Goal-line system could deceive viewers

Technology designed to eliminate sporting mistakes can result in fake footage, writes Tim Moynihan

THE long-awaited introduction of goal-line technology to football is likely to perpetrate a mass deception on television viewers, a journalist has claimed.

In use for a decade or more in tennis and cricket, the technology is to be used by the GAA for games at Croke Park in this season’s Championship, and in next season’s Premier League.

Measurement involves error, and there should be “on-screen honesty” on the limitations of the new move, writes Nic Fleming, a freelance science and technology journalist, in the journal Nature.

He said those in charge of the game had bowed to public pressure and next month’s Confederations Cup in Brazil would see goal-line technology used in an international tournament for the first time.

“In August, a similar system will be introduced into the English Premier League, the richest and highest-profile league in the world,” he said.

“The companies involved are already discussing how their machines could be applied to help football referees make offside, handball, and other decisions.

“Sports officials in the United States and Canada are watching with interest.

“Yet the introduction of goal-line technology to football is likely to perpetrate a mass deception on television viewers.

“It will miss a huge opportunity to educate people about the role of uncertainty in science.

“And it will exacerbate the approaching danger of fake computer-generated video footage.”

Mr Fleming, a Sheffield United fan, said nothing in the graphics when the Hawk-Eye system is used in tennis to adjudicate close line calls indicated to viewers “the inevitable uncertainty and potential for error in that estimation”.

He added: “As it stands, the same will apply to goal-line replays.”

Yet Isaac Newton in 1726 stressed the role of uncertainty in the scientific method.

“Measurement involves error,” said Newton.

“Results are accompanied by confidence limits and levels.

“With public opinion key to decisions on topics such as climate change, nuclear power, and genetic modification, calls to spread awareness of uncertainty and probability in science are increasing, even if they are often drowned out by the comforting simplifications of certainty that characterise mainstream reporting.”

Cricket fans understand the uncertainty involved, Mr Fleming said.

“In leg-before-wicket decisions... there is a ‘zone of uncertainty’ where Hawk-Eye admits that it cannot be certain whether or not the ball would have hit the stumps.

“It defers to the judgment of the human umpire and this is acknowledged to television viewers with an ‘on-field call’ message.

“Football fans will be denied such information.”

Mr Fleming conceded that both Hawk-Eye and the (separate) GoalControl technology that would be used in the Confederations Cup “can probably provide more accurate decisions than human referees”.

But a time was approaching when it would be possible to create “entirely faked video footage”, he said.

“If video footage is to retain credibility, we need greater transparency about visual representations of events, so we can distinguish replays from reconstruction,” said Mr Fleming.

“On-screen honesty on the limitations of goal-line technology would do this, and put a great many people in the picture about science and uncertainty.

“Football is only a game but it is a good place to start.”

*Press Association