Football's governing body
said Tuesday that candidates must pass a further two rounds of tests conducted
at a stadium of their choice.
“The final results of this
evaluation will be presented to (rule-making body) IFAB at a special meeting in
July 2012,” FIFA said in a statement.
Though FIFA's update on a
complex process was long planned, it finally arrived days after the goal-line
debate was reignited with another major error by match officials involving
England midfielder Frank Lampard, this time while playing for Chelsea.
Lampard was judged to have
scored against Tottenham on Saturday when television replays proved the ball
had not wholly crossed the line. Chelsea won 2-1 to keep alive its Premier
League title hopes.
It was Lampard's notorious “ghost
goal” against Germany at the 2010 World Cup — when his shot did not count
despite bouncing down off the cross bar beyond the goal line — that persuaded
FIFA President Sepp Blatter to end his long-standing opposition to technology
and revive the debate. Blatter apologized to English officials after watching
Germany's 4-1 win in South Africa.
Technology companies bidding
for approval must tell FIFA in the next month if they want to take part in
tests scheduled from September to December.
FIFA has stipulated that
tests will be conducted in daylight and under World Cup-standard floodlights.
Systems achieving 90 percent
accuracy in “simulated match scenarios” could be invited for more tests in
March-June 2012, if agreed by IFAB and a FIFA-approved testing institute.
IFAB has demanded of
candidate systems that “indication of whether a goal has been scored must be
immediate and automatically confirmed within one second.” Only match officials
would receive the information.
Ten systems were tested at
FIFA headquarters before the annual International Football Association Board
meeting in March but their accuracy was unacceptable.
Hawk-Eye, the Sony-owned
company whose ball-tracking technology is used in tennis and cricket, declined
to participate because its system uses cameras that need to be set up in a
stadium.
IFAB includes four representatives
of FIFA and one each from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Six
votes are necessary for approval.
Prior to the 2010 World Cup,
the Welsh and Northern Irish backed Blatter by voting to keep technology out of
football.
