FIFA Must Adopt Instant Replay

Instant replay arrived in world soccer on Sunday. It became absolutely essential when the field officials totally missed the shot from England’s Frank Lampard that hit the crossbar and bounced close to two feet inside the goal.

The referee and the linesman were fully 25 yards away, but television cameras instantly told everybody around the world that the ball had gone into the goal and that England should have tied the score 38 minutes into the first half of its Round of 16 match.

The blown call did not change history, because (in the end) Germany pummeled England, 4-1 (but you can argue the point - the error influenced the outcome). But the glaring mistake was a reminder that soccer goals — more than baseball home runs or football touchdowns or even hockey goals — are too precious to be squandered. Those three sports now have some version of instant replay in North America. It’s time for soccer, too — at least where television and big bucks are present. And surely by the World Cup, next time, in 2014, in Brazil.

That view of Lampard’s hard drive was so clear, so available, that any FIFA monitor in the stadium could have seen it on first view, clicked for an instant replay and stopped play to reverse the noncall. FIFA has been grudgingly saying that electronic review of the goal might take place by the 2014 World Cup, maybe, you never know. But Sunday’s missed goal should make it mandatory.

This gross error was the opposite of the disputed call in the famous 1966 World Cup final when Geoff Hurst of England hit a shot in overtime that hit on or close to the line. The official signaled for a goal and England went on to beat West Germany, 4-2. People still argue and interpret the Hurst goal. But the call on Lampard’s goal is more obvious.

On June 3, Jim Joyce, one of the better umpires in Major League Baseball, missed an obvious call on what would have been the 27th and final out, costing Armando Galarraga, a pitcher with Detroit, a rare perfect game. Many fans (but few baseball people) demanded the call be overturned and used the acknowledged mistake as a reason for instant replay. But I argued against it, and still do, because umpires’ imperfections are part of the sport.

The same goes for soccer. The sport can live with refs being snookered by dives or hidden fouls. But a blatant, if honest, mistake on a rare goal? That can be judged, like a disputed home run over a fence 350 feet away.

Up to now, I have argued that soccer can ignore technology and just let the calls be part of the match. Never stop the game, because that leads to television sticking its grubby commercials where they do not belong. But if everybody around the world saw Lampard’s shot obviously bounce into the goal, I say it is time to initiate technology for goal calls. Otherwise, let ’em run.

www.nytimes.com