I'm for it if they use it also to detect injury faking and issue yellow/red cards for it.

The game already slows down considerably in moments like this. There was a significant delay last night after the Henry goal as the Irish players remonstrated with the referee. To review the play would only have taken another minute or so at most.

Something needs to be done about the sport because for me it is just unwatchable and has been for a number of years now because i just am unprepared to put up with a) number of fouls b) playacting c) ridiculous timekeeping d) incorrect decisions such as ball crossing goal line that are simple to review

I believe FIFAs position on the latter was always that they were not keen to introduce anything to the game that could not be applied to sunday morning pub team football

part of me wants it in (re: fletcher getting banned for the UCL final to name one example), but part of me shares the same view that it would take out the human error factor that makes the game so exciting and controversial to watch...

why cant they just put in an EXTRA official on the byline of each penalty area like theyve started doing in the europa league?

They have implemented it for the Europa League as a test, that means if they think the test is successful they will imlplement it for every major competition

The extra officials is a complete joke. That can't be a solution.

I'm still a fan of the chip in the ball to determine if it was a goal or not

Yeah, could easily be used for corners/throw ins as well and would take 0 time out of the game

why?

Here is how I would do:
- Chip in the ball.
- Challenge to review goals and controversial penalty area situations, 2 challenges available for each team.
- 4 linesmen, one referee.

I don't understand what the big deal is. What's the average O/U on a soccer game, 1.5? While they're doing the celebrating, have a review judge upstairs or in Zurich or wherever take a look at the goal, and if it needs to be looked at, call the ref to the side. The fouls that can occur in soccer are relatively limited compared to something like football or hockey where you have to figure out where a ball is without a clear camera angle or what constitutes a distinct kicking motion in hockey, a handball is much more clear cut than that. The relative paucity of goals should mean that you do everything possible to make sure that games aren't decided by a blown call, not throw up your hands about ruining the flow of the game.

Well they didn't really do anything in the few games I've seen them in. Ignoring clear fouls right in front of them, not even correcting their referee when he awards a corner when it should a goal kick etc. As if they're only there to watch the goalline for possible ghost goals.

Maybe they were just unqualified individuals and it could work well but then, every game will need 1 referee + 2 (side)linesmen + 2 backlinesmen/assistant referee's and a "6th official" so finding proper (assistant) referees only gets harder.

They aren't. You are oversimplifying the game, there are lots of occasions where people still disagree after seeing video images even if the angles are perfect and more often the angles aren't.

A handball might seem clear cut to you but often a player out on the wing receives a pass from the other side, say a right winger getting a ball from the left, that's a bit too high for him to get with his feet. His first touch will often be with his rightshoulder/upper arm and it can be really hard to tell if it's an actual handball. Possible dives can also be really hard to spot. For a foul that takes a clear cut chance away from a player and his team you get a red card, but often there is discussion on whether or not this was the case and maybe the player who commited the foul should only get a yellow. Or there's a foul at the border of the penalty area, is it inside/outside? Is it a PK or just a FK? Etc, etc.

Yeah just use the challenge system if its really a concern that games would last forever.

1. Because half the team standing around arguing with the ref while the other team runs into the corner and enacts about half of Riverdance as a goal celebration flows so well?

2. The important part of the important goal, unless I'm mistaken, is a point.

Simple solution: give the coaches challenges. Every time they get one wrong, they get a yellow card. Your head coach gets ejected? Too bad so sad, no more challenges.

Coaches would quickly learn that routine goals are not to be challenged.

The right way to implement this would be to not immediately call back an offside on those really close plays where the guy is breaking in on goal and the linesman gets wrong about half the time anyway. Let 'em play, then call it back if needed, so that if the linesman botches it as they always do at least it doesn't take away a great scoring chance.

The 'killing the flow' argument just doesn't cut it. Every goal and pretty much any contentious decision takes over a minute anyway as players argue amongst themselves etc. There are so many cameras available at the top level and incidents can be replayed instantly from any angle. It is quite rare that an incident takes more than a couple of views to come to the right decision (unless you let Alan Shearer make the decisions ldo). Even rugby rarely needs more than a minute for the video ref to make a decision and rugby decisions are sooooo much harder to make than football decisions.

If you want to stop the videos being abused, you either leave it to the ref's discretion on when to use it (a bit flawed I know but then players rarely miss an opportunity to tell the ref how wrong he was so they should be able to tell when a mistake was made) or you allow the manager/captain to challenge decisions and put a reasonable limit on how many challenges they can make, perhaps with them losing a challenge when they challenge incorrectly.

I don't like the grass roots argument either. Having 5 refs is not something that can be replicated at grass roots games either. We often used to have to provide our own linesmen etc when the league failed to find anybody to do it. This would be much worse if we needed 5 of them. Refs in the top leagues currently use headset and electronic flags to communicate. I have never seen these in parks football. Should we ban those too?

Just use it on plays that result in a goal. While the players take their 3 minutes to take their shirt off, slide on their knees, do the robot, hug their teammates, then trot back to their side of the field, use some video review to determine things such as whether or not the ball actually crossed the goal line or if there was an obvious infraction (black and white only, no foul calls, just things like handballs, ball going out of play for a goal/corner kick right before a goal, etc...) and overturn if necessary.

handball isn't black or white...

I like your overall point, but you are selling the sport short offensively! Closer to 3 goals per match is typical.

Yeah somewhere between 2.5 and 3.0 depending on the league

Was discussing this with a m8 earlier and we both agreed that Fifa should introduce this gradually. First start with goal line decisions eg; did the ball cross the line or not.

See how that goes for a season or 2 and while this is going on discuss further ways to bring in technology.

Fifa just sticking their head in the sand and refusing to even think about using technology is just wrong imo. Football is such a big business now and if we can get the big decisions correct more often than not then how can that be a bad thing?

1 thing i refuse to use technology on is offside. For people to say you cant use it for 1 thing and not another is utter rubbish. If everyone knows you cant use it for offsides they will accept it and get on with it. Offside rule is so stupid nowadays anyway its probably imposible to implement video replays to look at it

LOL what ignorance, let's see there's two countries competing and one of them is going to benefit from a bad call. The countries are France and... Ireland. Gee I wonder who's going to get the call?

With the current wording of the offside rule, to correctly implement most close decisions actually requires video replays. I think the problem is that the rule doesn't work effectively with the pace of today's game, not that video should be used for all offsides.

I wouldn't have any exceptions for what the replays can be used for, I would just have a restriction on how many. If you waste your challenges on whether someone was offside or who touched it last before it went out of play, then you just run the risk of not being able to challenge a more important decision later on.

My guess is Ireland gets that call every time, regardless if they are playing Spain, France, Jesus, or the Devil.

They should change the rules to be like hockey, so you can knock the ball out of the air with our hands/arms but you can't dribble it or throw it or pass to another teammate or score that way. In hockey players use their hands to knock the puck out of the air but if a teammate then touches it it's a handpass and there's a faceoff. In socker they could just give the other team a free kick if you did that.