If you've been paying any attention to the Premier League ("EPL"), you by now know that they're the first professional sports league to implement goal-line technology, sanctioning the use of a cutting-edge system designed to completely mitigate the oft-contentious goal-line decisions and ensuing arguments over whether or not the ball had crossed the plane.
During the close season, ball-tracking cameras have been installed at all 20 Premier League grounds, from Old Trafford, home of reigning champions Manchester United, to newly-promoted Hull City’s KC Stadium.
Hawk-Eye’s system uses 14 elevated cameras (seven per goal) to track the movement of the ball around the pitch, with computer software scrutinising data from the cameras to detect whether or not the ball has crossed one of the two goal lines.
When a goal is scored, a signal will be sent to the match officials’ wristwatches within a second.
Hawk-Eye, which provides similar technology for use in cricket and tennis, says the system is “millimetre accurate”. Former head of Premier League referees Keith Hackett calls it a “brilliant system”.
Video provided below shows how Hawk-Eye works:
Soccer has long been a sport plagued by controversial goal-line plays, and after successful implementation by the FIFA World Cup in Japan and Confederations Cup in Brazil, the EPL went ahead and green-lighted the expensive, but game-changing system for all of their constituents.
Incredibly, on opening weekend, the new technology had already paid off: referee Anthony Taylor was notified that a shot by Fabian Delph of Aston Villa never crossed, keeping the score at a rightful 1-1.
It's interesting in the sense that the National Hockey League is another sport that's had a lot of issue with determination of whether or not pucks have crossed the goal-line. Visual interference still proves very problematic in this sense, but for plays where it's tough or impossible to ascertain if the puck has truly crossed the line, Hawk-Eye would provide determination with 100% accuracy.
Because of the common issues with visual interference, it does seem that the National Hockey League could be a bit more reluctant to institute an expensive system like Hawk-Eye. But, if the league is serious about mitigating inconsistency and removing a chunk of human error from game (and, this human error does exist in the war room, where calls regularly are held-up because of inconclusive evidence), it should consider a system that takes some of the guessing out of it.
The Q: If you were the National Hockey League, would you entertain the idea of a system like Hawk-Eye for the league? Are the returns on investment not worth the high-cost of installation and implementation due to problems with visual interference? Or, is an alternative system -- perhaps one that's radar-based -- the right way to go?
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