Winter backs goal line technology
Former Premier League referee Jeff Winter believes officials should be helped with decisions on the goal-line – but also claims technology adds pressure by highlighting every error.
Steve Bennett has been roundly criticised for awarding West Ham a goal when Mark Schwarzer appeared to have prevented the ball crossing the line, and Winter admits a system to determine whether it has done so would help.
But Winter insists it should only be for these decisions, and he said: “It’s got to be a signal that says ‘goal, full-stop’.
“We need goal-line technology, anything else – offsides, penalties – if we bring that in it will be the death of what we love about football, which is end-to-end action, and difference of opinion.”
Winter added on Sky Sports News: “It’s easy to say Steve Bennett was in an excellent position, but he’s looking for lots of other things in the penalty area. He’s actually about 10 yards from the goal-line and 12-15 yards from the point Mark Schwarzer grabs the ball.
“The only place to sense whether that ball has gone over the goalline is being stood on the goalline as the assistant referee was.”
Assistant referees have also been criticised this weekend, with Manchester City claiming they should have had a goal against Arsenal, while Chelsea felt they were disallowed a legitimate goal against Everton.
Winter, however, believes the element of human error is part of football’s appeal to fans, as shown by Arsenal midfielder Robert Pires attempting to pass to Thierry Henry when he was taking a penalty.
“That’s what offside is about,” Winter added. “It’s very easy with technology but on the day the assistant sees a shirt in front of him and puts his flag up or not.
“We’re talking about split-second decision. Human error will happen, we saw Arsenal take a penalty this week – what was that about?
“There’s human error in the game and also with match officials, you are never going to change. It makes my blood boil that we dissect every decision in the game, I think we perhaps have gone a bit too far with the added use of technology.
“It’s quite ironic, we have the technology to look at things like offside but we don’t have to tell us if the ball has gone over the line.”
