Sports and culture writing from overenthusiastic man-child Nicol Hay.
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With the footballers of Europe’s major leagues taking a deserved break from ball kicking – turning their attention instead to beaches, fatty foods and googling ways to say ‘I am moving to Anzhi Makhachkala/Shanghai Shenua/ Queens Park Rangers for sporting reasons’ without bursting out laughing – it would seem that the powers within the game have decided to focus on ideological battles for the time being. The debate sparked by Sepp Blatter’s sudden rush to embrace goal-line technology asks searching questions over what, exactly, we want football to be for.
Blatter apparently underwent his epochal change of heart after witnessing the frustration of England having a perfectly good goal chalked off, and then the even more galling sight of England being denied the chance to concede a suspiciously offside strike. FIFA have ordered trails of both the Hawk-Eye and GoalRef systems (in a boon for lovers of compound nouns everywhere), and both technologies look like they may have something cool to offer the game.
You can read this article in full at The Football Ramble, an excellent website for an even excellenter podcast.
