ABSTRACT
In the Euro 2012 soccer match between England and Ukraine, a shot by Ukraine’s striker Marko Devic´ was cleared from just behind the goal line by England’s defender John Terry. This was clearly visible to all television viewers. Unfortunately, none of the referees perceived the ball to have passed the line and, consequently, no goal was awarded to the Ukrainian team that finally lost the game 0–1 and was eliminated from the tournament. Inevitably, this incident reopened a debate about technological aids for referee decisions in soccer. Soccer associations are frequently blamed for leaving referees unnecessarily uninformed because they don’t allow them to use helpful technologies, such as video replay, in critical situations. Although there have been some recent changes to this rigid attitude, such as FIFA recently allowing goal-line technologies, 1 knowing about these regulations, one can get the impression that technical support is rather uncommon in sports officiating. In contrast to this impression, there is actually a long history of technology-based assessments of sport performance and even video review is now common in many sports.
