[h1]
Premier League hopeful of goalline technology for 2012-13 season[/h1]
The new
Premier League season is likely to be the last to feature goalline controversies after its chief executive Richard Scudamore said he was hopeful technology could be introduced in time for the 2012-13 campaign.
Writing in the Premier League's new review of the season, which will be distributed to MPs and peers on Wednesday, Scudamore vows to use the Premier League's position "to deliver progress – increasing standards on and off the pitch". The International Football Association Board, which governs the laws of the game and is split equally between representatives from the home nations and Fifa, has said that it will continue trials of goalline technology.
"The whole point of the game is about scoring goals. Players strain every sinew to either create or deny them, fans shout themselves hoarse exhorting their teams to score them, managers' and players' careers can be defined by them," Scudamore writes. "The technology is available, it is the fairness that is important and the Premier League would introduce it tomorrow if it could. Now Fifa is constructively engaged we are hopeful the 2012-13 season is a realistic aim."
The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, a long-time opponent of the introduction of technology, was forced to reconsider that position in the wake of several controversies during the 2010 World Cup, including Frank Lampard's "ghost goal" against Germany.
Scudamore also sets out the Premier League's position before the expected debate on the game's governance that will follow the publication shortly of a culture, media and sport select committee report into football's future. He claims the inquiry, now unlikely to deliver its report until the week after next due to the committee's involvement in the phone hacking affair, has "provided an overall backdrop of negativity".
The inquiry heard evidence from a succession of witnesses, including former FA chairman Lord Triesman and former chief executive Ian Watmore, who addressed the dysfunctional relationship between the FA and the Premier League.
"Some would have it that football in England is somehow broken, irreparably damaged and in need of saving," Scudamore writes. "That is an analysis of the game to which I cannot subscribe."
He says there are "many more reasons to be upbeat than downcast" and hails the Premier League as having had "another fantastic year". But he adds that "in other areas of the game it is hard to deny that it hasn't been a frustrating year", singling out England's humiliation in South Africa and the failed 2018 World Cup bid.
"Clearly, and by its own admission, the FA needs to address some structural issues that are no secret, as well as create a focus that means they can improve in their key areas of responsibility – the national teams, coach development and grassroots investment," Scudamore writes.
"However, the Premier League is a crucial part of the association of interests that make up the FA and we have a duty to constructively engage with and support the processes already under way aimed at creating an organisation that can represent the best of English football at every level."
http://www.guardian.co.uk...oalline-technology/print
