Presently, we get to see slow motion replays from multiple angles within seconds of the event. The maximum it can take for a decision to be made is possibly a minute. Does the possibility of five extra minutes at the end of the game seem so distraught that we are willing to disregard the possibility of totally eliminating the howler from the game? It is not as if we don’t have any stoppages at all right now. The referees stop the game to sort out heated arguments on the field. All sorts of injuries on the field are followed by the physio running in and the player hobbling off the field for treatment. Aren’t calls on red cards and penalties reasons just as important as these?

Won’t it be more useful if instead of increasing the number of officials close to the penalty box, we can have officials sitting by the touchline looking at slow motion replays and assisting the referees with the decisions? American sports generally have officials like this by the touchline that assist the referee. Calls regarding technical fouls, shots close to shot clock resets and even change of possession are referred from time to time.

In football, the fourth officials duties are listed as assisting with substitutions, maintaining backup records of score and caution/send offs and displaying the extra time to the spectators. Wow! The concept of the fourth official sounds more like them getting a day off from being in the middle than actually doing something worthwhile. The fact that they also get to derive sadistic pleasure by calmly turning a blind eye to the vehement protests on the sidelines by the two managers sounds like an added bonus.

The point is that the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh up till the Nth ( where N is a function of Platini’s whims and fancies) officials are all being underworked and not being utilized properly. From what we have seen, they cannot prevent a sending off for the wrong player, inform the referee that he has already cautioned the player before and that the next caution should be a red card, or simply be a good friend and notify him about the ongoing Kung-Fu events in the vicinity. For a game where twenty two players are spread all across the field and are involved in all sorts of on the ball and off the ball incidents, it only makes sense that there be more officials involved than the poor lone referee in the middle and they use all possible resources to ensure correct calls.

Players will abuse the system:

Cricket is a team game where the system of referrals has been in use for quite some time now. The team, led by the captain, take a quick call on whether they wish to review the decision and the off field umpire takes a call on the matter. In case the evidence is inconclusive, the on field referee’s decision stands. The teams only get a fixed number of referrals and they lose one if their review is unsuccessful. Tennis uses a similar system too for line calls.

The purpose of having such a system is to prevent an absolute howler from taking place. It gives a chance to the involved teams to plead their case if they feel they have been handed a horribly wrong decision against them. Football has lesser plays that directly affect the score line and even a single referral per side can reduce the possibility of injustice being meted out by a large amount. All it will take is a quick signal to the referee, who might continue the game as it is after the incident, only to hear back from the team of referees sitting outside, just in time to award a decision at the next stoppage of play.