Fifa president Sepp Blatter, who has consistently blocked the introduction of technology, was in the Free State Stadium to see the incident and watched a replay in the VIP box.
At a press conference in Johannesburg on Sunday Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke re-iterated the governing body’s objection to using any sort of technology to assist referees.
Valcke said that the use of video technology was “definitely not on the table” saying it is impossible to have a “zero-fault” system.
“We can talk about refereeing decisions which, when you looked at them after the game, you could say were perhaps not good decisions. We didn’t say you could have a zero fault system in the World Cup. Additional assistants [referees] could happen in 2014 to make sure these kind of things are not happening in refereeing.
“It doesn’t mean the use of video, that is definitely not on the table today, but one thing we are discussing is two additional assistants to support referees to make decision-making easier and to have more eyes helping him to make such decisions.” In a prescient comment Valcke added: “We knew this is where criticism would come.”
Fifa decided to rule out the use of technology at a meeting of the International Football Association Board in March. The IFAB board, made up of the four Home Nations and four Fifa officials including Blatter and Valcke, voted 6-2 to oppose its introduction, with the Irish and Welsh FA’s voting with Fifa.
The then FA chief executive Ian Watmore and his Scottish FA counterpart had favoured the use of technology.
Jonathan Ford, chief executive of the Football Association of Wales, said at the time: “I was worried that you would end up with a stop-start situation where you review all decisions and I don’t see that as part of the game.”
Patrick Nelson, chief executive of the Irish FA, said: “We very much appreciate the human side of the game, the debate, the controversy, that’s why the board has taken this decision,” he said.
Blatter’s intransigent attitude stems from his belief that using goal-line technology would remove the “human element” from the game.
He has also said it would impact on its “universality”, believing that the game should be the same wherever it is played. He also has objections to the cost of the technology, which he has said could be prohibitive.
In an article published a week after the IFAB decision Blatter wrote: “No matter which technology is applied, at the end of the day a decision will have to be taken by a human being. This being the case, why remove the responsibility from the referee to give it to someone else?
“It is often the case that, even after a slow-motion replay, ten different experts will have ten different opinions on what the decision should have been. Fans love to debate any given incident in a game. It is part of the human nature of our sport.”
Fifa’s goal is to improve the quality of refereeing, making referees more professional and better prepared, and to assist referees as much as possible.
This is also the reason why refereeing experiments (such as with additional referees or the role of the fourth official) will continue to be analysed, to see how referees can be supported.”
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