FIFA to initiate 'smartball' trial
Thursday, 1 September 2005Goal-line technology will be used in next year's World Cup finals if an experiment later this month proves successful, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said today.
Four stadiums are being fitted out with adidas' 'smartball' technology for the FIFA Under-17 world championships in Peru which will see the referee sent a signal every time the ball goes out of play or into the goal.
Delegates from the International Board will attend the tournament to monitor the experiment and a decision on introducing the system for the World Cup will be taken at a meeting in October.
Blatter told a media briefing in London: "We will definitely use the technology in Germany next year if the experiment works in Peru.
"The International Board will attend that last week of the competition in Peru in order to see how the system works.
"We will then make a decision at a meeting in Zurich in October."
The tournament in Peru will see 32 matches played with the smartball system where the ball contains a microchip which sends a signal whenever it passes over sensors in the touchline.
The referee is alerted by a device worn on his wrist and should then be in a position to make the correct decision.
The FA, one of the members of the International Board - the body which governs football's rules - have already indicated they will back efforts to bring in the technology in time for next year's World Cup in Germany.
The system should bring an end to controversies over goal-line decisions such as the one in 1966 which helped England win the biggest prize in football.
Blatter added that FIFA were reluctant to go any further down the road to bringing in new technology.
He said: "This goal-line technology is enough. Football must keep its human face and must accept errors. If we start to make it too scientific this game will lose its fascination."
