Goal Line Technology

Football/Soccer is the most played sport in the world. People can be found playing it on every Continent. All you need is two temporary goals and a football. Or do you need a £200,000 system to determine whether a ball crosses a line?

Goal line technology is a cutting edge field where either cameras or magnetic sensors are used to determine when all of the football is over the 'line'. One of the systems uses Hawk Eye which is a network of cameras that can precisely determine the location of the ball using trigonometry. This is a very expensive system and requires fine tuning by highly trained engineers. The benefits of Hawk Eye are that it is highly accurate and it can work even if some players are blocking the goal. The other technology used magnetic sensors and a special ball to measure when the ball is a set distance away from the back of the goal. This is a system that is far cheaper and can be set up for roughly £40,000. This magnetic sensor technology also has to be set up by skilled professionals but it is slightly simpler as no calculations have to be done for the balls position to be located.

Some people believe all you need is a pair of officials that stand by the goal to see if the ball fully crosses the line. Other people realise that the tiny margin a ball can cross or not cross by is so small that a pair of humans probably won't see it. this leads me to believe that as the years go on more and more goals and tournaments will be using goal line technology to make sure all goals are awarded correctly.