Sunday, July 4, 2010

Ali Bacher bats for video technology in football

Published>Sun, Jul 04 10 07:28 PM

Johannesburg, July 4 (IANS) Former South African cricketer and administrator Ali Bacher is the latest to support the introduction of new technology in football, following a spate of referring errors during the World Cup matches.

'Its been working well for cricket, its been working well for rugby and netball but in soccer they are still debating it, I don't understand because video technology has proved to assist in terms of minimising wrong decisions,' Bacher told BuaNews Sunday.

'Teams have lost matches in the past for wrong reasons and mostly due to wrong decisions and in cricket we decided to change that,' he said, adding that video technology has been in operation in cricket for the past 18 years.

The football governing body FIFA has been facing flak for not allowing use of video replay or other new methods in case of doubtful situations which led to some wrong decisions by the referees in few matches in the World Cup.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has promised to open a debate on the possibility of introducing video replays at football matches.

The referee at England's second-round match with Germany last week missed a clear English goal that would have tied the score 2-2. Germany went on to win the match 4-1.

Hours later, another referee awarded a goal to Argentina in which a replay later showed goal-scorer Carlos Tevez was clearly offside. Argentina went on to beat Mexico 3-1. Blatter apologised to both the teams.

Bacher said such mistakes can be avoided. 'When we decided to introduce the video replays there were obviously many mistakes and most of those mistakes involved close run outs and we had to do something about it and I don't see a reason why they can't do the same in soccer'.

Hailing the South African government for hosting the soccer World Cup, Bacher said: 'Its been terrific and a massive success in uniting the country and we have to thank our government for that.

'I have never seen them so much involved in any sporting event before...they have been there personally and they were ready to provide the money to ensure the event is a success,' he said at a press conference.


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