Former official: 'All referees want goal-line technology'

Premier League referees would all welcome the immediate introduction of goal-line technology, according to former top official Dermot Gallagher.

World governing body FIFA this week confirmed the technology will be in place for the 2014 World Cup as it invited tenders to provide the system.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter had previously stated his commitment to bringing in goal-line technology for the tournament in Brazil. It was trialled at the Club World Cup in December and FIFA will now roll it out for this summer’s Confederations Cup as well as next year’s World Cup.

Former FIFA referee Gallagher, who officiated in the Premier League from its inception until his retirement in 2007, believes the news will be wholeheartedly welcomed by officials.

“All referees want it,” he said.

“Why would you want to wake up in the morning and see a picture of a ball over the line in a match you refereed?

“That will live with you forever. I had one in 2003 at Crystal Palace. Whenever I see Tommy Black he says: ’Every time I walk past your house I spit in your garden’.

“He laughs because he’s got to laugh, it’s all he can do. And I have to put it behind me but 10 years on it still hurts me and I wonder if I could have done anything differently.

“The idea that you can have a watch that can tell you instantly ’that’s a goal’ has got to be for the benefit of football.

“If you ask the Premier League referees, to a man, they would say: ’Yes, put it in tomorrow’. They wouldn’t want to take the risk. Why would you?

“Goal-line technology is an absolute must. I can remember a man landing on the moon in 1969 and yet 36 years later at Old Trafford, Roy Carroll hooks that ball out of the net and I thought: ’How can that happen?’.

“We hadn’t progressed in 36 years but in the last seven or eight, we have, and we won’t have incidents like Bloemfontein with Frank Lampard (when Lampard’s shot crossed the line but was not given and England lost to Germany in the last 16 of the 2010 World Cup) and many other cases.

“Hopefully it’s a new dawn, a new innovation and an aid to referees.”