For
years, international football association FIFA have heavily resisted
technology's influence in soccer, almost comically arguing that bad
refereeing decisions are all part of the excitement of the game. FIFA
president Sepp Blatter has described goal-line technology as "only 95
percent accurate", though even that level of accuracy – when compared to
a human eye, often tens of metres away – is surely a vast improvement?
For
technologists, even if this disputable 95 percent figure was to be
believed, bridging that 5 percent gap was never a sizeable task. Though
in 2008 following that statement, the FIFA president put the
implementation of such technology on ice – permanently.
Predictably,
subsequently further controversial decisions ensued, though in
relatively low-key matches not on the international stage, and in March
2010 an election was held between eight of the founding bodies of soccer
– voting 6-2 in favor of permanently ditching the technology, the two
dissenters being England and Scotland.
In June
that year at the 2010 FIFA World Cup the tide was about to turn, when
hundreds of millions of fans across 241 separate countries saw England's
Frank Lampard score a goal
– the ball clearly over a metre across the line – against Germany,
which was disallowed due to human error by the referee. Scoring or
missing was a turning point in the 2-1 game, which ended as a 4-1 loss
for England. The entire country, quickly followed by immense global
support (perhaps bar Germany!), put huge pressure on FIFA, and shortly
after Blatter announced that the goal-line technology consideration
would be re-opened.
The tech contenders
In
2011 FIFA began internal trials with 10 companies' goal-line technology
systems, and by 2012 they whittled this down to two potential
candidates: Goal Ref, utilizing a passive "chip-in-ball" and a magnetic
field to detect its whereabouts; and Hawk-Eye, utilizing a series of
high-resolution cameras and triangulation algorithms.
Both
have a very high, though interestingly unpublished, accuracy
percentage, but neither could claim 100 percent accuracy as both are
fallible to some degree.
A technology based on
electromagnetic fields, which is being used at the 2014 World Cup,
would be susceptible to interference, though unlikely in the
environment; an unscrupulous party could theoretically interfere with
its accuracy.
The high-speed-camera-based
system, you could argue, is less vulnerable to outside interference,
though is reliant on installation accuracy and calibration, having
rigorously proven the calculations used to derive the decision.
Additionally, in the 2014 World Cup
referees are wearing smartwatches as part of a GoalControl-4D system
to alert them to goal-line technology cameras detecting goals. So far
in the competition goal-line technology has already caused a share of
confusion and controversy in the match between France and Honduras.
This wasn't a case of the technology malfunctioning, but the public
weren't prepared that the GoalControl system would also show instances
where a goal was not scored before the instance where a goal was scored
if the ball almost crossed the line multiple times.
Both
systems also can't consider the change in shape of a ball when it
bounces, for example. The Hawk-Eye system, prior to soccer, has long
been employed in
snooker (similar to billiards), cricket, and tennis. Bounce distortion in soccer, given we're concerned with it
passing
a line, not falling short of it, isn't relevant – in tennis however
this can be contentious; during the 2008 Wimbledon final, a ball that
appeared out was cited as "in" by Hawk-Eye by a single millimeter.
Interestingly,
despite no percentage claims of accuracy of the technology, a 3.6 mm
error margin is advertised by Hawk-Eye. Whilst this seems minute, it's
easy to see why the technology claiming it's "in" by 1 mm becomes
disputable. Cricket saw a similar point of contention in 2012, where a
Leg Before Wicket (LBW) foul was called despite it visually appearing the ball would have sailed over the stumps, which would negate the call.
Soccer
has attempted to address the shortfalls of the technology – well, more
the opportunity for it to be disputed – by moving away from the "video
replay" style of the other implementations completely with the use of a
3D reproduction of the controversial incident.
Whilst
this has the advantage of giving an "undisputable" decision, people are
naturally wary of any visual that disagrees with what they "saw" with
their own eyes – though optical illusions and magic tricks should easily
counter how fallible the human eye is to misinterpretation.
Future uses
The
sporting world is truly opening up to the embedded computing industry
and is more accepting of new technologies than ever before. Last month I
discussed the increasing sports medicine usage of embedded; now I'm
sure I've got you thinking about how embedded technology could improve
your own favorite sport. Perhaps lasers displaying shot distances and
speeds on the pitch, intelligent sporting equipment visually flagging
illegal usage – the possibilities are endless!
