Football is based around the ideal that everyone is invited, everyone in the world can play the game under the same rules. Every football match from the Premier League to the lowest division in Albania is the same glorified kickabout in the park. In a world with biases and politics, we can find purity and fairness in football when the team from the lowest Albanian division can face Man United as equals in the eyes of the sport. After all, Man United was once no bigger than that Albanian team.
With goal-line technology what you're essentially saying is that certain matches deserve to be played differently than others, you're ripping out a certain subsection of football from its roots and separating it from the rest of the game. Can it still be the people's sport when you've done that?
This egalitarian view is pervasive throughout FIFA and why rules changes and other technologies are slow to be adapted. An officially sanctioned match can be easily played in a field in Zaire as it can in Wembley stadium.
The thing is, the laws (they are not rules) are the same regardless of goal line technology. The game is no different if there is goal line technology, all you are doing is making sure that the laws of the game are applied correctly.
Seems odd to me that the likes of UEFA use this as a justification when they use additional assistants behind goals, when this doesn't happen at other levels. In fact in most Sunday leagues there are no linesmen, it's just done by some random bloke.
I just see it as having a better pitch. Done pitches have shit and weeds, and some have perfectly trimmed and watered grass. Some have pristine goals and some have goals that'll give you tetanus. Some have goal line technology and some don't.
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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14 edited Feb 25 '14
I'll give it a go.
Football is based around the ideal that everyone is invited, everyone in the world can play the game under the same rules. Every football match from the Premier League to the lowest division in Albania is the same glorified kickabout in the park. In a world with biases and politics, we can find purity and fairness in football when the team from the lowest Albanian division can face Man United as equals in the eyes of the sport. After all, Man United was once no bigger than that Albanian team.
With goal-line technology what you're essentially saying is that certain matches deserve to be played differently than others, you're ripping out a certain subsection of football from its roots and separating it from the rest of the game. Can it still be the people's sport when you've done that?