
Originally Posted by
Jantehshiznit
FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter stated at a 2010 FIFA World Cup media round table today that the file on goal-line technology would be reopened. President Blatter also gave his views on the standard of football so far and the FIFA World Cup’s lasting legacy in South Africa.
On refereeing and goal-line technology
FIFA took the decision to play this competition with traditional refereeing, with one novelty – one referee on the field, two assistants and the novelty being that the fourth official has more duties to support the referee. Everybody knew at the start of this competition that we would not apply any other system, such as having two additional referees in the penalty areas or using technology, including goal-line technology. Consequently, the principle will not be changed for this competition. But with what we have experienced here, it would be nonsense to not reopen the file on technology at the next business meeting of the IFAB on 20 and 21 July in Wales.
FIFA is in charge of organising the refereeing. The question is to know what we shall do in the future. We need to continue to improve the match control. After the FIFA World Cup 1990 we created the task force ‘Football 2000’ which led us to some amendments to the Laws of the Game – like the back-pass to the goalkeeper.
It is an ongoing process at FIFA and on my personal agenda. In October-November we will present a new model on how to improve high-level refereeing.