IMS_Blog

When I started writing this post I know that I’d written about this before. Rereading that entry from the (by internet standards) dim and distant past the thing that most struck me was that one could almost skip this entry by rereading that one, for it is remarkable how little my opinion has changed in the intervening five and a half years.

The detection of the ball crossing the line is probably achievable, with a bit of work and trial and error. Anything else (determining offside, if a player has dived) still has problems nobody seems to have faced up to. For a start there have been several incidents in this world cup where the “expert” pundits have poured over several camera angles multiple times and still been unsure, or in disagreement. The beautiful game simply does not lend itself to stop start analysis of every split second decision, every moment. That is partly what makes it beautiful. There is another part though; something which I believe should be the underlying, fundamental guiding principle. It doesn’t matter where the game is played.

In short it boils down to something I expressed in that long ago post, and it has not changed—nor do I believe I can see a way for it to change without creating a huge gap that simply should not be there. If you picked up the same players, and same officials, from Wembley, or St James’s, or anywhere else and dropped them on the pitch in the local park down the road, you should get essentially the same game..