England manager Roy Hodgson and midfielder Frank Lampard, the man whose disallowed goal helped bring it about, welcomed the confirmation that goal-line technology will be used in the Premier League from next season.
Hawk-Eye, whose technology is already used in tennis and cricket, won the contract, beginning with the FA Community Shield at Wembley Stadium in August.
Hodgson said the decision to use the technology to decide if the ball has crossed the line made sense for everyone involved, from players to fans.
“I’m happy about it and it’s obviously something that people in football have wanted for a long, long time,” Hodgson told the Soccerex Euro Forum in Manchester on Thursday.
“It’s very significant and it’s one of those momentous days when it goes down, like the changing of the offside law and the back-pass to the goalkeeper rule.
“Many of us at the time were very sceptical about that, but now we’ve taken it to our heart and quite appreciate it.
“It’s been a big debate and for a while it was pushed back, but it’s great now to see that everyone’s on the same page and that we’re introducing it.” The push for the introduction of goal-line technology has been led by the FA ever since a legitimate Lampard goal for England against Germany in the 2010 World Cup was not given.
“It’s a no brainer,” Lampard said. “It’s been a bit of time coming, but they got there in the end.
“I think it’s a simple thing. I think it will bring an excitement factor on the times that it is used and it will just give you the correct answer, which I think at this level, when it’s so important, we need that.” Hodgson said bringing in goal-line technology will remove the chances of matches being decided unfairly.
“There are always going to be injustices in football and I don’t think you can ever have 100 per cent foolproof performances,” he said.
“The additional referees have made a big difference and we’re getting less and less mistakes.
“But you only need to look at matches like the Dortmund-Malaga (Champions League) game to understand that whatever we do, we’re probably never going to eliminate errors from the game which can cost teams quite dearly.
“The major fear for FIFA has always been about where is it going to end? “Are we going to have a very different game of football in the future where every single decision sees the game stopped and go to a panel of experts who study the video and make a decision? “I can understand that there has been reticence, but goal-line technology is a much simpler thing to introduce and one where there has been less reason to doubt its usefulness.”
