Goalline Technology To Be Used At Euro 2016

Goalline technology is set to be used at UEFA Euro 2016 and in the knockout stages of the Champions League from next season.

UEFA announced the decision made by the executive committee in favour of the change.

Successful implementation in Europe leagues, plus instances of goals being wrongly disallowed at major tournaments are believed to be the reason behind the decision to back the technology.

It is yet to be decided the company that will provide the technology, but Goal Control System, a Germany-based company, was used in the 2014 World Cup and British-based Hawkeye is currently used widely by European leagues.

The use of goalline technology has been raised in the past, with current suspended UEFA president Michel Platini an opponent for many years. He recently however, softened his stance to allow a review of its potential use in Euro 2016.

UEFA’s chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina explained: “It’s not a decision taken quickly. We went through a long consultation after president Michel Platini told us, one-and-a-half years ago, to investigate whether additional assistant referees and goalline technology together would have been worth it.

“We implemented the additional assistant referees quite a long time ago and the reason why was to improve the control of the match official on each single incident.

“Monitoring the goalline was not the main task of the additional referees, they were to control what was going on, particularly inside and around the penalty area.

“Certainly goalline incidents were part of their job, but they were not often involved and, talking to our referees, the feedback we got was for them to be focused on goalline incidents they had to be ready well before the ball arrives.

“This meant they would lose control of what happened when the ball was kicked and the possible goalline incident. This reduced the possibility for the additional referee to really support the referees in controlling what was going on inside the penalty area.

“So we were convinced that implementing the goalline technology would have been a further step in better control of the match. We are happy with the outcome of the additional referee’s job although we know from outside their contribution is not always appreciated or understood.”